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Apr 30
Heylo!
So we are at the end of another NaPoWriMo! How has it gone for you, if you’ve been writing this month? Has it been a fast or slow one for you this year? Do you feel like you got into any grooves?
 My auntie bought me this very apt tee! Here April 2021 has been a weird month because Eldest has only managed to be in school for four days of it, due to the Easter holidays running from 2nd-18th inclusive then him just getting back before his whole class having to unfortunately isolate for 10 days due to a positive Covid case being found in their midst. Today was Eldest’s last day of isolation, and we have been extremely lucky in that the test he was asked to take on his 5th day came back negative, and he hasn’t developed any symptoms in the several since. He’ll be loose just in time to have his first haircut in 14 months tomorrow 😉
The last prompt for this year’s challenges said:
write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.
With my recent experiences, I couldn’t really think past homeschool-y stuff, but Hubby reminded me of the mocking directions we received from Venetians while on our first holiday together. So the second poem I wrote incorporated that, and probably meets the brief a little better than my first. It still doesn’t adhere very well, mind you!
Venturing out in the warm marbled streets, we took a wrong turn.
Eagerly tried to jump into our map, then asked a native:
“left, then right, then over the bridge…” said he.
Nice gentleman, we thought, and bumbled down more architectural alleyways.
Ice creams in hand, we stopped another person, who looked exasperated too. Where to go?
“left, then right, then over the bridge”
Could it be we’d heard that before…? A sumptuous shawl here, a pastry or two there,
Enraptured by the setting sun, but no closer to home (our hearts sinking too) we went:
“left, then right, then over the bridge”
Left our wits in the bottom of a red wine glass.
Offered too many Euros for the right to be photographed by other tourists.
Spun around, laughing at our predicament.
Trip-trapped over water, and miraculously arrived.
We’re obviously in the mood to reminisce about holidays in our house this week 😉
The first poem I wrote, as I said, shows my recent preoccupations (this is the second time Eldest’s class has had to isolate since October) but it is again an acrostic one.
In a daze, I read the notification –
Surely not again?!
 Eldest’s 11 year old fingers are getting long! His thumb has already surpassed mine. Oh the sad face as he realises
Long days in the house
Are here once more!
Tangled feelings knot
In stomachs and foreheads,
Outbursts abound.
No corner of the house is safe.
Fasten in for a bumpy ride,
Regular active stuff takes a hiatus.
Energy slumps, but there are cuddles,
Even silly giggles over the
Drudgery of comprehension sheets.
Out of posters and maths and
Microsoft BLOODY Teams, we emerge thankful.
Hubby and I have not been offered any of our vaccine doses yet, plus it is always horrible to watch either of our kids go through any kind of illness, so it has been a bit of an anxious watch-n-wait game here. It really does make you think about what contingencies you can rely on, it’s such a scary thing having to send your kid into education for their own mental health, but to also have to weigh up in the back of your mind whether they would see it as worth the risk if they did lose a parent this young by bringing Covid back with them! How well could Hubby or I coach them through that eventuality?!
Plus, with all the variants, it feels like only a matter of time til the virus starts hounding the school age population. I try to turn my head off from those paths, but 2am thoughts are not kind…
So I am choosing to just be grateful that we dodged this latest threat, and not to fixate too much on how busy the town will be when we go to the hairdressers tomorrow 😉 hopefully Eldest and I will get a walk or two this weekend and the weather will be kinder than the downpours that my app predicts.
Eldest has done really well with his homeschool work and attended the (once a day) short calls with the various teachers, even though he didn’t really want to. He has been a star despite being cooped up and I think he is secretly proud of himself. It’s a good result in a less than desirable turn of events. And that is fab.
Thank you for stopping by during my NaPoWriMo 2021 exploits. Please continue to take care of yourselves, and I will attempt to write a post about the big hair-lopping session over the next day or so!
Ciao for now, lovely readers!
Monty X
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 29
Hi!
Hope you are all ok?
It is after Midnight and I haven’t got this post out yet because I’ve been reading about our Skye holiday on the blog!!
The prompt on napowrimo.net for Day 29 was to:
Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene.
So I thought about this pic and then just had to read all the surrounding text, and subsequent other posts…
I did then write a poem, though 😉
Ah, Skye…
Our children in raptures
at the sight of so much sea
from multiple windows.
