Thepromptfor Day 20 was to write about a home/handmade gift I had received:
On an old Christmas tree
That has seen its fair share
Of just-saved almost-topplings
And general wear,
There are treasures all nestled –
They grow every year –
Because one special crafter
Thrives on Christmas cheer!
We are not talking alcohol,
Mince pies or ‘nog;
A mishap with turkey,
Or mistletoe snogs –
No! She gets all a-flutter
With glue, paper and cloth,
And wee jingly bells,
Some pipe cleaners (and fluff)
It’s all just so damn homely
To survey that tree;
Each single decoration
Seems golden, to me 😊
As a bit of a ‘maker’ myself (the poem is about my mum) I really do appreciate the time and effort that goes into any handmade offering. I love that a person must think about you a lot while making you something, so it is already infused with positivity and pleasing memories. The way I see it, crafters have forever imprinted a piece of themselves into the materials they use, because time is something none of us have enough of in this life (no matter how bored you may feel in lockdown…) and yet a ‘maker’ has chosen to encapsulate some of theirs in their art or craft in order to make you feel loved 😊
The kids have great fun decorating our tree every year – and Christmas 2019 they really seemed to take an interest in telling me which deccies they remembered and why. Here you can see not only my mum’s lovely creations peeking out, but also sourdough offerings from the kids’ nursery days, my grumpy fairy I knitted over a decade ago, and various wee knick knacks others have given us over the years. It may look a jumbled mess to many, but I wouldn’t have our tree any other way 😉
Are you crafting in these times of social isolation? Do you have a cherished recipient in mind?
Big hugs, stay safe, and I’ll ‘see’ you for Day 21’s prompt!
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!
…our optional prompt challenges you to write a poem based on a “walking archive.” What’s that? Well, it’s when you go on a walk and gather up interesting things – a flower, a strange piece of bark, a rock. This then becomes your “walking archive” – the physical instantiation of your walk. If you’re unable to get out of the house (as many of us now are), you can create a “walking archive” by wandering around your own home and gathering knick-knacks, family photos, maybe a strange spice or kitchen gadget you never use. One you’ve finished your gathering, lay all your materials out on a tray table, like museum specimens. Now, let your group of materials inspire your poem! You can write about just one of the things you’ve gathered, or how all of them are all linked, or even what they say about you, who chose them and brought them together. [From here]
but unfortunately I read it after I was firmly ensconced under my duvet (and laptop)…so I improvised and wrote about what Youngest presented me with after his walk.
Cheat? Yes.
Bovvered? Nah…
A walk with your dad
And a bike with a loose chain.
There, in your hand,
Are flowers. Face a cheeky grin.
3 little weeds but
Enough for a Mother’s smile:
Lost in my thoughts,
Now aware of my glowy child.
Tumbling curls and
Happy for your compliments,
You love the colours, though
Not crazy for the weedy scents.
I swill a trifle tub
And now there’s a ‘vase’
Elevating those sweet offerings
To last a few more days.
I definitely will be storing up the proper poem ponder-fest for another day when I am more ‘free’ and able to actually linger outside of my own garden without feeling like everyone thinks I am flouting regulations 😉 being someone who has been known to hug strangers pretty regularly, and stand chatting for hours, it is still a strange thing to be clock-watching and crossing roads/traversing grass verges so often in order to give people a wide berth and observe the one hour rule.
I’m glad our kids are taking the restrictions seriously, I’m happy to report that they have relinquished their pavement-hogger ways without much protest, bless them.
Anyway, enjoy your walks if and when you manage to get them, and as always: big hugs, stay safe…
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!
I challenge you to write a poem in which one or more flowers take on specific meanings.
It then gave me a link to a book of flower connotations to peruse. I read up on the meaning and usage of the herb I had settled upon, then wrote a poem trying to incorporate those.
She tended my fevered brow,
Bade me drink from her drafts
Steeped in hushed folklore
And community whispers.
“The herb of angels” she said
Waving the white blooms
Ritualistically
Over my head.
I will paint her in the garden,
While the fairies run and hide
From the wind chime toll.
Not sure if that hit any mark whatsoever, but there we are 😉
Keep on washing those hands and hanging in there, and I’ll ‘see’ you for Day 12…
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!
“First, make a list of ten words. You can generate this list however you’d like – pull a book off the shelf and find ten words you like, name ten things you can see from where you’re sitting, etc. Now, for each word, use Rhymezone to identify two to four similar-sounding or rhyming words”
I enlisted the help of my old palhttps://randomwordgenerator.com/ to come up with the initial ten words, then found the ‘rhymes’ as tasked. I have put the original random words in bold throughout my poem, and underlined the ones I chose from those presented as ‘rhymes’.
