A Comfy Kind Of Restless

Hello! How are you?!

It’s day 1 of NaPo agaaaain! Yaaay!

Apparently it is the 20^th year of this poetry challenge (and I think it is my…sixth?…time participating in it?) so I hopped over to Maureen Thorson’s site as soon as I got up, and read the first prompt:

“They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but they never said you can’t try to write a poem based on a book cover — and that’s your challenge for today! Take a look through Public Domain Review’s article on “The Art of Book Covers.”… With any luck, one or more of these will catch your fancy, and open your mind to some poetic insights.”

I zoomed down the pictures and alighted on this one:

Then my brain put together a story for the woman throughout the rest of the day…

She fanned the flames of discontent,

An eye for detail always bent

On foraging a social scene

For fodder, so she could be mean.

Natur’lly tall and slim was she,

Formidable and uppity –

She sneered at, then looked down on, most

Smiled for (but despised) her hosts.

Influential, old-moneyed,

Dismissive around those in need;

She could not countenance do-gooders,

And dodged obsequious new ‘suitors’.

Dancing, singing, art or craft,

To this closed woman all was chaff;

She had the skill but not the inkling

For poetry or iv’ry tinkling.  

Her gifts horticulturally,

Served her in society,

For people came from miles around

To wander in her estate’s grounds.

With unguessed generosity

Her household would provide the tea,

And many tables would be set

For contemplation, tete-a-tete.

She’d transform in those hallowed beds –

Pruning, wat’ring, deading heads –

Skirts all muddied, boots fair caked,

She planted, dug – dreamed as she raked.

Her flowers were her source of pride:

With others’ children by her side

She’d give free lessons, proffer Latin,

As sim’lar ladies discuss satin.

Many kind schemes she let take place

Enveloped in her work’s embrace;

However inadvertently

Benevolent she came to be.

And when at last, care-worn and grey,

The Good Lord took her far away,

The vicar was then inundated

With eulogies for the belated.

Adults with children of their own

Reminisced about the things they’d grown

When that ‘sweet lady’ held their hand

Gave time to help them understand.

Her passion scattered smiles and seeds –

Enthusiasm roots and breeds –

Although oft adults peaked her ire

Children thrived around her fire.

I had meant to ease myself into the first prompt (as I am pretty busy this weekend), but obviously that is not what happened 😉 I even got a bit emotional about this fictional character, haha!

Take care, and I hope to catch you tomorrow!

Monty X

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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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How Do?!

The sky is a light grey outside of my windows, but I have been watching a very industrious robin flipping over small parts of our back grass in order to line her nest.  It must be hard building the intricate cradle, doing all the incubating, and then looking after several kids at once with just a small beak to work with!

I directed my thoughts to Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt, fully expecting to be able to use this observation:

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that contains at least one of a different kind of simile – an epic simile. Also known as Homeric similes, these are basically extended similes that develop over multiple lines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they have mainly been used in epic poems, typically as decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject (see, by way of illustration, this example from Milton’s Paradise Lost). But you could write a complete poem that is just one lengthy, epic simile, relying on the surprising comparison of unlike things to carry the poem across. And if you’re feeling especially cheeky, you could even write a poem in which the epic simile spends lines heroically and dramatically describing something that turns out to be quite prosaic.”  [From: Day Twenty-Six (napowrimo.net)]

But it turns out that my mind had other plans. *Shrugs*

As a mighty Archer of old,

destined from infancy to defend their king against

the most ardent adversaries –

willing to give their life to shield others from

villainy and injustice –

took up their bow in a culmination of their practiced skill,

calculating precise angles as the string grew taut;

So too did our nine-year-old hero

close one fire-filled eye

and send a mushy missile

hurtling from the tip of his fork

until it met its cushioned target:

the left posterior cheek

of his unsuspecting mother.

I hope that you get more rest than a Robin, and dodge all mushy missiles today.

Take care, and I’ll meet you back 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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Hello!

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to channel your inner gumshoe, and write a poem in which you describe something with a hard-boiled simile. Feel free to use just one, or try to go for broke and stuff your poem with similes” [from: Day Twenty-Four (napowrimo.net)]

I’m not someone who indulges in hard-boiled crime as a rule (even when I used to care for the Crime Section in an Edinburgh branch of Waterstones back in the noughties, and would chat to Alan Guthrie in the staffroom sometimes) so I was a bit stuck.  I decided to just write whatever nonsense jumped into my brain, and read it back to myself with the New York accent you always hear in the movies.

Works for me 😉

It had been one of those days

When just the sun streaming through the glass

Had sent her mind into spasms –

Seeing hapless cooked kitties on windowsills;

Steam rising from the bones

Like with succulent chicken meat

‘Til she could almost taste it.

She then balked at herself, because:

Who becomes hungry at the prospect of baked cat?!

Hot dogs maybe,

Onions sweating like Nora Batty’s ankles in summer;

Ketchup dripping down her arm, reminiscent of Uncle Jimmy’s

“Arterial accident” last June.

She wished she hadn’t gone there.

Fresh memories swarmed around the confines of her brain,

Tapping at the back of her eyeballs as if

She could let them back out to the sweet flowers

on her mantlepiece.

Stick with the flowers, Francie,

Keep thinking the happy thoughts;

He’ll be home soon and you can hide in his embrace

Like re-entering your mommy’s cloying swaddling cloth.

Well, I may not be that hard-boiled, but I did bake today…Empire Biscuits, at Youngest’s request…so I’m off to enjoy one with a cuppa!  Take care, all 😊

Monty X

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Greetings!

It’s Day 23 already!! Is it just me that feels this is all zipping past too quickly for another year?!

“Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and soundplay. They also have a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms.” [from: Day Twenty-Three (napowrimo.net)]

I read the poems that are linked further on in the prompt, and particularly liked this, and this one, too. 

I am me and she is she, but I liked what I came up with…anywee…

The glassward side

Of aging curtains –

Sometimes concertinaed,

Sometimes elongated –         

When gazing on blossom

May be fair elated

But so too must they

See the black cat cry

abated

by

A cold glass of water;

Or worse:

A car-tastrophe.

They cannot shut themselves off,

These staring sheathes

But keep up their

Janus existence

Constantly contemplating

All our turning leaves,

And opening on our dramas.

Can you guess that I am writing in front of a window again? Meet you back here for Day 24!  Take care, lovely readers 😊

Monty X

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Hi 😊

“In honor of today’s being the 22^nd day of Na/GloPoWriMo 2022, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that uses repetition.  You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.” [from: Day Twenty-Two (napowrimo.net)]

I couldn’t think what to write, so I wrote about that hanging potential 😉

Will I AaaatCHoOOo

A Haiku?

Or spontaneously spondee

Until all that is left

Are syllabicated shards

Of an ornery oration,

Spluttered by a sloshed Sybil?

See yas tomorrow… 

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!