Boats and people
to make up narratives for.
A ponder or two about
a ‘staring’ red phone box.
How different the world felt then,
and yet we didn’t know
that even the small amount of exploration we managed
would be a wealth of freedom
to our ‘20s selves.
The air!
The clouds!
The beach trips!
Sunsets that stretched around bridges
that lead out
and joined others to us.
3 and two thirds years later
those views speak volumes,
whilst Eldest and I
tackle fractions,
praying for a reprieve.
Eldest was 7 and Youngest was 4 back in July 2017. How did time move so quickly?! Eldest is now staring down the summer before his last year of Primary School!
Which windows would you rather be looking out of right now?
Take care and I’ll meet you here tomorrow for the last poem of NaPoWriMo 2021!
Monty X
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 28
Boo! 😊
How you diddling?
I couldn’t think what to write about today. I went and sat at Eldest’s desk (like I used to do) to see if I could decide, but my mind just became agitated with the mess all around me. There seems to be more detritus than ever in these days of restricted movement and intermittent homework, and even less motivation from our little darlings to help keep it at bay!
So I wrote from that agitation. The prompt was to pose questions in a poem, so I threw a few about to see what stuck.
SEQUESTERED SILT
Underneath things lurk
microscopic others, and
usually Lego, too.
Why balk at mess when
order ain’t the overture
to life? It’s pointless.
What intricacies
dust finds to explore! Our skin
shed in patterns here?
A vacuum sucks, but
surely it’s better all ‘round
to begin anew?
Not a form, or topic, I employ that often; but it’s ok 😊
Again I have left this late, again I am falling asleep at the keys, but I’ll be here again tomorrow. Take care and I’ll catch up with you then ((hug)).
Monty X
[pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 27
Hello!
Hopefully no one is feeling too sorrowful today?
I was forced to contemplate the ‘dark side’ a bit for my poem, because my prompt said:
I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The entries are very vivid – maybe too vivid! But perhaps one of the sorrows will strike a chord with you, or even get you thinking about defining an in-between, minor, haunting feeling that you have, and that does not yet have a name. [from here]
I decided to poke around P7 of the assigned dictionary, because that is a lucky number for me. I found the words “Gnossienne” and “Adronitis” bookending the page. The first (roughly) means a frustration with never getting to know someone completely, the second (again roughly) is to do with feeling exasperated that you have to work on someone for a long time before getting to the deep stuff.
I am a person who can get others to spill their life stories with a tilt of the head and a heartfelt “are you ok?” at times. So these words spoke to me 😉 click on the words’ links to get to their fuller meanings.
Gnossienne
comes creeping in
a gift of sight
my cycles bring to light.
There are just some crazy days
all thoughts become ablaze
with everything you didn’t say;
I’m tapped into that frequency
and all pretence gets blown away.
I’m banging on locked doors
and searching for loose boards,
how can I adore
someone I can’t explore?
Adronitis.
I’d rather catch a lift
into the great abyss,
and hold a hand or two
ponder what we’d do
in the ‘perfect’ world,
our righteous minds unfurled
(Where pain would not exist
and we’d follow our bliss…)
Intense, and scarred by falls,
I’ll scale all of your walls;
disarm you with friendly glances
convince you I’ll take my chances.
Well, I have no idea whether I like that or not, it’s a crazy hour of the morning and I need to backdate this and get to bed 😉 take care, and ‘see’ you soon!
Monty X
[pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 26
Coo-eee!
Welcome back, and have a wee virtual hug from me 🙂
I was tasked with writing a parody today:
Besides being fun, writing parodies can be a great way to hone your poetic skills – particularly your sense of rhyme and sound, as you try to mimic the form of an existing poem while changing the content. Just find a poem – or a song – that has always annoyed you, and write an altered, silly version of it.
[from napowrimo.net]
Well, the song I chose doesn’t annoy me as such, it just has been parodied a lot and gets earwormy after a while 😉 I chose “Let It Go” from the Disney film Frozen. Here is a version with the original lyrics if you want to follow along with my take on it in a different tab or something.
Hubby did suggest that I uploaded a clip of me singing the below, but I doubt I’d get through it without laughing as I attempted to hit some of the ambitious notes 😉
I’m out of fight and I’m holding him tight,
Eldest’s bunny is a dream;
Our friend through all isolations
Cutest face you’ve ever seen.
