October 2024 Ekphrastic Challenge #9 'Raw Sunset' - Tom Adair

‘Raw Sunset’ – Tom Adair

Congratulations to those who submitted to the Geelong Writers ninth Ekphrastic Challenge for 2024. The image ‘Raw Sunset’ (by Tom Adair) provided a prompt for broad-ranging responses, all with a sense of foreboding about what is to happen when night falls in dramatic fashion…

We proudly publish the writings of the following fifteen writers:

Julie Rysdale John Heritage Geoffrey Gaskill John Margetts

Allan Barden Karen Nelson Gail Griffin Steve Gray

Ian Stewart Adam Stone Daphne Delores Winter

Catherine Bell Stanley Billing Phoebe Hancox Jan Price

Expectations

The alizarin skies, so beautiful and so typical at this time of the moon, showed nothing of the regret about to engulf the quiet hamlet.

Larrick lay on the ochre-coloured grass, now tinged warmly by the sky’s heat and focussed his camera above. He felt the relentless lamentation and keening from deep within the clouds soften to a profound whisper. His wish that soon he would absorb the moment when the sun’s tears cascaded over the lip of the darkest cloud bringing the glowing, golden light for which they waited.

The highest point, a modest hillock, was the likely spot for the spilling of the sun which occurred once every 80 years.

Larrick was not alone. Villagers gathered on parapets and walls along the perimeter of the hamlet. Most had wasted lifetimes awaiting the spilled sunshine, irritated by life in the greyness, filled with complaint and disagreement. They fidgeted impatiently, anticipating the gilded teardrops lightening their moody lamp black world. Larrick had also wondered at his worth in the dimness – rudderless, tinkering and idling, listless and faded with sadness. No purpose – only expectation that light would affirm his existence.

‘Look there! Now!’ The keenest of eyes caught glimpses of bright movement at the edge of a cloud.

But with it came a shrieking and wrenching tear. Walls vibrated, tossing souls from the edges to the darkness far below, wailing voices matched the strongest chords from above.

‘No! It can’t be! What is it!!!’

Screaming took the place of light and Larrick caught it all with his camera and his heart. Flicking out from the clouds a reptilian tongue teased the hillock’s crest before the mound exploded to oily charcoaled ruins. The ochred grass tinged blue-black as a shuddering disappointment and grief enveloped the hamlet and all its wasted expectation.

– Julie Rysdale

master your fate

don’t go

gently

rebel

resist

rage against the machine

be your will executor

be the executioner

of weasel wordsmiths

strutting

traditional values

to keep us in our place

living on our knees

– John Heritage

Sunset

Inez, Greg and Richard topped the ridge and stared.

Greg was first to utter a word. ‘Gobsmacking!’ he said before going all Charlton Heston. He raised his hands and spread his fingers as though lightning would erupt from them. ‘Ravishing! Stunning!’

Richard looked and shrugged. ‘Meh.’

‘Meh?’ Greg turned to his companion. ‘Meh?’

‘Greg,’ Inez whispered, frowning.

Greg ignored her. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Look at it. It’s Nature putting on a show. Just for us. It’s like Picasso … No, Van Gogh … NO! …’ he added climaxing, ‘it’s like Jackson Pollack threw his whole paint palette into the sky! It’s Blue Poles on acid!’

‘Greg,’ Inez hissed, frowning some more.

‘What do you want me to say?’ Richard asked, not taking his eyes off the landscape before them.

Greg’s mouth worked till at length he found his voice. He waved his hand at what he called the flaming canvas above them. ‘You could say that it’s spectacular. It looks like God is … cooking a cauldron of raspberry jam …’

‘Greg!’ Inez was insistent.

Greg ignored her. ‘Richard,’ he said, his voice dripping sarcasm, ‘it’s nature at her wondrous best. It’s …’

‘You know the only interesting thing I’m seeing?’ Richard asked, interrupting and, at the same time, ignoring Greg’s verbal pyrotechnics.

Greg threw up his hands. ‘The only interesting …? All right, I give up. Tell me.’

‘GREG!’ Inez dug him in the ribs.

Richard ignored them both. ‘Those pimply things on the horizon. They remind me of those burial mounds you see on ancient landscapes. There are some just like them near Stonehenge. I think they call them tumuli.’

Greg looked. It was his turn. ‘Meh.’

But Richard had walked on.

‘Greg,’ Inez slapped his arm.

‘What!” Greg turned and snarled.

‘Richard is colour blind!’

– Geoffrey Gaskill

Red Skies

“Warned ’em didn’t I!

Wait up, gotta get the flies off this rabbit – pongs a bit but it’s food.

