A Comfy Kind Of Restless

Hello!

It’s the last day of NaPoWriMo 2022 today, and Maureen asked us all to construct a Cento as our final piece!

“This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems.” [From:  https://www.napowrimo.net/day-thirty-8/]

So I grabbed a few poetry titles from my shelves and got to work:

That would faze all but the most intrepid:

Who gives her soul an empty room

As thick with mould as glass?

She walked to the music of her own mind’s making,

Skeletons of honesty now give way to seedlings;

A woman giving birth to herself.

Lines plucked from:

1. Edwin Morgan: A Voyage

2. Leonard Cohen: Death of a Lady’s Man

3. Anne MacLeod: In the Kibble Palace: Sunday Morning

4. Alice V Stuart: Rencontre

5. Kate Y A Bone: Skeletons of Honesty

6. Liz Lochhead: Mirror’s Song

Books consulted for these lines:

Modern Scottish Women Poets – edited and introduced by Dorothy McMillan and Michael Byrne  

The Song Of Leonard Cohen by Harry Rasky

Virtual and Other Realities by Edwin Morgan

Thank you, as always, for dropping by and reading my month of poetic ponderings. Judging by other years, I will probably pack up my scribbles and wander into the sunset til April 2023 now, but one never knows 😉 please consider subscribing to my blog if you’ve been enjoying it, and when the notion does take me to post again you will be one of the first to know!

Take care, big hugs to all, and I’ll maybe catch you later!

Monty X

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Hi 😊

Here we are on the second last day of Maureen’s poetry prompts, again!  My fifth year of writing a poem a day for the month of April is nearly at an end…I really do think it goes by faster every year.

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as a “curse” you’ve lived with (your grandmother’s insistence on giving you a new and completely creepy porcelain doll for every birthday, a bad singing voice, etc.).” [ https://www.napowrimo.net/day-twenty-nine-8/]

Being in my mid-forties, and addled by hormones as I almost-permanently feel at the moment, I’m not sure these are very wise probes into how I think about my life.  But I tried to keep the poem from extending into several pages 😉

An innocent, taken to heart

Such a safe, auspicious start:

Many adults to flow between,

Her cute appeal seemed evergreen.

But all good roses have their thorns,

School and life can leave you torn

And, through the holes, we sometimes see

A darker core reality.

Though blessed with blonde and bouncy curls,

And soon creative bent unfurled;

So too did she often possess

Bottomless grief, hard to express.

This melancholy in her soul

Liked whit’ling at her hopes and goals;

Haunted this pretty, lively girl

And kept ‘potential’ in a whirl…

Last day of NaPoWriMo for 2022 tomorrow, meet you back here for that!

Take care, all 🙂

Monty X

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Hi!

Today’s prompt challenged me to write a concrete poem:

“In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics the topic of the poem.”  Day Twenty-Eight (napowrimo.net)

Depending on what device/browser you are viewing my offering on, you may or may not be able to tell, but I tried to shape today’s poem into a cloud.  I have put a forward slash at the end of each line to help with the sense of rhyme.  I’ve also written the poem out ‘normally’ below my cloud 😉

I wanted to be comfort, tend to

pain/ Wave a welcome umbrella in the rain/

I wanted to be loved for being me/ Passionate, a whirlwind,

also kindly./ But now I’ve spent my Thursday tired and torn/In

three-day-old Pyjamas, and I mourn./ This chronic lack of progress, weighty woes/

Make all my courage plummet to my toes./ Birds holler from the boughs ‘bout Spring’s

bounty/ And bursting leaves scream “opportunity!”/ I’d so much like to

walk the world today/ But hidden things keep getting in my way./

How can I be so loving yet so numb?/ I shake my head at why

 I have become/ A source of contradiction and sad words/

When I ‘should’ be as chirpy as those birds.

I wanted to be comfort, tend to pain,

Wave a welcome umbrella in the rain.

I wanted to be loved for being me:

Passionate, a whirlwind, also kindly.

But now I’ve spent my Thursday tired and torn,

In three-day-old Pyjamas, and I mourn;

This chronic lack of progress, weighty woes

Make all my courage plummet to my toes.

Birds holler from the boughs ‘bout Spring’s bounty

And bursting leaves scream “opportunity!”

I’d so much like to walk the world today

But hidden things keep getting in my way.

How can I be so loving yet so numb?

I shake my head at why I have become

A source of contradiction and sad words

When I ‘should’ be as chirpy as those birds.

I hope all of your skies have been clear today.  Take care and I’ll be back for the penultimate day of NaPoWriMo 2022, tomorrow!!

Monty X

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Boo! 😉

Almost 4 solid weeks of writing poetry have passed, now!

 “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.” [from Day Twenty-Seven (napowrimo.net)]

Having looked into a few more of Brown’s poems, I see that he doesn’t always keep his line at the end identical to the first – see this poem. But, within that poem, he does make the repeated lines identical! So I decided to keep 10 syllables to each line, incorporate rough repeating lines, and make the last line pretty close to the first… 😉

So: what if I’d the sense to be so brave:

Not hatched some beautiful children at all?

Children I love enough to stem beauty

Filtering through me; unbidden, flowing.

My filtered flow would delight readership,

Of strangers – thousands unhugged by my arms;

Arms now stripped of hug hanker by Covid

Only filled by the children I have spawned,

Childish toys, now, my ring of makeshift friends,

Marooned upon an island flecked with gold.

My golden years a way off, green behind;

These settling, middling, comfy-restless days.

My unsettling, and beautiful, entwined!

I’m wondering: in which sense that’s not brave…?

This is definitely not the easiest of poetic forms! I’ve tweaked and tampered a lot with this one since I started it just after lunch.  It was not a 15-minute wonder, that’s for sure.  I’m posting it before midnight so that I don’t keep myself awake tapping at it into the small hours!

Only 3 more days of NaPo to go!  Meet you here tomorrow 😉

Monty X

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HI!

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that recounts a dream or vision, and in which a woman appears who represents or reflects the area in which you live.”  [From: Day Twenty-Five (napowrimo.net)]

I took a slightly different approach to the word ‘area’ than that which was meant, I think:

Her tousled April hair

Softly sheds blossom petals and biscuit crumbs

‘Cross my freshly laundered sheets

as she whispers me awake.

I walk behind her,

Bare feet thrilling on the checkered marble floor;

Follow

Into a familiar room I’ve never seen,

Hung with the scent of smoke and perfume,

Leather and carpets,

Porch tile and laundry powder,

Dogs and car fresheners…

There she turns and gives me a knowing look

And I’m forced to hear the ripping

Of her metamorphosis,

As I focus on a chocolate sofa.

I refuse a conversation,

Even when the familiar voice

Gives up its pleading

And I hear her leave.

I pad to the easel,

Mash appropriate colours

From oozing carapaces,

Smear their sacrifice

Onto a canvas rent with sticks.

Until a hankie box appears,

And a kettle sings somewhere,

While I flick a random wing from under my nail.

Nice and cheerful, eh…?

‘See’ you tomorrow!

Monty X

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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 2^nd-18^th 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

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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

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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!

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

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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

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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]

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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!