A Woolf In My Room

Mental Health, Parenting, Politics, Random poetry, Relationships No Comments »

Hi!

I read this article today and had to sigh.  It is a never ending farcical endeavour trying to write when the kids are about, even before I consider all the glass ceiling/weaker sex debate that Virginia Woolf brings up (which, contrary to the article I linked, has come a long way). 

And leaving out the housework and laundry…

I am positive there is unmapped potential in me that I am too distracted and tired to even begin to send out into the world; it’s a blooming good thing I love the punks I live with, and have begun to get serious about organising and simplifying our home to give my future self much more freedom 😉

My nine words came from Randomlists :

selection from Randomlists

 

 

Swift   Head   Kaput   Acoustic   Announce   Habitual   Melodic   Paper   Uppity

 

I sit here:

Swift pen straining to extract,

From a head that’s kaput,

All of the creative ideas

That came to me

Over the dishes.

 

Meanwhile:

Young male voices

Intrude,

Testing acoustic limits

In a steamy, tiled room.

woman on a typewriter

(YouTube has taught them

To announce and project

Every thought in their head

So that those at the back may hear…)

 

One would think

That I could shut out

This habitual (oft-melodic)

Interruption through daily practice;

But it seeps into my mother-brain,

Keeps me reacting

As if their squawks mean danger – 

An invisible force,

Pulling me from my paper

Almost as violently

As the uppity, soggy child

Who later bursts through my door…

 

Hubby does the honours when it comes to the boys’ daily showers.  I oscillate between trying to write in that short  time and just getting small ‘straightening’ tasks done in the house while keeping half an eye on motivational YouTube videos.

It doesn’t really matter what room I’m in, the children will come and find me to tell me something ‘urgent’.  Pairing socks is easier to get back to than a poem, after a long discussion about what kind of snake a purple squiggle on their artwork is (and whether or not the characters they’ve drawn are in immediate danger), it must be said.

I love that they want to involve me in their creativity and lives, and I often get small things gifted to me at this time, so it can be really sweet; but if I have been unable to write at any other point of the day, or one of the kids has been off ill (as was the case today) and I have had no quiet space with my thoughts due to cuddling and playing time, I find it really hard to still be in demand when someone else is there for them.

I write best before 9pm, and ideally between 10am and 2pm.  This will be easier after the summer when Youngest starts school, of course, but I also need that outlet now.  After reading to the boys and getting them to agree to go to bed (!) it is really too late for my brain to generate anything like a “lightning crack of genius”.

My life is a blessed and comfortable one, and I of course realise how precious all this time I get to spend with my kids is, but I feel – after almost eight years – my restlessness falls in line with Woolf’s observations about rooms and ruminations quite a bit these days 😉

 

[Second pic is from here]

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A Favourable Wind

Random poetry 4 Comments »

Hey There!

Today’s selection is from here.

selection from Random Word Generator

Deprivation   Pole   Era   Twist   Gold   Enhance   Help   Athlete   Taste

 

Deprivation takes its toll,

As if your friends moved to the Pole

The other end of Earth from you –

When all you have is cabin blues

Brought on by rainy weekend’s dust

(A vacuum running dawn til dusk)

With Monday drawing ever nearer

In winter’s bitter, cloistered era.

Woman in a Spring garden

 

That silly little mental twist

The gloomy voice that heralds this:

“Your times of gold are long since past

This disquiet is not some mask

You’ve put on for a morbid dance;

Leaving the house will not enhance

Your life, or get the help you need…!”

To outrun thoughts, I have to speed

Like an athlete besting her time,

And find a way for hope to shine

Come show me this is just a phase –

Soon life regains its sweeter taste.

 

The Spring is coming!  Smile anew!

Soon warmer rays will filter through!

 

This morning I walked home from the school run with a mum that I haven’t talked to since the end of the last school year 🙂

*Waves in case she’s reading*

Shockingly, I was able to invite her into my house, knowing that it would be pretty tidy!! I have been decluttering and sorting stuff here and there for just over a month now.  I had picked toys up from the playroom floor before getting the kids on the road, and straightened the livingroom.  I’d even vacuumed and done a quick clean last night; even though I wasn’t expecting company! 

There were still a few dishes hanging about, and I had to check that the bathroom was presentable (!), but it was a really nice feeling to be relaxed enough that if she had walked into any room in my house it would no longer be the most embarrassing disaster ever. 

