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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
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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 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 18
Hello!
Hope you are all well?
The prompt for today was:
to write a poem based on the title of one of the chapters from Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. The book’s table of contents can be viewed using Amazon’s “Look inside” feature.
[from here]
I chose the title “catching myself” and actually wrote a few poems trying to ‘catch’ a thought. None of them please me, but the below is probably the best of a bad lot:
I can’t trust my reality:
staring into eyes that are not mine.
Wearing dull clothes.
And a generic, pouched skin
(as if I bought it
with some giftcard)
My movements: backwards.
My motives: blurred.
Catching myself thinking: “that reflection must be me…?”
I gravitate instead
into the arms of my children’s chattiness.
I drink them in,
wishing 40 years could fall from me.
Running wild and free,
two madcap big brothers
showing me the ropes.
I’d still be a third wheel,
but I’d probably squeak less.
Annnnnd tomorrow is another day 😊
Take care, and hopefully I’ll get the rest of the week’s posts out before lunchtime each day as the kids are back at school as from tomorrow! I can’t really believe we’re going into the summer term already, the last of P3 and P6 for our boys ☹ They are getting far too big…
Monty X
[author’s own pics]
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 08
Hi
I hated today’s prompt. I awoke later than planned and didn’t get the time to really sit with the feelings that came up for me, either:
I call this one “Return to Spoon River,” after Edgar Lee Masters’ eminently creepy 1915 book Spoon River Anthology. The book consists of well over 100 poetic monologues, each spoken by a person buried in the cemetery of the fictional town of Spoon River, Illinois.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to read a few of the poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead. [from NaPoWriMo.net]
I scribbled another poem that was whispering to me, but it wasn’t related.
My sons barrelled in around 8.45am and found me staring out of my bedroom window with tears on my cheeks, and I couldn’t explain that my thoughts are with a friend facing her grief head on today, as well as with those the pandemic has touched, and my younger self, and with all the tellers of the stories of loss and pain I have ever heard. Where does one start with that?!
The boys were offering hugs, so I gladly took them, but it all soon descended into a drama about Nerf Guns (!) (If you have seen the Snickers advert with the Gremlin, you will understand why Eldest is not at his best before breakfast! 😉)
So anyway, I had read the parts of the specified anthology that talked about the Pantier family, and couldn’t really get into it. I wrote half a ‘poem’ before the kids came through, and half after they went to get themselves fed (eventually. Why do they refuse so much?!).
I don’t want to play about with what I scribbled, I just want to post it up and move on. I hope tomorrow’s prompt is a kinder one!
Welcome to the pit
Where my hushed bones lie in order,
No longer protesting
At my wasted energies.
Gone is the womb that held
Your beginnings, wrapped in my second born.
Gone is the brain we prized,
Gone is the perfumed flesh,
– my laugh
– my tears.
My spark is out.
How much do you love me now?
Urgh 🙁
In happier news (!!) Eldest really enjoyed the Fortnite-themed shenanigans in the park with his friends yesterday. It was lovely to hear our boys (Youngest went too) relating all their team manoeuvres and near-misses to both sets of (slightly confused) grandparents over the phone 😉 I’m so glad another mum suggested I booked them in for the event! Poor Eldest never got a party last year for hitting double figures, but he’ll definitely remember his 11th .
We were also doorstepped by some friends later, and the naughty twosome gave both our boys presents. I always feel a little guilty for having bestowed birthdays just eight days apart, but our friends and family are lovely about it! I dread to imagine what any joint 21st/18th party will look like, however! I think I’ll move out until that hangover subsides from them…
Take care, and I’ll ‘see’ 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 07
Hello there! 😊
It is Eldest’s birthday, he’s a whole eleven years old. Not sure quite what to feel about that, but yesterday’s Harry Potter viewing went well and we all enjoyed our ‘cinema snacks’ too.
I have been up for about an hour (it’s 7.10am), the rest of the house is snoozing peacefully…we’ll see how long that lasts while I write this up 😉
There were two possible prompts to go with on the NaPoWriMo site today, and they were short poetry forms so I attempted both. The prompt said:
…there are many…syllable-based forms. Today, I’d like to challenge you to pick from two of them – the shadorma, and the Fib.
It then went on to describe the first form:
The shadorma is a six-line, 26-syllable poem (or a stanza – you can write a poem that is made of multiple shadorma stanzas). The syllable count by line is 3/5/3/3/7/5. So, like the haiku, the lines are relatively short.
I actually wrote this first one second, but no matter 😉
I light up,
fill a grey room with
pencil-etched
spider scrawl.
What clarity I’ve gleaned here,
Whittling at my soul!
 I love this pic that I took in our local park on 16th November 2020. It quietly says a lot to me.
There is then an explanation of the second form (on the NaPoWriMo site):
Like the Shadorma, the Fib is a six-line form. But now, the syllable count is based off the Fibonacci sequence of 1/1/2/3/5/8. You can link multiple Fibs together into a multi-stanza poem, or even start going backwards after your first six lines, with syllable counts of 8/5/3/2/1/1.
