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A Day in the Brine

~ Unkempt Mind dribbling in the seethe

A Day in the Brine

Tag Archives: Abstract Photography

“Ahead lay the scalloped ocean…” #WQWWC #17 Leisure

26 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by smilingtoad in Uncategorized

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

#WQWWC, Abstract Photography, Black and White, Florida, Meditative, Nature, Ocean, Photography, Quotations, Seabirds, Sunset, Writing

“Our eyes lifted over the rose-beds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog-days alongshore. Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky. Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles.”
― F Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby

Pages flutter in the wind. My idle hand shuts the words away.

Cloud-shadows shudder up and down the beach.

“Barefoot by the sea,
stopping to scratch one ankle
With one toe”
― Jack Kerouac,
Book of Haikus

I get up, walk into a wave and disappear.

“All you are is a bag of particles acting out the laws of physics. That to me is pretty clear.”
― Brian Greene

(Oh the sharp taste of seaside repose)

“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
― Albert Camus,
The Stranger

I like to inhale these moments like a fire-eater.

(I must admit, I am going to miss it here…)

#WQWWC Logo

Written for Marsha’s Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing Challenge

Here is further information on How to Participate in the Wednesday Writers Challenge.

This week’s theme: Leisure.

Please feel free to join in. 😉

Aaand…Happy weekend everyone. 🙂

“Nothing is Easier Than…”

13 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by smilingtoad in Experimental, Photography, Quotations

≈ 32 Comments

Tags

Abstract, Abstract Photography, Black and White, Crime, Dark, Experiemental, Literature Quotes, Odd, Pain, Photography, Quotes, Skull, Thoughts

Thinking's Shadow-2“Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea”
– Dylan Thomas

Empty Skull“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky

A Loopy Night“I pulled out the letter. It was a receipt for putting my little dog to sleep. When I realized what they’d done, I think I screamed…I believe that this was the moment the world lost me, for pain quickly turned to fury.”
– Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon

Midnight Scroll“Winter was gray and mean upon the city and every night was a package of cold bleak hours, like the hours in a cell that had no door.”
– David Goodis, Of Tender Sin

Concentration“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.”
-Jorge Luis Borges

“The World in All Its Tainted Glory”

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by smilingtoad in Photography, Quotations

≈ 40 Comments

Tags

Abstract, Abstract Photography, Black and White, Grief, Hope, Literary Quotes, Nature, Photography, Quotes, Sadness, Swan, Water

Swannie“Everybody is supposed to be quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.”
– Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

If Only They Could See00“His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an illness.”
– D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love

Sailing“I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to man has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.”
– Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

Park“I had a dream. I was walking a beautiful street. On one side were white buildings with columns. On the other side, a park. And under the trees along the street was a dark green band. Then I came to a high wall, covered completely by roses. A plane came and set fire to the roses. It was not such a bad thing, since it was so beautiful. I looked into the water. How the roses were burning.”
– Ingmar Bergman, Shame

Preening“It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”
– Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

Another Year of These Slide-Show Nightmares…

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by smilingtoad in Experimental, Humour, Photography, Stories

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

2014, Abstract Photography, Black and White, Blur, Commentary, Florida, Fun, Humour, Nature, New Year, Photography, Portrait Photography, Seascape, Silly, Song, Story, Surly, Water

A fortnight into the 2014’s great nascent, and Sir (the somewhat crabby super-model) greets its sunny, smiling visage with…perhaps an ever-so-slightly surly, tongue-protruding, sort of attitude…for reasons…I am rather foggy on, at the moment…

Anyhow, onto more smiling things- some new portraits of Sir and some of his, er, affectionate, comments. Cheers,

Smiling Toad

The Nose

And so another year has dribbled by…and here I am again, startled awake by the monotonous scream of a clicking shutter resounding through my slide-show nightmares…

The EYE

Everywhere I go, that sound, and that dark, evil un-blinking EYE bending my reflection around every corner, as I try so desperately to ESCAPE.

Leave Me Here to Cry in Peace

Another year of this? It’s only getting worse. In this photo, it seems the darn camera-toting toad forgot how to focus and expose properly. Certainly has no mercy. It is obvious, despite her trying to hide it by “blurring”, that I am bawling bullet-sized tears, here.

The Fallen

Even when I fall down after bawling so hard, she just coldly and laconically steps around my corpse, with that lens probing about for the “perfect angle” like a bird’s bill probes for worms. No sympathy. Sometimes, I wish she would say to me, there, sprawled in the soggy ravine, “Poor Sir…what a terrible monster I have been! What a curse this photography rot has been for you, poor man; why I’ve caused you to cry so ardently you’ve fallen and suffered great bodily injury, beyond that of the mental mauling you must have already sustained!“

Sunset Chill

Even better if she continued with,”HANG this camera! I’m throwing it in the murky mire beside you there, brimming with some darling gators, I see; or better-yet, I’m going to pop the lens off it in a tree with a noose. Let the birds nest in it, let the squirrels toss their acorns into it- I don’t care, I’M FINISHED!” Yes…I still can dream…