I haven’t felt like that for most of my married life, and I rarely felt like that even when I only had a room or two to take care of while single!

I have a long way to go (I’ve earmarked the first three months of this year for decluttering just the bedrooms) and I don’t hit my ‘tidy’ targets every day due to catching up on the blog, appointments, etc. but I am at least keeping on top of the laundry a lot better and making my bed every day – so I’m feeling proud of myself!!

My visitor and I had a lovely chat about weddings, poetry, creativity…and randomly striking up conversations with people wherever we go 😉 it’s fab to be taken out of your routine now and then, meet someone you weren’t expecting to, and talk about what you enjoy doing…especially over that all important mug of milky tea (and slice of sponge cake from the treat cupboard).

There may have been a storm in Scotland today, but it felt like a favourable wind to me!

 

[Second pic is from here]

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Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

Immersed In The Accursed

Politics, Random poetry No Comments »

Hello 🙂

I have not visited my beloved random word generators for a while, so I popped onto Textfixer and got these nine words for today’s poem:

Textfixer generator screenshot

I read them and immediately knew what I was going to write about 😉

Seven  Messiah  Star  Baboon  Weasel  Acoustic  Decade  Accursed  Tactic

 

Seven days a week

I follow the news

On a fake messiah;

Watch this ‘star’

Tear up the world stage.

 

Gesturing like some baboon,

Flanked by a devoted weasel or two;

Addicted, as always, to the acoustic virtues

Of his open mouth…Picture of a baboon

 

I get sucked into

The same game

Of judgement and name-calling,

Part of me enjoying 

The dangerous feckless folly unfolding.

 

I shake my head and feel sure

That this decade we’re in

Shouldn’t be tolerating him

And his accursed ways;

That every tactic he tries

Is inherently wrong.

 

But what ‘adulting’ am I displaying here:

Faulting a system

I don’t even understand…?

 

How weird to feel superior

When a great nation toys with wars.

 

 

[Second pic is from here]

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

 

Crossbones and Haikubes

Random poetry No Comments »

Hiya 🙂

Here’s today’s roll:

Haikubes roll on today's background

 

I chose a background material that would suit Epitaph poetry, fully intending to write a few different ones. Unfortunately, I only ended up with one Epitaph, and the background, in hindsight, is not the best for showing up the kubes!! 

 

Hellbent, putrid, vile one perished!

Our cheeks dry – you were not cherished!

 

I did roll 14 blank kube-faces, however, so I managed to write three further poems in free verse:

 

Clear pool –

Her journey

Finally sees light:

Mature grace with

Sweet return to life.14 blanks and beginning to sort the other kubes

 

 

Shiver through thunder swell – 

Livid crack –

My heart beats fast.

 

 

All the poems I constructed today

 

Stay gleeful:

What dilemma

Is there

Whose shape cannot turn around?

 

 

Doctor war blows…

Realise, brother:

We marvel

That you tried for us.

 

I don’t have any proper leftovers for tomorrow!  Not bad, eh?!

 

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

 

 

We Many

Random poetry No Comments »

Hi!

These are yesterday’s leftover kubes:

 

leftovers from yesterday

 

The way I’d set them out made me think of the #MeToo  movement, so I wrote with all those harrowing stories in mind.

 

 

 

 

Finally  Overlook   Flesh   Etc.  Slimy  You  Biting  In  Here  Pool  Trunk

 

I wish

I could finally ‘overlook’

Your flesh fetish:

The way you stared

At parts of women

Not covered by cloth.

 

It made me curl

My toes in silent protest;

Pushed buttons

Soon to be set to detonate.

 

The casual misogyny:

A wink

A guffaw, snort, etc.

That dismissed how I felt…

 

Some slimy serpent:

You coiled around my thoughts,

Biting at my confidence.

The poison slowly seeped in

Circulating my system

Each day.

 

It took too long to get here – 

To see you drown

In the cesspool you formed:

 

The lives you ruined

Screaming

From the trunk of your soul.

 

 

 

 

[Second pic is from here]

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

 

Of Ritual and Thunder

Random poetry 2 Comments »

Hello!

I rummaged through my craft cupboard and picked some nice material to roll my Haikubes on today.  It ended up inspiring my first poem, which I wrote in the ballad style (a syllable pattern of 8-6-8-6, with an abcb rhyme scheme).

