Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: dailyprompt

  • Prompt 61

    How have your political views changed over time?

    Image from Google

    Aristotle said that a man is by nature a political animal, and if he isn’t, he is either a beast or a divine being. I am not sure if I am a divine being (in my head in the ether), but my faculty of the mind has become more polished to discern the business of politics in corporates of nations worldwide.

    For instance, the Democratic Party’s promise of cancellation of student debts for Americans was too good to be true that it almost sounded like a scam to me. I never believed it, albeit with a shadow of hope, because who wouldn’t when everything helps? Then, when the Supreme Court ruled it out – all over but the shouting -the party switched swiftly to SAVE Plan as if they had known it and devised it as Plan B. IT was a political bargain, knowing that the Republican Party wouldn’t allow it. It was a Game of Fortune on a Wheel of Fortune. Both parties know who to play it, and ordinary people – those who work their fingers to the bones with the yokes of life – are played with the scripts.

    I am not against the Democratic Party. After all, President Joe Biden raised the Social Security Benefits for my elderly parents, to which we are grateful. But I don’t like when the party and the leaders use the common people like pawns as King’s gambit for their political gains. Consequently, my political views have become more wiser and clearer.

  • Prompt 60

    You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?

    Image from Google

    Books are in my Kindle:

    The Library of Babel

    With the floating stairs

    In the times and spaces

    Reaching the stars bright

    basking in the starlight

    The dome of the library

    Holds a myriad of mystery;

    Every book in bundle

    From the Babel Kindle

    Is a magical adventure

    From humdrum to splendor

    Flying on a golden chariot

    Like Freya’s Chariot

    but with my cats cuter

    Toro and Camille together;

    I am in my perfect space

    For the alchemy of writing

    And the witchcraft of reading.

    Camille and Toro from L to R

  • Prompt 59

    How are you creative?

    It’s the stars that made me. Image from Google

    The stars met in the celestial jar and made me of Fire, Dew, and Spirit. From the jug pours the streams of ideas into the palace of the heart and the dome of the mind. I am Aquarius, whose inspirations from the outside invoke the creative spirit from within. The impulses are like flashes of fancies in a frenzy of visions springing from the mind’s spring as though to be possessed by a jolt of magical madness like the ancient sybil or oracle of Delphi.

    Writing is my hobby, and I write best when I feel like doing it without the restraint of perfect grammar or fear of infelicities of expression. Freedom and individuality are the Aquarius, and so I am. I write for leisure, which applies to three facts of Why I Write by George Orwell: (1) Sheer Egotism– I want to let the world know that I am also a practitioner of the witchcraft of writing – particularly in English – that is not a prerogative of the professional writer; (2) Aesthetic Value – The words always fascinate me, and the English language is the most excellent of all because of its richness in vocabulary and diversity in meaning. I want to write English as beautifully as Charlotte Brontë as creative as Wistawa Szymborska, or as heartfelt as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and (3) Historical Impulse – Writing on my blog and my other off-line writing will be a record of someone who lived this contemporary era that I lived and wrote something which could be attributed to archeological and anthological artifact. Who knows?

    Some say depression is their Muse who awakens their creative sphere from within. David Lynch, Jim Morrison of the Doors, and Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries believed so. But mine is pleasantness. I don’t want to make a Mephisolean pact to be the most adored writer. I may not be the best or even famous writer or blogger, but I write on my blog because writing as a creative value is the best way to actualize the purpose of living in search of finding who I am. When I am on the ridge, looking over the Pacific Ocean from the top of the Canyon, or watching big airplanes flying the skyways, the Muses whisper in the ear, awakening the dormant spirit yearning for the pep of creative stimulation. Also, my cats Toro and Camille are reliable and the best natural Muses who invoke the creative spirit within me. One day I want to write a short story based on them.

    My Muses: Toro and Camille from L to R

  • prompt 58

    Share what you know about the year you were born.