In a revolutionary (but scary) move
The huge human system
Was given licence
To stop.
Like nature’s subterfuge,
Suddenly our meristems
Were allowed to burst from creative soil.
Without the usual toil,
Some perfect thoughts
Pushed past stubborn egos.
And Spring was seen
For the privilege it always is.
Slowing our usual dictation
And engaging in consultation
With this state of homeo…station
Could be the levelling basis
For metamorphosis.
Well, I feel that was a poem firmly pointing to the present and future, not trapped in the past 😉
What do you think we will learn about our usual way of conducting ourselves through this period of social distancing? Do you predict that humankind will build on any knowledge we glean, or do you think this time will just become a “where were you when…” talking point that loses its introspective spin offs down the years?
As always, I hope you all remain safe and well – and I’ll come back with my response to Day 4’s prompt as soon as I can!
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!
So! I wandered off for a few months again, it would seem!
But I come back to this blog in March 2020 with a rather different world outside my safe little home, a situation that we didn’t know was brewing back in November 2019.
I hope that wherever you are reading this, you and yours are safe and well, and your family has not been hit too devastatingly with this illness sweeping the globe. I send virtual hugs to everybody, and have nothing but admiration for those of you still out working in key positions, keeping your fellow humans as fed, protected and medically cared for as you possibly can <3 thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone out risking their own wellbeing to serve others. You truly are angels.
We at the Comfy Restless residence are living up to the name nicely here in Scotland after our first week of lockdown 😉 We are incredibly fortunate in that hubby can easily work from home and I am the chief kid wrangler anyway. Of course it is harder keeping ‘home harmony’ when it kinda feels like a holiday and yet the kids are meant to still be looking at schoolwork – and when there are tight restrictions on how we conduct ourselves outside – but our income is secure, we live in a fab community that cares about us, and none of our household are considered to be in a high-risk category for any symptoms we get turning nasty on us. We know far too many families can’t say the same, and we really hate that.
So: if you’re struggling or grieving, overwhelmed – or anything in between – my heart goes out to you. Feel free to send me a comment, or PM my Facebook page, if you need an ear. I have an energetic 7 and 9 year old here charging about giving me cheek and attitude, so feel free to share any parenting woes, too! 😉
I will be participating in NaPoWriMo again this April, and posting my daily ditties around the chaos of the kids being at home for the foreseeable. I don’t know what frivolous topics may be cast up in my poetry, but please believe that I am watching the news with horror as the global death toll goes up, I am hoping for a swift vaccine and I can’t get over how selfless our medical professionals are for being brave enough to endure the swathes of critically ill people and fight the infection, even when they may succumb themselves.
I am hoping to concentrate on brighter things here in the main, however. I think we may all need it?
So, starting tomorrow, I will write a poem a day for a month, using the prompts from the NaPoWriMo site. I will also aim to actually post my endeavours on the correct day – kids permitting 😉
Catch you in my next post! Take care and please stay safe.
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!
I am a bit late this week with a post, time has marched ahead of me as usual. I hope you all had a good weekend?
The poems I am going to share today both came from my dabblings with the Randomlists generator on the 21st, in my writing session after my last post. The first poem floated up after listening to some Mindvalley talks on YouTube (especially by Vishen Lakhiani) and the second just popped into my head from the words I was presented with, as often happens.
I hope you enjoy them 😊
Prefer Beg Massive Library Stretch Donkey Guiltless Sisters Story
I prefer to meditate,
Then I feel I do not have to beg
For inspiration.
Instead, I am handed it
From the massive library of human consciousness –
Melded together in a new form
That seems a stretch for my mind.
But it is really the universe
That does the donkey work.
And I can sit here:
Revered and yet guiltless of fraud,
Pulled in the right directions
By a force greater than any of us.
Come, my soul sisters and brothers,
Let my story wash over you
And bid you strive for greater things.
Volleyball Sheet Calm Jam Lush Injure Collect Next Tempt
The smell of the ink
Made me think of long-ago Sundays
With my dad propped against the sun lounger
Hiding from our games of volleyball;
Turning each smudged sheet
While cultivating calm.
I would keep him company sometimes,
Dribbling strawberry jam
Down my t-shirts
While he pointed out the best football players
Or read to me a bit.
Our un-lush grass
Would see me injure myself a lot:
The smallest body
Jumping for the ball.
He would collect up my limbs,
Count them theatrically
And put me down next to him;
Tempt my smiles back
With sweet treats or songs.
It doesn’t matter how old I get,
Those memories keep me whole.
* WordPress seems to be messing about with the size and position of my images today, but hopefully you get the idea…
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!
