Hey 🙂

Happy Easter, dear readers!!

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like The Color of Pomegranates and “City That Does Not Sleep,” incorporates wild, surreal images. Try to play around with writing that doesn’t make formal sense, but which engages all the senses and involves dream-logic.” [from the NaPoWriMo site]

I got to the end of the day and once more was extremely tired, so I think I was actually dreaming when I wrote this poem!  It’s a bit Enid Blyton meets nonense-y, which kind of fulfils the prompt?  Anyway, it also rhymes, which I thought was impressive for my attention span after lots of Easter fun with the boys in the (sunny!!!) back garden 😉

It is reminiscent of the stuff I used to write in early high school, come to think of it.  Awww, my subconscious mind is still semi-childlike (!!)

Oh, and because I was supposed to make the poem a bit weird, I enlisted the Jimpix generator’s help, too…

We should have gorged upon their finest Malt

And eaten scabby horses

(A mammal most delicious when

The second of six courses)

Our location swiftly hidden from

The Pandicorn stampede,

(Our host-gnome having promised

Our safety was guaranteed)

We went onwards with our merry march,

Shown fairy-crafted arts.

Somewhere near humans’ Bradiford

Griffin dances made their start.

Showcasing colours various

With sequin-like great wings

Dragons rendered combustible

All elven garland strings…

But soon the time did come again

When we had to depart –

Step out of fae imaginings

Real life’s course once more to chart.

Ach, it’ll do 😉

Take care, and I’ll catch you later!

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Good Evening! 

“Our prompt for today (optional, as always), takes its inspiration from the idea of a poem as a sort of tiny play, which can be performed dramatically….today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own dramatic monologue. It doesn’t have to be quite as serious as Browning or Shakespeare, of course, but try to create a sort of specific voice or character that can act as the “speaker” of your poem, and that could be acted by someone reciting the poem” [from the NaPoWriMo site]

I love writing the kind of poem that could be performed!  I wrote this one and gave myself the idea for this blog, and I have written quite a few others over the years!

But what to make today’s ‘dramatic monologue’ about?  I was really a bit stumped. 

Motherhood again?  Some deep dark loss?

Enter: oh hallowed Random Word Generator…

Hear ye, Hear ye:

Turn thy learn-ed eye

Upon this stunning replica

Of the Palace of Versailles!

Praise the manufacturer!

As winner of thine heart –

No small – no paltry residence

This wondrous work of art!

Storage? Boundless enclaves

Does this beauty here possess!

One could shelter a whole village

At this imposing address!

Such ostentatious living

Is not for the rank and file;

But they’ll all scheme to be like you

(Though they may hiss their denial)

So come: join me for the viewing of

This jewel of properties;

I can think of no circumstance

Where it could fail to please…!!

Who knew watching this news report today would prove to be so useful?! 😉

Take care and I’ll be baaaack, dearhearts…

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Hi 🙂

Today I decided to revisit the (double) Tetractys style of poem, using both today’s prompt from the Global/National Poetry Writing Month site and the nine words Randomlists’ generator gave me. 

I like a challenge…

To explain: I wrote a series of 40-syllable 10-line verses (with a syllable layout of 1,2,3,4,10,10,4,3,2,1) around the theme of a story that unfolds over a long-ish time period and incorporates the words below!!

As

Always

These are her

Habitual

Army of thoughts: negative troops of pain

Hop between recollections, turning her

Neuroscience

Toxic. Her

Friendships

Stale.

There

Was once

This lovely

Man, one kid each,

A comfortable house…but inside she

Would compare unfavourably, always

Sure happiness

Was just a

Fatal

Boast.

The

Children

Grew anxious

The man: distant.

She would judge herself harshly but still strive

To paddle against their tide; switch comfort

For perfection,

Teamwork for

Solo

Ire.

Proud

In a

Tight way (for

Failure could loom)

She stored up stories to keep them humble;

Baked and gave. Inauthentically kind.

Good manners with

Smile plastered;

Practiced

Act.

‘Grand’

Kids bore

Grander ones,

That seldom greet

This lonely figure in her scrubbed box, with

More windows than walls.  She dusts their framed smiles

By the mountain

She’ll traverse

Before

Sleep.

Hopefully you like what I came up with, and it makes sense…!

Take care, and I’ll catch you tomorrow 🙂

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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!

Hey there!

Ok, we are on the second day of Global/National Poetry Writing Month!

On the site, participants have been challenged to write a poem that culminates in a question.

I thought it was time to face the Jimpix generator again – it always makes me enquire about the 
meanings of words, 
ask myself how the heck I make a cohesive narrative from the fodder it throws up, 
seek interesting ways to cobble together sentences and forage for the sense in the chaos… 

(I have learned that ‘gewgaw’ means ‘a (particularly useless) showy thing’,which tickled me)

He showed me a new gewgaw

Auntie had seen fit to buy

(I need more tat festering

Like a large thorn in my eye)

Her ploy had worked, however:

‘Waylon cuddles’ had ensued

(He rifled through her handbag

With his free hand, which was rude)

Picking through the hovel-y mess

Past Ruscles with his bone,

I then tried to serve dinner (and

Placate my rage hormones)

Husband appeared: the magic sis

Hastening his commute.