What I rolled today Starting to sort into groups

 

Flying ritual – wicked journey! –

With my broom partner, Doug;

Shot around the solar system

Dodging all the space-thugs.

 

I only rolled six blank kube faces, and I proceeded to use them all for that first poem!!

three poems, and some leftovers!

I still constructed two more poems with the blocks I had left, however…one in the Hiaku structure of 5-7-5 syllables (though its subject matter is not strictly Hiaku material), and the last in the longer Tanka style of

5-7-5-7-7 😉

 

Watching Mommy, I

went places.  Any stage ran

smooth for gleeful cheeks.

 

 

 

 

Alternate riches:

Stay ravenous for simple.

Surface mature, girl.

My shady waste left me sour

Mouthing anal thunder, too.

 

I was swithering about whether ‘sour’ was a one- or two-syllable word; but I looked it up, and it is just one.  Hurrah!!

I have eleven words left over to play with tomorrow as well, so I am quite pleased with how this session went!

Are you liking the return to my random poetry tinkerings?  Have you any suggestions for other things you would like to see me tackle?

Please pop a comment on here, or visit my social media pages I’ve linked below, and let me know what’s working for you!

 

 

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

Restriction Addiction

Mental Health, Random Short Stories, Relationships No Comments »

Hey 🙂

 

Yesterday's literary leftovers ;)

The ‘leftovers’ from yesterday were not speaking to me as a poem, so I put 20 minutes on my timer and let a character pop into my head to tell me of a woe she has:

Not   Slips   As   On   Anal   Cover   Stick   An   For   Travel   So Not  Hellbent  It’s

I looked at him, while trying to seem like I was not interested.  It was a weird game I’m sure lots of other people tried back then, but now it just seems so stupid.  I would berate myself for days over any slips I made:  seeming too eager if he talked to me, making too much eye contact, arranging to hang out with too small a group of people to be a buffer between us…girls are strange beings, I’ve come to realise.

As I soldiered on with this incredibly anal stint, the poor guy was just trying to be my damn friend.  He didn’t see me agreeing to sit at his table as ‘blowing my cover‘.  He didn’t stick any labels on our time together at all.  He just really seemed to enjoy my company.

He was an advocate for any kind of travel. He had great plans for after university, had taken that hallowed ‘year out’ already, and done some amazing stuff.  I found his stories exhilarating, his trust that everything was going to work out was so not the way I was brought up to think; and yet irresistibly refreshing.  The risks he had faced, the times when every circumstance seemed to suggest he was hellbent on failure, but a lucky break presented itself in the nick of time…I wanted to have that certainty, that passion and adventurous spirit; I wished I had the courage to do what he did and stand by his side through every crazy moment.

It’s a huge regret of mine that I never told him how I felt, that I waved him off (with the usual gang) at the airport that last time, and wished him a safe journey. 

I wish he’d known how much I will always love him before he got married that summer: a whirlwind romance in New Zealand.  Now I just have happy pictures to stare at on Facebook as he builds that perfect life he was always destined for – with someone else. 

Every time I see his smile I hate myself, and more colour drains from my grey existence without him…

 

Oh no! 🙁 I rarely get to hear of happy endings from these ‘voices’ that show up in my head!

Have you a lost love that you pine for? 

 

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tri Tetra

Other Poetry No Comments »

How do?!

I got the kubes out again!  This time I decided to try for Tetractys poetry.

This is what I rolled (61 kubes):

Kube roll results

 

I got straight into the creating after that, and actually forgot about the topic kubes!  Here’s my first poem (I put the amount of syllables that are supposed to be in each line, in grey):

 

(1)    Sweet

(2)    Baby;

(3)    Our gorgeous,

(4)    Friendly marvel:

(10) Your glorious, smooth, sleeping hand opens…

 

As Hubby says, that is the most poetic one of the evening 😉

My second attempt made use of a few blank kube faces and I wondered what the background to the scene was:

(1)    A

(2)    Doctor

(3)    Behind me

(4)    Quickly sang through

(10) A mouthful of noodle, but then was killed.