There. Doxology, he’s me dog, he don’t appreciate flies on his grub. Come to think of it I don’t either.

Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, I warned ’em. If you bugger around with climate change it’ll come home to roost.

Just look at that bloody sky. Bright red. Well, they got what they wanted – bigtime.

Yeah, I know, you’re thinking schadenfreude, right? Well there’s a bit of that alright, but I’m not small-minded, live and let live is my motto. Up to a point.

So where were we? O.K it was 2038 and that climate bullshit was a joke. Some cow cocky plants a tree, a million tons of carbon disappears. Yeah right, worked well!

But like I said. No schadenfreude, not a bit, none, nada.

Wait up, gotta skin this bunny. Survivors rabbits are. Dig a hole, forage for food, thump the turf with their back legs for danger. But Doxology still gets ’em, runs ’em down. Don’t live like a King, but we get by. There, I’ll hang the pelt on a frame, good warm fur for cold nights. Trick is to clean ’em out properly. Doxology will eat the gut, but not me. Green tripes an acquired taste.

What went first? Hard to remember. I mean, it was twenty five years ago and now I’m crowding the Big Fifty. We had the supermarket brawls, queues at government stores until it all ran out, black market food for a while, then hello Charley Darwin.

Lived in a commune for a bit. Kept us going. But the kids all walked. Didn’t want to know. Stick it, they said.

Red skies, me and Doxology.”

– John Margetts

Red Sunset Running

Australia’s outback red sunset is a breathtaking spectacle of nature for those lucky enough to witness it. Uluru, in particular, with its differing colours spilling across such a sacred landmark, is something very special to behold.

In the outback, as the day begins its leisurely descent into night, the sky transforms into a canvas of radiant reds, oranges, and purples, framed by the endless horizon and the intense radiance of the rugged landscape. It is an unforgettable moment of beauty, peace and wonder; a vibrant and ever-changing masterpiece.

My partner and I were fortunate to experience such splendour several years ago during the Outback Marathon weekend when we participated in a late afternoon warm-up jog the evening before the main event.

As we jogged along the red dirt trails with Uluru in the distance, the late afternoon heat cooled and the sun, low on the horizon, began to melt into the land, casting long, dramatic shadows across the outback’s vast plains. Red dirt and golden grasses shimmered under the waning sunlight. We paused often during our run to contemplate the sunset taking our experience to a new level. Far from the noise of urbanisation, the only sounds that broke the silence were the calls of native birds returning to their roosts. The vast open spaces created a sense of freedom and isolation reminding us of the raw scale and magnitude of nature and time itself.

We finished our run as darkness beckoned and the last remnants of sunlight clung to the horizon. Deep reds gave way to a blanket of stars, as the outback sky, free from light pollution, offered another natural wonder: a sky filled with the Milky Way.

For us it was all so ‘Wow’!

– Allan Barden

Crimson Soul

The sky bleeds red this early morn

It reflects on the fallen

The yet to be woken

To experience horrors unspoken

Hearts yet to be broken

What mischief awaits

For life imitates

One generation to another

From sister to brother

The red sky returns

The unprotected it burns

Any fool can see

Redemption was not meant to be

– Karen Nelson

A Red Sunset

Once upon a time, it had been their habit at day’s end. Now, he now sits alone, on the balcony swing they’d shared, facing the west. Time to reflect. Time to recall. Time to marvel and enjoy the memory of the journeys in life they’d shared together. True soulmates.

She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a great grandmother. At eighty-nine she succumbed to the cancer that riddled her time-worn body. He was a son and her husband. A father, a grandfather and a great grandfather still, he has already outlived one of his four sons.

At ninety-six years old he yearns for the day he can join her–the love of his life. He closes his eyes and invokes a higher power to expedite his reunion.

His pain still raw, even after six lonely years since her passing. Paying homage to her, he raises his glass, closes his eyes and says aloud, ‘A toast to you, my darling, Ellen. I promised you an adventure and I didn’t disappoint, did I? Sixty-nine years together. Thank you for the memories.’

‘I’ll be waiting here for you,’ he hears. And he smiles.

Without further ado, he opens his eyes, looks over to the setting sun, sips his favourite shiraz and thinks: Now that’s what I call a red sunset.

– Gail Griffin

Deep Red

The red sunset, crimson and ominous, spreads its bleeding tendrils across the sky—a violent farewell, a final gasp of dying light. As this cursed day collapses into the abyss of night, a red rising stirs in the east, a strange herald of the darkness yet to envelop all. The world, caught in the torment of these liminal hours, trembles in silence, as if under a spell woven by the hand of a malevolent, unseen force.

