# December Challenge: "Peace"



## Chesters Daughter (Dec 1, 2013)

The prompt for this month's challenge, as chosen by toddm is: *Peace*

You are free to interpret the prompt in any way you wish, though of course, site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board.

*This challenge will close on the 15th of December at 6pm EST.*

We are continuing to allow optional anonymity this month. You may post your entries yourself, or, if you'd like to remain anonymous, you may PM your entry to either myself, *Chester's Daughter, *or *Travers*.

Kindly make sure your entry is properly formatted and error free before you submit. You have a ten minute grace period to edit your piece, but anything after that will likely see it excluded from the challenge. 

As usual, if you'd wish to protect your first rights, post your entry in the *workshop thread**, and post a link to it in this thread. **If you are posting anonymously, please be sure to mention on which board you'd like your entry posted in your PM. Public, or secure to protect first rights.

*Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussion related to the challenge can take place in the Bards' Bistro. Should it make a reappearance during the course of this challenge, *please refrain from utilizing the 'like' function until this thread has closed and the poll opened.


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## Pidgeon84 (Dec 4, 2013)

Peace Decays (Religious content)



  The splash of water in your face

  Their whispers in your ear
  Pointlessly plead your case
  40 Hail Mary’s for your disgrace
  Forever in thrall to a God nowhere near
  Lest you fall from grace
  Dead eyes and a crooked smile
  The cores of forbidden fruit begin to pile
  Sadist lies seed the fertile mind
  Catatonic and eyes stitched blind
  Marching down the bloody aisle
  Let it run through the river Nile
  At my command
  Don the blood of lamb 
  A plague of ten
  Crops crumble to sand 
  Peace decays 
  Within a vengeful God’s hand


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## Chesters Daughter (Dec 5, 2013)

*Yuletide Legacy*

Lanza's luscious voice,
yet to hit a skip,
beckoned me to the parlor.
It was time.
Upon his throne of faded green tweed,
hand cupping a tepid Rheingold,
Daddy began to sing.
Ash from his Raleigh 
snowed down on forest shag 
as he glorified Christmas trees 
drowning tenor with booming bass.

My chubby hands (later slender
as calendar pages turned to dust)
embraced their cue
to unwrap the fabulous four
reluctantly gifted by his sister.
Two of felt, the others dressed 
in synthetic sparkles, 
three emerald and one ruby;
the official family jewels.

With one eye squeezed tight,
he would study, then point
and I obliged him 
until each had a perfect home
nestled in fragrant pine
and glittering lights.

When the next platter descended,
Polish carols blared
with Dad quavering along.
Down the craggy mountain of his face
the annual snow-melt teemed
for the Mom he lost at eighteen.
Pretending not to see, I would retreat
as he purged grief with salt,
a fourth, lesser known 
gift of the Magi.

Twenty one years ago,
the elves became mine.
Mom handed them over
with jittery fingers and eyes of brick.
With no one to point, I placed on my own,
transforming my tree 
into a happy girl's memory.

This year, my buckled hands
did not place my faded friends
(but they're so old and ugly, Maaaa)
upon boughs belonging 
to a stellar generation.
They've a new home
flanking my kitchen clock
on a catty-cornered shelf
where my eyes are most drawn.
Each was given a buss 
before being seated.

They will watch me toil,
and on Christmas Eve attend
a private concert
while I softly sing carols
in a language not my own
with Dad and Gram hearkening
as seasonal salt cleanses my despair
and restores my brittle backbone...

a tradition altered, yet still true,
that grants me the only gift
I've ever really desired.

Thank you, Daddy.


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## Pandora (Dec 6, 2013)

*I Am*

_

'An unmanned vessel goes in circles' _


I am managing the river. 

Learning the currents, 

flowing and floating

weaving my way,

directed by land that holds me.


I am mother with unborn child,

my life blood shared.

I have a choice of dance,

the love of song. 

I am conducted by miracles. 


I am words, 

the vessel of thought enlightened

and bright.

Carrying me to you,

then Us, 

straight down

The River Eternity.

_
'Peace is at the helm'_


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## toddm (Dec 8, 2013)

*Tomorrow*

Tomorrow greets with weary calm
and brings a tender healing balm;
the moors are filled with golden rum,
the light of bright Elysium.

Nay! not rum, but amber wine
distilled from winter eglantine,
nepenthe-nectar to forget
all the griefs that we have met.

And at eventide, we sleep
to dream of joy and never weep;
no tears again will fall for sorrow,
but may for gladness on the morrow.


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## Staff Deployment (Dec 8, 2013)

"Peace is fury," said the man with the iron hands
To his foe
They fought, and he would not fall silent
"Peace is the rush of battle, and the calm."
His enemy lay before him dead
And the man with the iron hands was calm


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## dannyboy (Dec 9, 2013)

Peace

The leaf leaves without a word,
lets loose the grip and falls.
Father went the way of the leaf.

He told me casually, months before the fall,

‘It gets easier the closer you get, 
a thing I never expected, 
it gets easier the closer you get.’

I reached out to touch his arm,
noticed his skin had become speckled,
as if he was returning to the egg
after all the time spent in the sun.

His hand rested palm upwards, 
the fingers gave a slight tremble,
and I was reminded
of a poem by Seamus Heaney;
dad had grown tired of holding us.

I watched each moment 
hatch in his chest
until the next moment never came. 

It was like
an ocean without waves
or the sun without light.

He fought at the end despite 
his words. I wept…but water 
cannot erase the truth.


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## shedpog329 (Dec 12, 2013)

*Keeping It

*Its something that's held together
by the hands of time, talks to love about being
left alone, as it was. 

And takes the time to follow forward with its
keeping.

The long road was a lost artifact sculptured
by the imprints of easier tones and
took together a way to itself.

It finds us easier when we decide ourselves 
by the amends to be found.

Underneath the darker end of promises
where what keeps the strange toll of forever
and took from exaltation; the stranger prize of forever again,
and again it hid from us all other ends.

It became distant now

But it meant to say that it finds us
through a stranger core of enlightenment and craves
feeling the same.

And then it lets go.

It tells us that our wants are ours and that are dreams
are kept and wept upon with a sudden
need.

To stay forever in the depths of ourselves
and maybe someone else.

It became distant now

But it meant to say that it finds us 
when we decide ourselves willing to be kept abound.


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## aj47 (Dec 13, 2013)

Peace on Earth

Prepare yourselves to make your spirits whole,
Each gift you give enriches you somehow.
Assurances that you can count on now,
Community in mind and heart and soul.

Express your care for those who share this earth.
Observe your inner darkness brought to light
No matter what, your choice in doing right
Exemplifies your knowledge of your worth.

Around you, see the good in every man;
Remember causes can achieve effects.
Then follow where your higher self directs
Help others to become the best they can.


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## Chesters Daughter (Dec 18, 2013)

This challenge is now closed. Apologies for delay, no net for days. Will do my best to get the poll up early tomorrow, Verizon needs to add the finishing touches to whatever was wrong with the lines in the early morning.


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