24/7, Divination 10

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 10 is to write a divination-themed prose poem that uses birth.

There is a story behind this dice-roll.

This is the second time the dice have given me a four on the blue die and a one on the purple die; they had done that on August 5. There are still numbers and combinations I haven't yet rolled, so I decided to give it another shot, for variety's sake -- knowing full well that variety also lies in what one can do with the same, repeated prompt.

Sometimes I roll the dice on the wooden lap desk where I photograph them, but sometimes I roll them on the hallway rug, or in the living room, or elsewhere. This time I had rolled the dice on our laminated kitchen floor, where they came up four and one.

I shook them rather vigorously and rolled them a second time (again, for variety's sake, I told myself) on the living room carpet ... where they again came up four and one. I deferred to the dice.

Being on dial-up, I often roll the dice while I'm waiting for a page to load on my screen. This time I'd been waiting for an entry from Dave Dog, whom I've been blessed to know online for a decade-plus.

After I read his entry, the poem flowed right through me.

All The Daily Resurrections (85 words)
(for Dave Dog)

It's a dark church, pastor, but the light shines on your face. Netbook plugged in, sermon on the screen. The close walls reflect your voice; the congregation listens. Outside the storm clouds roil but lightning has baptized your heart. Your angel above your head, beneath your incision, swung a mighty sword, jolted you back to life. And here you are, alive with no revelations except for what counts. Be blessed, brother. Keep raising holy hell on this good earth. The afterlife isn't ready for you.


Lightning strike in my neighborhood. This is a still shot from a video, which can be viewed here.

Dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

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