The harsh surroundings offer no solace, no reprieve from the cruel solitude. In the heart, smooth thoughts drift, but they are empty, hollow phantoms masquerading as peace. Beneath this thin veil, emotions twist and writhe like serpents, dark and unfathomable. Hurt is an ever-present spectre lingering on the wind, breathing its despair into the soul. Yet, even as the night unfolds its dark liquid arms, there is a stillness—a fleeting calm—that cloaks a sorrow too deep to be known.

It is the sorrow of endings, of things once great crumbling to dust, of Man’s time laid low by the relentless turn of fate’s wheel. Yet, in this grim surrender, there lies a whisper, a faint glimmer—follow your dreams, it murmurs, though all dreams now seem as ghosts.

Two minds stand at the edge of this abyss, their thoughts vast as the night, their strength worn thin. But in the void, a voice—faint, resolute—calls out: Steve, have strength. It is a prayer, a command, a desperate plea to weather the night. And though the night is long, the red rising hints at dawn and the strange, unknowable promise it bears.

– Steve Gray

The dying of the light

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Dylan Thomas ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’

The driven daylight speeds away and night comes o’er us early

Henry Lawson ‘Rain in the Mountains’

I wasted time and now doth time waste me

William Shakespeare: Richard II Act V Scene 5

Each sunset viewed is another evening ticked off one’s life. Dylan Thomas urges us to fight against the inevitability of life’s end, to kick, and punch, and struggle. The impossibility of an unending outcome Thomas never countenances.

Lawson is more accepting of life’s quirks, sharp blades, and backwards steps.

But, love, the rain will pass full soon, far sooner than my sorrow. And in a golden afternoon the sun may set to-morrow.

When one enters then begins to make one’s heavy way through the final sweep of one’s life, it is tempting to fight against the tide of inevitability, the looming end. Find me a better take on it than Lawson’s vision of the golden afternoon.

Act; accomplish. Do not be overwhelmed by distraction, or one may meet King Richard’s fate.

As a finale to life’s end there should be that prelude of action, accomplishment, then hope that the ultimate passage, the final chord, is harmonious.

Sunset’s orange sweep is over soon

Evening’s gath’ring gloom surrounds us tight

Beckoning us to enter into night

‘The end’ is siren’s seductive honey croon

– Ian Stewart

Red Raw

The early setting sun sucks the light out of the day all too quickly. A daily occurrence but always full of wonder. As a grand crescendo, a dramatic red/orange sky is produced with climactic force.

The sky reflects her mood, volatile and raw, warning signs everywhere.

Suddenly, only man-made light remains.

The streets are especially dark now after the rain and largely devoid of colour.

A lone figure, she strides out of the hotel lobby. Arms wrapped around herself as protection from the cold. Her high heels signal an echo across the street, not ending anywhere in particular.

A three-quarter moon appears and softly lights her face revealing a pale, wintry complexion and a fragility.

Bright red lipstick though, on oversized lips shine like a beacon against her black, woollen scarf, black overcoat and billowy, black pants.

Random strands of strawberry-blonde hair are tackled by the inconsistent wind gusts.

Her third attempt at hailing a cab bears fruit and as she pulls away from the kerb, she tastes the pang of salt as a tear reaches the corner of her mouth.

– Adam Stone

Death or dishonour

I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred. My father was killed by Danes in battle. Resolving to reclaim my birthright and win back my lands, I seek an army. So I have sworn my sword to King Alfred, hoping to strengthen my reputation and gain his support. Having proven my prowess and loyalty in battle, Alfred has agreed to help me, but he disregards his side of our bargain.

I faithfully served Alfred, helping him establish law and order, publishing proclamations in his name, yet he demands ever more of me.

He dreams of a united England and territorial expansion, but those dreams are mere fancies. The Danish forces in the north vastly outnumber Alfred’s contingent, yet Alfred opposes any peaceful settlement with the kingdoms under the Danelaw. He overrides those who counsel him that Dane and Saxon must make peace and share power. Alfred’s once trusted advisors have lost influence, lands and even life. Other courtiers retreat in fear.

With a wasting illness upon him, the King’s obstinacy deepens. He denies that the Danes hold the greater wealth, strength and strategic advantage. Regardless, Alfred would have me rally his allies to arms, although that path leads to doom. On my honour, I must obey him, although his command goes against my own heart, for I know that once battle is joined, destruction is certain. I have no appetite for needless slaughter.

On the eve of combat, fearing the kingdom will be lost forever, I pray for some miracle to dissuade Alfred from the inevitable bloodbath.

I am rewarded: the gods are great!

