A Comfy Kind Of Restless

Hiya!

The prompt asked me to look at the myth of Narcissus (a man so sure of his attractiveness that he harshly turns suitors away, then is punished by being made to fall in love with his (unattainable) reflection; eventually withering while staring at himself in a pool of water, and then being turned into the flower that bears his name).  The prompt goes on to say: “after reading the myth, try writing a poem that plays with the myth in some way”.

As I regularly traverse YouTube and Amazon looking for little positive nuggets to fill my head with, I have come across Louise Hay’s notion of ‘mirror work’.  It is a tool to garner self-love and acceptance, and it involves talking to one’s reflection.  It was on my mind a lot as I read The Self Care Project this week, so happily popped up again when contemplating this prompt!

Because you lied,

Because you put it all on me:

I here return.

I’m fighting not to look there

But I must

(The feeling of betrayal was too much)

I now try to love reflections:

A backward little fix

To show me what others’ tricks

Still make me miss.

This nemesis has been there all along

Their whispers, jeers and put-downs made ‘her’ strong;

I’m not sure these affirmations

Can help us get along…?

[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!

Hello!

It’s time for me to reveal what I came up with for the final part of this short story that I’ve been writing over 5 days, using the words that I roll with my Haikubes!

(Here are parts one, two, three and four that I ‘prepared earlier’, so you know what I’m talking about here!!)

Again I generated nine words that I had to use:

But I must make a small confession and admit that I took a total of 21.5 mins instead of 20 mins to write the part in blue (I managed to include 8 out of the 9 words in 20 mins though), then wrote the bit in purple in a further 3 mins (as I thought that particualr loose end needed to be addressed!). 

Hope you like it anyway!

Desperate   Love   But   Those   My   Tangle   Under   He   Shelter

Myla was suddenly some sort of aquatic acrobat.  Barely holding the pool noodle, she went back and forward in the water with a big smile on her face, eagerly heeding every command her instructor gave her – and gaining praise from all her little classmates into the bargain.

She was also beaming up at me at every opportunity, as if I was her best friend or something.  Her instructor kept giving me the thumbs up too, however, so I just decided to enjoy it all.

This tactic was going really well, until Myla decided to let go of her noodle, and slip like a seal under the water…

I stood up immediately, heart in my throat.  I could see her glide towards the bottom and turn around, but then she seemed to just stop.  The seconds ticked by, and I began waving both my hands above my head, pointing in an increasingly desperate way to her [seemingly] wiggly pink form at the bottom of the pool.

My feet started to move as I saw the instructor dive off the side…

Sarah and I charged down the steps, through the changing room and out onto the poolside; at a sprint I wasn’t even aware I was capable of.  Love is a powerful motivator.  We rounded the pillar by the foot-baths just in time to see Myla being hauled out of the water as if she weighed no more than a backpack, and some more of the complex staff running to take care of the other kids standing wide-eyed in the shallows.

I’m not sure, but I think I screamed as Myla was turned over onto her side, and I could see her eyes were closed.  Those memories that everyone says flash in their mind’s eye were definitely slide-showing through mine as I finally sank to my knees beside my child.

The instructor was moving the tangle of her ponytail from her cheek, and I instinctively started rubbing her back the way I had done when she’d had wind as a baby.  As I did so, she started coughing up a load of chlorine water, and I could see her eyeballs move under her lids.

Later, I managed to get her to our doctor as his last appointment of the day.  As he’d looked over her, the instructor had tried to reassure me that he thought Myla’s banged bonce was not too serious, but I just wanted to be sure.

I did have something to smile about, however, after the shock abated a little: out of concern, Myla’s instructor had slipped me his number (through the general emotion and panic I’d displayed).  It had taken shelter in my purse and, later that night, I was going to make that call…

A further bit of good news, on the Myla front, is that she has decided she wants to be a swimming instructor! Marco (isn’t that just a dreamy name?!) has totally proved my point to her: that swimming gives you superpowers, apparently!

So I’ll have to find some way to repay him for that little gem, too…

Annnd…that’s a wrap!! 

Was that noodle-y enough for you all?!  Did it display ‘a desire for’ something  enough…?

Let me know what you think in the comments, or by visiting one of my social media pages linked below. 

As is so often the case, I enjoyed writing this wee story; and I’m already devising how to tweak the method for the next one…thanks to Jane for the inspo!

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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!

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 :

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.

(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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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!

Hey There!

Today’s selection is from here.

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.

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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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!

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:

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…

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!

Hiya 🙂

Here’s today’s roll:

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.

Shiver through thunder swell – 

Livid crack –

My heart beats fast.

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!

Hi!

These are yesterday’s leftover kubes:

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!

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).

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!!

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!

Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter

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!

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…

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

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…!

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!!):

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!

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 😉

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!

Howdy-do!

My older brother-in-law (Hubby’s side) bought me a set of Haikubes for Christmas, having seen them in a bookshop and figuring they well suited my random poetry leanings! My inlaws are actually visiting us at the moment, so I got a chance to try out the cubes while my BIL could witness the results 😉

There are two dice printed (in red) with subject prompts, and the rest provide words that are one’s choices to make up Haiku/Senryu (a three line poem with the syllable structure 5-7-5).

I tried a first one in the way it was intended:

So the subject prompt is ‘a desire for’…

Watching hero hoped.

(They point behind you, sister)

He must have that girl.

There were so many tantalising word blocks left over from my throw of them all, however!!  I couldn’t just leave them there…so I compiled a second Senryu (it’s about a major human foible!) without a prompt:

Peace dancing clever…

Body, killed one wicked war:

cover waste with wise.

Then…well…the kids came to mind for a third wee crack at my (now dwindling) selection of cubes 😉

Sleeping marvel…or

Torture! Trouble! Heavy blocks!

(But so not simple)

So thanks BIL, that was definitely a gift that will keep me inspired!

(Stay tuned: Hubby’s youngest brother gave me a book about the kids’ Raspberry Pi 3.  I see fun with that in our near future!!)

Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter

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!