This week’s prompt is a painting by Jacob Lawrence from his series "Struggle: From the History of the American People," which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Each Imaginative Storm writer offered one line from the ten-minute pieces they wrote during our Saturday Morning Imaginative Storm Writing Group. It's always free; if you'd like to join, email nave@imaginativestorm.com for your invitation. The title “The Noble Cause Is Worth Fighting For” comes from the first line spoken by Kathleen Wilson.
The noble cause is worth fighting for,
the ego must be put in the same shackles
for the greater cause of freedom.
Brown, I hate brown; it depresses me.
Clashing lives caught in crystal.
And again, it never ends. you lure me
back with your tender hands dancing
in harmony with my disharmony.
They are a perfect match. Is that empathy
enough? He was an unsuccessful immigrant
in the land of love; there, the orange-haired ketchup
king of fast food and fast lies prepared to go
to the dark side to close his hand around
the rose's thorny stem. London makes a sound
voices were mostly British accents, the eagle
swooshing and chattering. Clerks ringing up
food and souvenirs-boom-boom-boom.
Big Ben strikes 3 p.m.. I duck down
and, turn around and head for the nearest exit.
As it has always been, an island of skulls left
from giant, bloody battles for supremacy
in the slice of life so far away from Hollywood.
The whispering winds sigh, so fragile, so fragile.
A caramel mountain in the distance held ancient ruins.
Constant change rearrange. Two fists, no retreat.
Sliver slices. Gleaming blades. Fractured. Endless loop.
First, the terror that he wouldn't survive, followed
immediately by the terror that he would. Something
in me is dying. She had a deep passion for peace.
It's always so vividly tempting to slip into the past.
His blood mixed with mine, a human stew.
The sky remains pure, soothing, available to lose yourself,
God says if you ever put down your damn weapons.
Structural integrity in animation. Then, through
the uprising of my fears, the black and blue tears
vying for attention, vying for domain, vying for peace.
Blink and destroy the sound, the impact, the satisfaction
of destruction. She summoned her survival energy
and threw off the shackles and chains holding her back.
The fragility of life lies in bloody rivulets flowing in black
and blue. Surprising numbers of women-mothers carrying
photos of their sacrificed sons. Salute the sky-all will die.
You're to blame for my ego death; one fell slice of life
made me an immigrant to the agony of the rib cage.
Tender is the moment before the night explodes.
Acting with a bloody passion remains vivid, tender
profile. The waiting never ends; I hope it never does.
I'm a lover, not a fighter.
ORDER OF SPEAKERS
Kathleen Wilson, Lyn Rothman, Marianne Furedi, Susie Shipman, Eve Stern, Diana Leszczyński, Christine Collings, Allegra Huston, Linda Smith, Jane Goldbert, Martin Dilger, Arlene Shapiro, Regina Ress, Terry Verner, Maria Wasson, Katerina Tana, Shirley Loeb, Corrine Crone, Lou Faber, Elaine Heveron, Sandi, Julie Grass, Zibeth Thalden, Ruth Upton, Barbara Benedict Krista Thronburg, Andrea Davis, Jay Logan, Andi Young, June Kinoshita, Kesley Walters, Geneva Hendry, James Navé Maru Otega, Sandy Dittmer, Ellie Jennings
#NobleCause #FreedomFight #EmpathyAndHarmony #EgoDeath #ImmigrantInLoveLand #LondonSounds #AncientRuinsMystery #SurvivalEnergy #SacrificeAndMemory #FragilityOfLife #BloodyBattles #PeaceOverWar #PastAndPresent #EternalStruggle #LoverNotFighter