Above me, firelight paints the clouds blood red. Each foot soldier rushes to extinguish mighty flames advancing towards nearby buildings, and, as they depart, the army disintegrates. Not even Alfred can ignore this omen.

Destiny is all!

– Daphne Delores Winter

Misadventure

Buster pushes his empty plate away. It’s quiet at the farm while their parents are in town. He stares out the window.

‘There’ll be a full moon tonight. And the wind will drop after sunset. Perfect for spotlighting,’ he says, pushing his cap back to reveal a young thirteen-year-old face.

His twin brother, Boulder, ploughing through a mountain of spaghetti, nods enthusiastically.

‘Let’s try Hiney’s paddock,’ says Boulder. ‘Lots of rabbits there.’

As they unlock the gun cupboard, their father’s words, ‘You can’t be too careful with guns,’ ring in their ears. They choose a Winchester .22 rifle and a box of bullets.

‘You drive, I’ll shoot,’ says Buster tossing the ute keys to his brother. Buster jumps into the tray with the gun and ammunition.

Darkness is setting in as Boulder drives quickly towards the back of the farm.

Then he slows the ute to a crawl. Buster sweeps the paddock with the powerful spotlight mounted on the cabin’s roof. Dozens of rabbits are paralysed by the light, their startled eyes glinting like fairy lights.

Buster bangs his fist on the cabin roof. ‘Get closer. Gun it, Boulder.’

The ute charges across the paddock, then stops. The rabbits scatter like chaff in the wind.

Buster presses the smooth wooden butt of the rifle against the side of his face, takes aim and fires. Bullets scream over the cabin roof. Several rabbits drop softly to the ground.

The moon disappears behind the clouds, plunging the paddock into darkness.

Boulder springs out of the driver’s seat. He darts towards a rabbit caught in the fence.

Buster senses movement and fires blindly.

Silence.

The moon quickly reappears. Buster sees his brother collapsing on the ground like a pricked balloon.

He races towards Boulder with fear running through him like an Arctic wind.

– Catherine Bell

Fiery Sunsets

Sadly, it is not a sunset at all, but it’s the moon
reflecting trouble on Earth, the doom and gloom
The wars in the Middle East and Putin using force
reminding us of the terrible days of the holocaust

Red sky at night sailor’s delight, in morning sailor’s warning
now we just pray every night for there to be a new dawning
We, in Australia can still look into the skies fresh and clear
People In Ukraine etc. see bombs, planes, destruction and fear

Israeli and Russian bombs going off, lighting up the night sky
innocent people running for their lives, and us wondering why
Religion, greed and sheer stupidity, I wonder how long, will it be
until someone drops a nuclear bomb and starts World War Three

Sun rises in the East, sets in the West since the very beginning
but will things change if these dictators keep killing and winning
Hope fighting stops sooner than later, the wars are totally insane
then, scared and innocent folk may be happy to see a sunset again

After that burning red sun sets and the moon and stars take a peep
people may once again close their eyes and enjoy a peaceful sleep
Can’t see the point in these stupid wars they really make me frown
why should men, women and children be afraid of sun going down?

John’s Very Long Table

I was 17 when I first met John,

I was collecting followers along the river bank when something came running up beside me. At first, I thought it was a dog, something like a Great Dane, But then it stood up. 8ft tall with long blonde hair, wearing a short grey skirt, their hands were decorated with gold rings.

They stretched out a bony hand, ‘Johns my name’.

I took John’s hand, he gave it a firm shake and smiled.

He muttered, “I wonder did you notice that the sky had turned red?’

I looked up, the colour of the sky was now a deep red.

John leaned down, bringing their face down level with my own, ‘Say how old are you?’

I mumbled a lie ’18’.

He grinned, ‘old enough to gamble then!’ He shouted and pulled me Along the riverbank.

“When the sky turns red, so does the water” John explained.

“Water isn’t red, so a red river can’t be water can it?” he didn’t pause, not wanting a response from me.

“No! It’s sand!” John stepped out from the reeds onto the water, to my surprise he was right, the whole river had become red sand! John dragged me behind him, Though the water was now gone I could still see fish swimming below, their tails sifting through the sand.

Eventually, we reached a very long pool table, that stretched out longer than a bus.

He handed me a pool cue that was as tall as I was, “Your first game is free, if you win I’ll buy you a pool cue more your size”

I looked up at him “And if I lose?”

He wiped his snotty nose and began setting up the game “Then you must always play with the cue you have”

– Phoebe Hancox

WHAT!

How dare you

tell me

there is

no such thing

as a sunset –

for that matter

sunrise!

It’s only

the Earth

turning

YOU say!