My mind is howling like a twister got inside
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried…
Don’t let them in,
Don’t let them see,
Eat secret choc’late in the lavatory;
Banana peels,
Oh heaven knows
This mess just blows…
Feeling low?
Feeling low!
Pick your stuff up off the floor,
Feeling low?
Feeling low!
Don’t you dare slam that door!
You’ll soon care:
Fortnite’s going away.
Let the kids rage on
They weren’t gonna get V-bucks anyway.
It’s funny how home-schooling
Makes you a big stress ball
And peers through the controller
Can drive you up the wall!
It’s time to come off that X-box
You’ve tested limits lots and lots,
For right and wrong there’s rules you see
Trust meeeeee…
Feeling low?
Feeling low!
No more emotes can you buy,
Feeling low?
Feeling low!
Now don’t you start to cry!
Here I stand
And here I’ll stay,
Let the kids rage on…
My patience fluctuates until your butt I’ll ground,
My life is spiralling, some pieces of me can’t be found;
Why are your arguments so whiney, lame and crass?
If your pal hopped off a cliff, would you follow his path?!
Feeling low?
Feeling low!
Why’d you rise at the break of dawn?!
Feeling low?
Feeling low!
Where’s all the Oatibix gone?!
Here I stand, in the light of day,
Let the kids rage oooooonnnnnn
They’re not buying more V-bucks anyway.
Obviously the above makes more sense if you live with kids who play Fortnite! V-bucks are the currency in the game that they buy things like ‘emotes’ with, and V-bucks cost real money. So basically, Epic Games (who tout Fortnite as a free-to-own game) want demented parents shelling out silly amounts of money every month due to ‘pester power’. Not too keen on that!
Don’t worry though, I try not to eat between meals so there’s no secret chocolate stash in our loo. That was just poetic licence. Honest… 😉
Well, Day 26 is now done! Take care and I’ll catch you tomorrow.
Monty X
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 25
Hi!
Hope you are all well?
Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is to write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. [from napowrimo.net]
My melancholy side collaborated with my witty one, and produced the below:
Dearly beloved
We gather today
To steal all their chocolate
And then float away.
We might be detected,
But we won’t care,
We’ll blame it on ‘kids’
(Although that’s unfair).
These silly earth-bounders
Never think hard
About what’s around them,
And they discard
All of the evidence
Pointing to contrary,
We aren’t malevolent –
Playful not scary.
So! Go have your fun
Out in the sun,
Tip over their ice
And give them cold bums.
Annoy their doggies,
Perturb the cats,
Knock over dustbins
And scatter the rats.
Purloin all the bedclothes,
Throw spoons in a heap,
Jump into the toybox
Possess a stuffed sheep.
Make all the curtains
Whoosh! Like in a movie,
Whip up rotten fruit
For a furry smoothie.
Then pretend you’re exorcised,
Become all quiet –
(Meet back here in August
For our next planned riot).
I hope none of you have been sitting in mysterious ice puddles or cleaning up mouldy fruit residue today!
I have been doing a bit of decluttering, so it has looked a little like a poltergeist has been roughing things up in Youngest’s room…
Take care and please join me tomorrow to see what the prompt will be for Day 26!
Monty X
[pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 24
Howdy!
How you doing?
So who doesn’t like reading about sharks and Megalodons?! I turned to P16 and 20 of a book called World Of Animals Book of Sharks and Ocean Predators that I found on the Readly app to fulfil the brief for Day 24’s Napo prompt:
Find a factual article about an animal. A Wikipedia article or something from National Geographic would do nicely – just make sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot. Now, go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem.
I chose to use the world ‘fear’ to replace ‘shark’. P20 has a nice illustration of how Megalodons would measure up to humans and explains they fed on whales. I chose to play about with my word substitution in an excerpt from P16:
Nearly every stereotype of the fear is wrong. They aren’t primitive animals, they aren’t mindless killing machines and they don’t prey on humans.
Fears are elasmobranchs, meaning that they are fish with cartilage skeletons instead of bones. Far from being an evolutionary leftover, however, this evolved to save weight so large fears could still be fast and agile swimmers.