Well! I am allowed to write a form one way, then reverse it?! You can see why I originally chose to play with the Fib first 😉
A
dove
coos low.
Woodpigeon’s
slow-stirring, ruffling
feathers in dismay at dawn’s light.
As I take pictures of him sleep,
my child transitions:
another
year has
blessed
us.
Enjoy yourself, whatever you get up to today, and I’ll come back here tomorrow with tales of birthday celebrations and some more poetry. The menfolk are all still quiet, so I’m off to get this published quickly…!
Hugs!
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 03
Howdy-doody-oh?!
Welcome to day three, where the prompt asked me to spend quite a bit of time setting up the material for my poem:
Today, I’d like to challenge you to make a “Personal Universal Deck,” and then to write a poem using it. The idea of the “Personal Universal Deck” originated with the poet and playwright Michael McClure, who gave the project of creating such decks to his students in a 1976 lecture at Naropa University. Basically, you will need 50 index cards or small pieces of paper, and on them, you will write 100 words (one on the front and one on the back of each card/paper) using the rules found here.
If you follow the link in the quote above, you will see why the rules necessitated me getting a good chunk of time to myself. Indeed, number 11 even reads:
Select the words in isolation, preferably alone, with no distractions, in candlelight. Approximate a meditative state. Even the cat must not bother you.
Well, I don’t have a cat, but I do have an Eldest son. He could be heard rustling about in his brother’s room at 6.38am this morning. Upon being questioned (and informed of the time), he rolled his eyes and told me in a not-so-inside voice that he was searching for a book. He then proceeded to flounce back into his own room (with a few rumpled pages of a comic), complaining of a sore throat, promising that if some honey was administered, he’d go back to sleep (which he categorically did not do) and generally felt slighted that he couldn’t barge into others’ rooms whenever he chose! My morning only went downhill from there, and so here I am rushing to get my laptop free of my tappings before Youngest commandeers it for his Fortnite forays at 3pm.
How dare I try and carve out some morning quiet time to be creative?!
Having made my deck of words and roped Youngest into drawing me out 9 cards at lunchtime (Eldest was still in no mood to participate) I finally had all I needed to compose my poem.
It took me about seven minutes to write.
I wonder why…?! 😉
Violent, Breathe, Envelop, Loquacious, Connect, Geometry, Tactile, Yarn, Silky
Violent protests meet my small attempts to breathe.
We envelop them in love,
Only to suffer their loquacious assaults.
I had thought my striving to connect
Would mean they understood me, too.
(It seemed just simple geometry –
A tactile triangle of fulfilled needs?)
But my intertwining of words
Is not seen to be as worthy
As, say, my playing with yarn;
That wooly/silky/squishy/fuzzy/touchy-feely stuff
Is OBVIOUSLY good…
**Sigh**
Big hugs, 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 17
Howdy do!
Today, I challenge you to write a poem that features forgotten technology
Whispered the NaPoWriMo site to the poetic part of my brain….
I won it in a competition,
Got my picture in the paper
Grinning; with my hands clutched around the unopened box.
I suddenly had a source of isolation
In others’ words
(And from them…)
I could wander with song!
My Grandfather introduced me to the lyrics of Queen,
His neat capitals
On a black and beige cassette;
A gesture I really appreciated
Despite the sarky comment:
TO HER MAJESTY – THE QUEEN, FROM GRANDAD.
Someone had obviously tested
That my prize worked:
A Chris De Burgh tape
Was nestled within.
Grandad approved of him, too.
So: I went for many a walk, man!
Dancing in public was always a risk…
 Maybe more smiling than grinning?! 1987, 9 years old, (I’m the one in the middle) having drawn a “house of the future” that was also a rocket. Mum said it was my descriptions of it that swung the deal 😉 Do you have a gadget that you remember fondly from your childhood? Please tell me about it in the comments, or link to your NaPo offering for Day 17. I’d love to read it!
Big hugs, stay safe, and off we go to Day 18!
Monty X
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2020 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 02
Hey there 😊
Today’s optional prompt, on the NaPoWriMo site, was to “write a poem about a specific place” and to include details to make it feel real to the reader.
Imprint
I stared at the flowers on the wallpaper
And they looked back.
I traced their faces
With imaginary ink,
Whilst sat on the loo.
I look for similar designs
In swathes of
Vintage material.
And a Liberty print,
Or crisp gingham check,
Can catapult me back
To the smell of the tile
In that childhood porch.
(Always that smell!)
And a black marble’s swirl
On a worktop…
But,
Somehow,
The patterns I seek
Are not available to buy.
As we watch more and more Dr Who while the kids are at home all day, I keep seeing ‘portals’ to the past everywhere and reflecting on their significance. I feel this is shaping up to be a bit of a theme…but there are 28 poems to go in the month, so maybe Day 3’s will veer down another path 😉
I hope you are all well and taking time to get creative yourselves? Take care, and I’ll see you in my third NaPoWriMo post…
Monty X
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2020 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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