Squiggly-Armed Reflection

But no such luck…as reality seeps back into sharp focus. And now she seems to be on a “fabulous rock star” kick, adorning me in flickering baubles, frilly neck-gear, leather coats, and shiny eye-wear…One night, I forgot to take off the “props” and went cruising into a little local restaurant. Suddenly, a whole slew of wide-eyed people accumulated behind the counter and sang out to me, “Oh my goodness! Are you a musician?! Did you just come from a gig? We just loooove your hat!” Why me? (wince) I know what’s next…guitars and violins and horns will be draped all over me and then her face will alight with a terrible sprightly pixie smile, as she breaks out the eye-liner and lip gloss…I think I miss the “hit man” shoots, now…

Life is an Endless Photo-Shoot

“Oh YES perfect Sir, a bit of a groovy Bono-esc look here!” she chortles at me delightedly through a fog of clicks in this photo here. Not fooling me. I know what it looks like- some nasty creep out on the prowl. He’s got shiny glasses, hoping to “blend”. Here he’s suddenly turned away from a poor victim in order to glower into a shoppe window as a mustached police officer with a cherry-red face slowly sashays by, rapping his palm with his shiny black cudgel.

Lustrous Hair

This seems to only enhance the ogling-masher-creep-effect. Oh why do I adhere to her silly commands? “Just kneel down there, Sir, yes lovely. The light is perfect now,” she cheeps, guiding me along with the muzzle of her camera. I protest, “But I don’t want to look at these ugly mannequins…” She replies, “Don’t worry about it; this is all for the lighting. Peeeeerfect.” A hundred snaps go off. Hmph. Bono my FOOT!

Pinned to a Cactus

Sometimes, it’s just best to give in and pose…especially if you are pinned to a great sniveling serpentine cactus with razor-sharp quills pressing into one’s shoulder-blades…

Get Me Back to the City

And try to keep the tears at bay…And just hope that something else will EVENTUALLY catch the EYE’s interest…

maybe I should push you in

Like this. Hmm…should I?

Moody Sunset

Or this.

Bleary Daze

Over time, though, you do develop some tricks of your own to combat the ultimate paparazzo protégé with. Ahhh the taste of rebellion! Or…near taste of it, anyway…

Bleary Daze 02

If you are afflicted with this problem of some atrocious imp shoving camera snouts in your face, try scuttling about in circles. Bob your head or twirl your umbrella. Throw a prop-hat into the wind. This works best in low light. Results in horrendous blurring, and hopefully, also in a photo-maker who flails off in defeat with arms flapping in frustration. Of course, do you know what my camera-toting tormentor cheeps at me whenever I do this? “OH BRILLIANT SIR! These photos are absolutely exquisite! So artistic, so abstract, and with such EMOTION!” (Sigh) Yes, that of deep, unfathomable despair…

Shuffling Off into the Drear

Another option- turn around and…RUN!

Consternation

Or try a scathing glare if your pursuer with the light-capturing device protruding forth happens to be a bit faster than you are…Ugh…that scarf! She was setting me up for disaster with that scarf and that bally stupid alpaca hat. Lasses kept bounding up in my face, squeaking how “cute” I looked. Boyfriends looked geared up to bash me so hard the scarf and stupid hat would go flying across the street…

Foggy Winders

Another tip- hide whenever you can, especially if your camera-wielding tormentor is distracted by a crack in the sidewalk or grime on a window or something. Of course…the determined paparazzo protégé will always find you…I know. They seem to have very keen focus. They don’t give up.

“And so, as I listen to a series of clicks reverberating through this foggy window, I leave you with a song that describes just how I feel below. Farewell. (I only dream that these nefarious images never, EVER find their way onto the great world-wide Web).”

Regards,

Sir

“Foggy Windows” by Unknown Hinson


The Taste of Dying December

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by smilingtoad in Photography, Poetry, Sea

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

Abstract Photography, Black and White, Brevard County, Cocoa Beach, Decay, Droplets, Florida, Monochrome, Nature, Ocean, Photography, Poetry, Prose, Sea, Surf, Surfer, Thoughts, Wandering, Water, Writing

traipsing along the sea

Ashy taste of mildewed Wind, heady and warm, off brush-metal waves- sticking to thoughts– it cursitates, Neurons itching, tickled by the bleary chiming of a Rain-Pattered Sea.

Taste of Wet Metal

The chink-metal ocean tastes of sodden rust, spume sputtering about the shoulders- these eyes– a lunging Black, as dark as wetsuit skin.

Dying December

Lambent gaze scrapes the clouds; dark spindly form punctures the sky- fiberglass toes- white and sharp, like bone- and the sound of water drips like snow.

Let's Puncture the Sky

Comes the deluge, the swimming grey swarm of oblivion, drowning in a surge of metal- the colour of December’s somber death- the scent of it tingles in curled and gnarly fingers, burrowing in sand.

Thoughts in the Gathering Clouds

The balmy breath of it dissolves and settles upon these meandering splinters of thought that scuttle into the fizzy-green brine and are stolen by the evening tide, stifled by the sweeping sounds of the Seagull’s Drawl and the strumming song of a Rain-Pattered Sea.

Castaway

Porcine Wings and Flower Skulls

03 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by smilingtoad in Experimental, Photography, Poetry

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Abstract Photography, Drear, Night, Night Photography, Photography, Poetry, Rain, Thoughts

Thoughts Splashed with Rain

Door swinging in wind

Waiting for the midnight train-

Possum waddles by

In street-puddles swims the moon

Water oily black

Wandering in rain-sloshed thought

Roads brushed in silence

In the grimy windowpane-

Fog and memory

Porcine Wings and Cranium Gardens

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