The Long Long Night #TBT

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Ah, the December Solstice.

Those of you in the Southern Hemisphere are (hopefully) enjoying summer while us folks in the Northern Hemisphere are entering winter and the longest night of the year. 

Though it is the Northern influence that spawned The Long Long Night, I wish you all a happy December solstice and warm poetic evening.

so without further adieu I give to you …

The Long Long Night

He would sculpt and I would write to get us through this thing called life – what seemed to be an aimless plight

The long, long night

I used pen and he used clay to cope with all the pain filled days which lived within our slow decay of

The long, long night

But in between the words and mud we found the art of making love and pacified the angst and blood of

The long, long night

Forsaken pages ripped and torn, spattered earth across the floor, graphite tales of love and war and

The long, long night

Come into my bed sweet angry lover, your tender calloused hands beneath the cover.

Find the place where none has been, beneath the ink and turning pin, get us through yet once again

The long, long night

The Long Long Night was torn from the pages of Getting Me Back ( The Voices Within) available at your favorite eBook retailer.

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I didn’t have time to post my annual Pilgrim’s Prayer as I was up to my arse in dinner preparation and then a bunch of celebration. Whew! I am grateful.

It was another Thursday and another Thanksgiving holiday in the USA. So the earth has not quite spun off her axis; some of her inhabitants may have but a lot of us are here today so let’s make the most of it.

I have shared the following bit of prose in one form or another for … I don’t know… decades maybe?

Occasionally I vary the wording but the sentiment is always the same, so without further ado, here we go… 

A Pilgrim’s Prayer

Once upon a time – a long, long time ago (before Black Friday) Thanksgiving was a celebration of harvest and a time to give thanks. Hence the name thanksgiving.

I don’t think the early pilgrims had a Super Walmart, a Sears or a Best Buy. They had never heard of an indie distributor called Smashwords (yikes, imagine how scary that might have sounded)

I’m sure they didn’t have the www to answer all of you questions or a beastly giant named Amazon— yet somehow they managed.

Can you imagine having to grow your own food and prepare it without the help of of a search engine like google? 

When did they have time? Where did they get their Stove Top stuffing and who canned the yams and plucked the turkeys? How did those crazy pilgrims do it?

John Wayne

I didn’t really know any of those pilgrims but I did see a John Wayne movie once. John knew a pilgrim when he saw one. He seemed to know a lot of pilgrims but that was a long time ago too.

I propose we are all pilgrims, each one of us on a journey of sorts. Our own personal pilgrimage…

Aren’t we are all looking for something? Be it a quest for self-confirmation, truth, a cure, enrichment, comfort, a friend, a lover, a job, a meal or a place to lay our weary head at the end of another day.

I believe life is a journey, or at least it should be. It would be terrible to think we were just flailing through this experience; killing time on this giant floating gumball while waiting for the next Black Friday specials.

I believe we all have one destination though we travel different roads and I trust that we have choices.

Pilgrims (2)

Hopefully we will choose well. On the occasion we do take a wrong turn [and we will from time to time] I pray we have enough sense and humility to stop and seek direction… to reassess our route and to be considerate in our voyage.

So here’s wishing all of you pilgrims a Happy, Happy Thanksgiving from the Hill house and may we all, whatever road we’re on, take time to look ahead, pause and bow our head in thanks.

My personal prayer:

I pray our good seeds of hope, humility, toil and courage produce abundantly; that love and kindness grow wild like the weeds of early spring – fruitful and undeterred.  And may our harvest be rich with wisdom and discernment.

Thank you Father, The Creator of all things, for this day and all it holds. Thank you for the days past, and Father forgive me for my wrong turns. Thank you for the day to come and guide me to make better choices. Thank you for all the pilgrims in my life – for those who’ve gone ahead and the ones that come behind and for those who read this prayer. And Thank You Father for the beacon that lights my way.

In Jesus name, Amen.

BTW Thanksgiving & John Wayne (A Pilgrim’s Prayer) is also in Getting Me Back (The Voices Within)

Happy Halloween (Tuesday’s Tell All)

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Smoke Free is a weird little story conceived in the smoke of a brush fire. I was out in the woods snapping pictures, the images combined with a twisted imagination and tada! The rest is history.