Sometimes, I feel the random word generators I use forget about the chaos they are supposed to be subjected to and just push trope offerings directly into my brain instead.
Today I thought I’d share two crime poems I was ‘handed’ over the last week or so:
Sharp Pistol Electric Block Diplomat Circle Tiny Sink Limousine
The sharp pain said:
“Ouch! Pistol-whipped head!!”
I did not attack
Cos the world went black.
Bright electric light
Served to block my sight
When I came back to;
I didn’t see who
The – diplomat – was
Labouring his cause.
That circle of pain
Still my main complaint:
Some tiny, sick breaths
To control my stress…
When that hand came near
I moved through the fear
Felt my teeth sink in
And…
Adrenalin…
Broke the flimsy chair,
Spoilt his gelled up hair,
Untied both my wrists
Let fly with my fists.
Lackeys stood no chance
As my rage advanced.
Then I fled that scene
In their limousine.
I see the first piece as a Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote scenario, and the second more as a Michael Westen from Burn Notice type scrape to get into?!
What TV programmes did they make you think of? Let me know in the comments 😉
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!
Last night I wrote four pieces using random words, and the following was my favourite. Hubby says that it is basically a sketch. I have laid it out like a poem, but given the female speaker dark red text and the male blue. That way you can decide what it is for yourself, while still being able to follow it 😉
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!
I am sitting with my milky cup of tea, looking out of our Eldest’s window at bright November sunshine this morning. I dug out the quirky china mug that my Auntie bought me for my (second, I think?!) pregnancy and I am savouring how it keeps my caffeine hit warmer than other mugs.
The sky is the colour of a happy watercolour wash, and it is peppered by the snowflake stickers we stuck on the glass a few Christmases ago – Eldest asked to keep them there, so we did. There are also still some of the chalk pen doodles from a few years ago, because he finds them nice to look at and I’m not picky about how it appears from outside.
I am not an Autumn lover, but I can appreciate it has beauty in it. The colours can be breathtaking, the symbolism raw – and the general lean towards knitwear, layers and crafting obviously works in my favour 😉
I really should share a happy poem for this gorgeous-yet-frosty day…but the generator had other ideas.
This feeling of being an imposter, hiding in plain sight.
Trapped in a blizzard of shoulds
Unsure which way is up.
Phenomenal self-doubt descends:
A locust storm munching
On all the harvest
You once thought you could count on.
Distancing oneself
From all who like to think they matter
Becomes a way of life.
At first it feels rude,
But the relief becomes addictive.
That liberatingsilence in one’s head
Is better than any mere drug.
Maybe I’ll write a happy ditty tonight, when I think back on how nice it is sitting in a sun spot having cleared off our Eldest’s desk while he is at school. How decadent it feels settling to apply myself to my creative passions in daylight; as the dust motes gather on all surfaces and the washing whirls in its endless rumbly rounds… 😉
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!
I have been at the random word generators again, but this time I liked the words that Randomlists gave me so much that I used them two days in a row! The result was a poem and a story, which are below. Enjoy!
(As a quick note on the poem, ‘greet’ can mean ‘to cry’ in Scots)
He would always wave to greet them before sticking out his thumb. Sometimes he knew who the driver would be, he’d been doing this so long, but not always.
It would depend upon the company running the trucks, of course. There were some who had strict regulations these days about picking up extra weight, or stopping before scheduled to and so on. He described all of this as a supreme “pain in the posterior” that was damaging his way of life.
He claimed that he had travelled the whole country beside one trucker or another – worked in various places for a colourful succession of low life cheats or miserly drunks.
He sat writing what he said were songs in a beaten up notebook marinated in the vegetable soup he always ordered. The manager asked him if he could sing once, and whether his old guitar could still do a turn. He said he’d give it a go, and we made good money on the bar that night – he definitely looked the part in his shabby slept-in clothes and with that defiant twinkle to his eye.
I haven’t seen him for a few years, however. There were reports he’d struck gold somewhere doing…something…but no one I’ve talked to has what I’d call concreteknowledge of his whereabouts.
So, I continue to serve cake in this lil backwater place, give free coffee top-ups and hope he blows in again someday soon. I have made a pact with myself that I’ll tell him next time instead of making small talk awkwardly and hanging around waaay too much. Maybe he sensed trouble and that’s why he bailed? Mum has always said that’s what his father was like, too.
Maybe I’ll just have to settle into the thought of wearing this floofy pink-striped apron for at least another year? If he hopes to wait me out he’ll find I can be juuust as stubborn as him.
And that’s all for today, folks! Have you been doing any art or other creative goodness recently that you would like me to come and experience? Please post a link to your blog or website in the comments below this post 🙂
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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