 

So were there musical-demanding terrorists in a hospital near Chinatown?  An alien on the rampage, that can be cowed by a tune? Hmmmm…

I got a third Tetractys together, too:

 

(1)    Fire,

(2)    Wind, time…

(3)    Flock yelled its

(4)    Simple grace to

(10) Have nerve – fantasy threw down its lame charm.

 

There are a few words left for tomorrow, but they are not very exciting, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with them.  Here is a pic of all the poems and remnants on my table when I’d finished:

all tetractys

 

See you tomorrow!

 

 

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

A Cold Torture

Other Poetry No Comments »

Hi!

If you remember, I had 15 words and the ending of ‘-esque’ left over from yesterday’s fun with the Haikubes, and I vowed to write a poem with them today.

Here’s what came of that endeavour…

Yesterday's kube leftovers!

Words to incorporate:

Doctor  Licks  -esque  Its  He  Prick  Lurid  You  A  Cheeks  Next  Flying  To  Your  Any  Bust 

 

I sit in the waiting room

Watching my doctor

– In reception,

Protected by glass –

As he licks

The ice cream.

 

The room is hotMan holding an ice cream

I arrived too early

And now it’s almost time…

The picturesque moment

Of ‘man enjoying a treat’

Loses its appeal.

 

“How dare he?!

The prick!  Such a lurid display!

Here you are: early.

Having to be taunted by

A show of nonchalance:

His cheeks full of food,

As your fever

Has barely left yours!

 

You’d better be next!

This behaviour

Is flying in the face

Of what the media says…

Isn’t it?!

NHS staff rushed off their feet, eh?

Can’t be bothered

To stick to your

Appointment time, can he?

Any sympathy you had for doctors

Should be well dead now;

Bust that myth, haven’t we…?!”

 

“So” said the doctor,

“What seems to be the trouble?”

 

“Intrusive thoughts” I said,

Trying not to glare at

The ice cream on his tie.

 

 

Hands up who was expecting that from those words?! 😛

 

[Pic is from here]

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!

 

Of Fortune, A Hero (And Muck)

Other Poetry, Random poetry, Relationships No Comments »

Hey There!

I got to thinking, and realised that I could probably write a Cinquain or two with a roll of my Haikubes! (This is the poetry type that has five lines, and a syllable structure of 2-4-6-8-2)

So…

Today's roll of the Haikubes dice...

I grabbed one of the red-printed kubes to give me the first topic (‘My Future’) and came up with this:

First cinquain I got from my Kubes

 

Fortune:

Hoped-for return

Screwed, ‘neath heavy ‘balance’.

Empty fantasy…fathom this,

Fortune!

 

I loved that I got ‘fortune’ twice in one roll, and other alliterative words to put with it!! Also, the blank kube faces that came up add even more options, as I can insert my own words.  I imagined the speaker/me giving a rude gesture at the end 😉

Speaking of rude, I got quite a few words that, when put together, could be rather ‘Ooooh Maaatron!’ in this selection…!

Words that could be said to be rude

The next roll of the topic-kube gave me ‘A Regret About’, so I used some of the naughtier stuff in my second cinquain (this one is definitely not about me!!):

My second cinquain

 

Hero

Rides into town;

Clever words…my room…the

Desperate tangle…our wet flesh…

Baby.

 

 

 

I managed to get one last cinquain out of my selection, and this time it had to be about ‘Our World’.  I decided to look at climate change, starting with the milder end (where we are seeing strong winds etc more often); and ending with the really tragic pictures we sometimes catch on the news.  (Just to finish on a sober note, in case you were enjoying this post at all…) 

Luckily I had just enough blank kube-faces left to write this one!

My third cinquain

Climate:

Biting wind blows

Down gentle shady trees/

Boy must search for slimy, muck-death

Parents…

 

I had 15 intriguing words (plus one ending of ‘-esque’) left over, so I’ve taken a picture of them to enable me to construct a random word poem for tomorrow!

Here is the whole scene from my cinquain session today, just so you can see that I didn’t cheat 😉

All my cinquains and left over Kubes

 

Be sure to check out tomorrow’s post to see what I come up with for the leftovers!! 

[Who knows, I may even pick a prettier background than a shoebox lid, my notepad and Eldest’s carpet… 😛 ]

 

 

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Copyright © 2018  Montaffera All Rights Reserved

Please do not use any of my content (posts, pictures, poetry etc) without my permission, but feel free to link back to my blog if something catches your eye. Thank you!