The photos below show the cover; from the first photograph to the finished cover.

Smoke Free is probably the only book cover we have not changed at least a dozen times. The truth is I have never wanted to change it. I love this cover and the image of that little pumpkin smoking a cigar never fails to amuse me. (I have the husband to thank for that.)

I had never heard of Irwin Smutter before that day and he (like the cigar smoking pumpkin) still amuses me with his absolute weirdness; him and the bizarre world he resides in.

And here’s a bite sized sample of the lunch break tale …

The room appeared empty other than an oversized sofa. Irwin reposed himself against the frigid vinyl, crossed his feet and sighed. A lively timbered scene covered the wall opposite the door, designed in such a way it almost looked like a window. Beyond the dull sheen of the pretend window was a forest where rays of sunshine cut through a smoky haze. The remaining walls were un-textured, pale and bare. The room smelled of sandalwood and acetone, a bizarre sweetness that sickened and comforted him at the same time. Irwin shifted nervously on the stiff upholstery in search of a warm spot. There was none.

The faux leather, the lifeless walls, the fake window – it was all too unsettling. Nothing is real, he thought, stretching his arms until his hands met above his head. Fads! The world has been reduced to kooks, phonies, and fads. Reassured by his own summation, Irwin interlaced his fingers and stretched further. When the joints in his entwined hands refused to pop, he rested them at the base of his neck.

Smoking cessation. Yeah, right. It was not Irwin’s idea. Irwin enjoyed smoking. The pungent smell of a fresh-lit cigarette made bitter coffee sweet. Smoking was one of the few things he looked forward to each day. A good smoke, a little booze, a lot of caffeine and Evie. 

… …. …..

Oh. Oh. Oh. I can’t wait until you reach the end.

Happy Halloweenie Boils & Ghouls!! Bwahaha 👻

Available wherever e-books are sold.

Smoke Free narrated by Troy McElfresh and is available at 

Amazon

Apple

Audible

LIFE BEHIND THE RAILROAD ( #TBT )

/ Janna Hill / Leave a comment

I have been doing a lot of reflecting these past couple of weeks. Convalescents affords me that luxury; and let me tell you all of life feels like a luxury- a new lease on life.

If you follow me on TikTok you know I survived being electrocuted late last month. The after effects are a pain and still manifesting. Still, I am sooo grateful to be on the topside of the soil.

Anywho, I thought I would share some of my reflecting with this poem from Getting Me Back.

A little aside: My last visit to the old place was about twenty years ago. It was one of those random stops; my youngest son was in high school and we were on our way home from a dental appointment.

I said, “Hey you wanna see where I lived once as a child?”

Being the adventurous soul that he is he said, “sure!”

So, without further adieu, here you go.

For illustration to feed your imagination only XoXo

🖤~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🖤

Life behind the railroad tracks

We called home a wooden shack

Lulled to sleep by passing trains

A tattered roof deterred the rains

Chilling winds crept through the walls

Carrying echoes of coyote calls

Two to three in every bed

With coats and quilts to cover our heads

Winter’s cruelty calmed us none

We unfurled early to meet the sun

Neither ice nor snow could hold us back

In hopeless times we crossed that track

Coon hunts and rat kills, boy we had fun

Don’t think it strange, it’s just what we done

June bugs and fireflies, the games that they sparked

Freeze tag and chase we played in the dark

We watched the train as it come and it go

The height of intrigue was to see a hobo


My life was carefree, the world a front door

I wasn’t concerned about being so poor

Our laughs outweighed most of the pains

Life came and went just like the trains


I sometimes reflect on that little old shack

And life behind the railroad track

Laughter rings over a muted cry

With a smile in my heart and a tear in my eye


No times are not tough but times are not fair

We done what we must to get here from there

For ice nor snow could hold us back

In hopeless times we crossed that track.

  • True story. Forney Texas 1970 something

Poem from Getting Me Back (The Voices Within)