    Photo Credit: Google

    The year I was born was the Year of the Tiger. It says a lot about me. Independent, Loyal, Considerate, Solitary, Inquisitive, and Compassionate. They say a Tiger is a born leader and fit for running a business. Indeed, I am a writer of my own and an independent thinker. But it’s rare to encounter someone with my year and my generation as a whole at work or in public, which I always feel in-between, transitional, liminal, or cruel to be kind, lost even.

    • My mom delivered me by admitting herself into a maternity ward in St Mary’s Hospital in Seoul, Korea, on a snowing wintry evening. Dad was working at the bank, and she didn’t want to interrupt his working time. Mom, being exceptionally devoted to Mother Mary, wanted to deliver her first child at her namesake’s hospital.
    • U.S. President Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency following the Watergate scandal.
    • The first human ancestor Lucy, dated to be 3.2million years old, was discovered in Ethiphia. Lucy is named after a Beatles’s song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” But I still don’t believe she is our huamkind’s ancestor.
    • Hello Kitty came to the world! ❤️ And Forever!

    Consequently, I feel like my generation has become an age of Judge according to Shakesperea’s Seven Stages of Life, whether I’m not too fond of it or not. Denial of the age is asking for trouble against natural law, said Cicero. Of course, there is nothing new under the sun, but the contemporaneous MZ Generation is a different tribe reminiscent of the children’s tribe in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies or Stephen King’s Children of the Corns. Amid the generational waves, I can’t help but think that my generation is those who rescued the stranded children in Lord of the Flies or the couple who tried to save the doomed children of the corns. But no one seems to care about it but to disappear beyond the time. But you know what? We are the survivors of the change from the Metal Age to the Digital Age, and we are yet to be withered and stale.

    From Pinterest

  • prompt 57

    Are you a good judge of character?

    I would rather consider myself an observer than a judge, which sounds stern and draconian. In this regard, I see people’s true colors through their speaking manners and behavior patterns. Also, being bicultural and bilingual means you are endowed with a particular eye for seeing the universal characteristics of humankind that are uniquely diverse yet oddly familiar.

    “You are too sensitive,” people tell me, but I can’t help it because that’s the way I was born with the unique eye that enables me to see people’s characters whether I like them or not. No, not a psychic. Perhaps something of an ancient Sybil, I would instead call, will be more the like. People don’t like this ability because, like an MRI scanning, their inner worlds are revealed. Something should be left buried to protect the good of others and the keepers, I presume. Still, there’s nothing you could do about it when you were born with the eye, be it either curse or gift.

    It reminds me of Midas’s golden hand that turned everything he touched into Gold and Cassandra, whose words people disregard even if she was telling the truth. But then I think my cats are better seers who could see the true characters of people like Odin’s two ravens, Memory and Thought, and Freya’s two cats driving her chariot. ⭐️💫🧚‍♀️

    Digital art by Danielle Zemba from Fine Art of America
    Stephanie’s two cats ⭐️

  • prompt 56

    When are you most happy?

    From L to R: Toro and Camille

    Happiness is made of purrs and meows, kneading and cuddling, kisses and hugs, all packaged in striped and black furs with soft-cushioned paws. The happiest of me is when my cats are next to me at home.

    The happiest moments are in the company of my cats, Toro, the Tabby, and Camile, the Puss in Boots. When I go home after work, Toro and Camille greet me at the front door, rub their little heads against my leg, and say, “Mello, (Hello in their language).” My cats also stay on my bed at night while I am sleeping. I often wake up in the middle of the night and see Toro in my arms and Camille at my feet, which is so comforting and warm. Since they became my family, I have dreamed of nightmares or any supernatural scare springing from my mind. It is said that cats have the extraordinary power to ward off evil spirits, and I believe so. My brother had the same experience in Japan where, before adopting his cat, he used to hear someone walking upstairs. Of course, that ceased after the cat became a family.

    Even though Camille has brought me good luck for my present job, I am happier when Toro is beside me. He is such an affectionate cat that I am so happy that we are a family. The veterinanrians love Toro and Camille because they are so sweet and gentle. Love makes happiness, and my cats are love. Happiness is my cats.