Cartilage also lets fear conserve calcium and phosphorus, which is important because they need both for making teeth. And they get through a lot of those. Fears treat their teeth as disposable weapons and can lose a couple with every bite…
[ISBN 978 1785 461 187]
As the last step, I wrote a poem using what I had learned about ‘fear’ thanks to this prompt.
Whale-cries from my stomach.
Some Megalodon
has risen from the depths
to finish me off;
its blunt nose in my business,
its looming shadow
the movement at the corner of my eye.
Sharp serrations.
Searing.
Ossifying oddness left behind.
Prefrontal! Prelimbic!
ATTACK!!
Prehistoric predator prevails.
If you are interested, I read an article about Fear and the brain’s responses to it here.
The kids are away out in the back garden playing footie with their dad and will want my laptop when they’re back. I have been giving out a lot of hugs and talking about sharks, so again this has taken a while to construct 😉
I hope you have sunshine and good things to look forward to whatever your Saturday brings. Take care and have fun!
Monty X
[pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 23
Hello!
My prompt was: today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another.
I went onto Instagram and looked up ‘#poetry’. The below was the one that spoke to me first
here’s my reply:
Maybe the rhythm
still soothes that part of you
sick with responsibility.
Maybe my warmth
can quash your frantic thoughts
for another year.
Maybe the fact I’m still willing
to sit and listen –
ignore all the ‘pressing’ stuff,
just feel your growing body
sag a little
into these aging arms –
means quite a lot to you.
Maybe, no matter how hard it gets,
I’ll gain strength from the trust in your eyes.
It’s another late posting I’m afraid, sorry! April always ends up being such a busy month 😉
Take care and I’ll catch you for Day 24 tomorrow 😉
Monty X
[pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 22
Hey 😊
Today I was busy with stuff in the house, so this is going to be up later than usual, but I hope you’ve all been feeling good?
The prompt said: today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place. [from napowrimo.net]
Weirdly, I wrote ANOTHER rhyming poem. The syllable counts aren’t uniform, but they aren’t awful 😉
BRANCHING OUT
The toddler bed nestles
our couch-back, in parts;
I dismantled it
with an ache in my heart.
No toddlers now live here,
nor have for some time;
weight limit’s exceeded,
and this I know fine.
But memories plague me,
and tug at my hem
along with ‘near’ futures:
nest empty. Flown men.
Those dimply wee knuckles
tucked ‘neath sleeping faces
I spied through the bed guards
are gone. In their places
Are capable digits
and oft-furrowed brows
that puzzle at problems,
seem wisdom-endowed.
But that bed cushioned nightmares
and furthered kid freedom,
furnished the way for
new-grown arboretums.
There is something in my eye *fans face with her hand*.
The pic above is of Youngest from last year, with his usual myriad of fluffy friends – and his own topsy turvy take on sleeping conventions! The bed only recommended a kid of up to 50lbs slept in it, and at 8 years old Youngest has just crept over that figure.
He now has one of the single beds my mum had squirrelled away in the eves of her house, which Eldest helped me put together on Saturday. We must have done a reasonable job because that’s it stayed intact for most of a week!
Well, I’m off to watched an episode of Star Trek with the menfolk before the kids go down, so take care and I’ll catch you tomorrow 😊
Monty X
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
Apr 21
Hi 😊
Hope you are all well? It is a glorious sunny day here, but I have entered spooky territory with today’s prompt:
Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, “There was a man of double deed?” It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “Twas like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre over the course of the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up. [from www.napowrimo.net]
I kept thinking about Poe while writing my answer to the prompt, and all the associated ponderings and thoughts this gave way to helped me get the ending to come out in a rush 😉
Alas, she came to marry me.
Alas, the me she chose to see
Was (alas!) not worth her time.
Alas, I became naught but slime.
Alas, this slime it chose to stick,
Alas! This sticking made her sick;
Alas! This sickness cost her mind,
Alas! Her brain then chose to find
A sick, sticking place; dark and gruesome!
(A horrid, putrid, TOMB this twosome!)
A thorny bed, a sick-stuck head,
A MURDER, then, was committed…
Yeah.
So it really is a lovely day out there.
I’m off to get some lunch (!) take care of yourselves, and I’ll be baaaack 😉
Monty X
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2021 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!
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