Raucous chat over parsnips,

(A floor filthy from his boots)

This man, that boy, this avalanche

Of ‘joy’…!

My brain disjoints.

I wear this weighty wedding ring –

But wonder: what’s the point?

I got a flash of an open-plan living/dining room and a newly-wed woman with PMT trying to entertain – totally at the end of her tether and regretting tying herself into being a wife/step-mum/sister in law…

Where would you have gone with this word selection?!

See you tomorrow 😉

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Hiya 🙂

The optional prompt for NaPoWriMo today is to write instructions in a poem. 

In my usual way, I have decided to consult the universe and ask it to…instruct?…me by means of a random word generator.  Today I used Textfixer.  It appeared to have a rather vicious agenda to begin with…!

If you want to woo me,

Don’t make each conversation a bloodsport.

Don’t escalate my voice to fever pitch,

As I bare each tooth

And scatter my fragile jigsaw under your menacing glare.

Trying to account

For the irregular edges

Takes all my energy.

Forever missing something,

A capsule erroneously opened.

This ‘white whale‘

That eludes even itself.

Tempt me in

With the fizz of your intellect;

Praise my efforts

To disguise how convertible

I know your fickle pleasure boat to be.

Does this read as instructions, or just commands?!  Spot the mixed metaphors too…!

No matter: that’s the first ‘official’ April 2019 poem done and dusted!  Hurrah!

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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 all!!

Yes, I know: it’s been almost six months since I showed up here and posted some of my ramblings…there are many ‘excuses’ that spring to mind, but it all comes under the umbrella of needing a break from the expectations I was putting myself under, and a yearning to explore my creativity without constraint.

It is the start of Global/National Poetry Writing Month tomorrow, however, and I thought that this was probably a good opportunity to get back into some regular blog writing again.  In the month of April, it is customary to write a poem a day and pop it up on one’s website for others to read. 

I have been trying to write at least 500 words a day in a document on my computer since the 18^th of February, just to see what comes out, and I have been dabbling in the odd Random Word Poem again, using one of the sites I used to frequent at the beginning of my blogging days. 

It is Mother’s Day in the UK today (I live in Scotland), and the second of the two poems I wrote in my practice yesterday fits nicely with this, I feel:

“Deer mum”,

It starts, but he has to think,

So he proceeds

To insert each finger

Slowly into his ear

One at a time;

The findings examined with care.

I think about the atmosphere

I left back ‘home’.

The plane swooping through clouds.

I listen for any sign

We might be in danger,

Hope we can depend

On Ben’s silent lack of Press…

My child decides on

“I love you!!!“

To end his epistle;

Enlists a medieval knight to

Hasten it across seats.

I finished listening to the prequel of “The Oxford Tearoom Mysteries” on Friday, and I think maybe it seeped into my poem a little, too.  It starts with a flight from Australia to England and hints at past lives…

I wonder what has happened between ‘Ben’ and the speaker in my poem? 

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Hey 🙂

Today I turned to Randomlists to whet my sludgy thoughts:

I make but a small mark

On this immense world;

My faint shows of heart

To date may not seem important.

Each feeble victory:

Another load dried

Another few words scribed

May seem ripe to wipe

From the tome of history.

But, though I perspire

On a small stage,

Cowering in creature comforts;

My pinions on each side

Are growing strong.

See you soon 😉

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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!

Hi!

I was not inspired to write anything by my journal prompt today, so I asked Textfixer for some fodder instead. 

I then wrote two similar poems, following my usual rules for each.  Which do you think works the best?

1.

In twelve more years,

There’ll be two decades’ worth

Of fermentation

Spilling over laptop screens,

Peeking out of bookshelves.

My sugar turning bitter:

‘Forbidden’ activity

Producing wealth at last.

The ultimate prank:

“Push forth life, take care of it,

Be the officer of its welfare;

Laser focus on the important

And find inner peace”

Many a frustrated cadaver

Would expound

(If allowed voice)

On how this is not real life.

2.

In twelve years:

Two decades mum.

What fermentation will I see?

If all is kept forbidden –

My sugar starved of oxygen –

A dark red run

Acidic and thin?

The prank of the push –

Motherhood:

The arresting officer of motivation,

Energy,

Identity,

Time.

My head full of laser scars:

Focus obliterated the inner world

With each task ticked off.

This walking cadaver

Stinks up every conversation;

Blue–lipped, slack–limbed

And hungry for brains.

I’m plumping for the second one 😉

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Hi 🙂

I have swapped the poem that I wrote today for this one that was written after the passing of Stephen Hawking in March of this year.

I have decided to use today’s poem elsewhere 😉

The sound of space

Seems familiar to me:

The tuneless roar

Whilst spinning in blackness –

Finally revelling

In the blue beauty of Earth

I hope that one bound by paralysis

Again found joy

In that sight.

Unshackled, weightless,

Tipping off his axis;

Finally gaining answers

He’d yet to uncover.

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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!

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!