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Apr 20
Heylo!
Today’s Glo/NaPoWriMo prompt threw down this challenge:
“Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life.”
I loooove me a bit of dialogue!! 😀
Not sure you could call the below poetry, however – I think it is a blatant conversation/mini play thingy/scene from a story instead. But stuff it, I like how it turned out, though if I had more time I would probably tweak the start a bit.
“…I’m sick of all this pretending that I care about the little daily emergencies, the who said what to whom, the moods of my boss and…
No, mummy’s on the phone, no…”
“Hiya! Dat lucy?”
“Hi! Clever girl! How did you know?!”
“I hearded oo, my mummy likes-es oo…”
“Aww I like her too! Am I talking to her too much, honey?”
“No, no, she just grabbed the phone, sorry…off you go sweetheart…
Honestly! Kids!!! Where was I?”
“Boss crap”
“Yes, oh she’s a nightmare, Luce”
“Oooo, She! You have a new boss?”
“No, sorry, Hayley’s annoying me. Wants juice…SWEETHEART! I TOLD YOU NOOOO!!! She’s in the kitchen cupboard. HAY-leeeeey! Hang on I’ll have to go get her…”
*muffled negotiation*
“That’s the door!! It’s a madhouse here, wait a minute, I’ll take you along if you like?”
“Ok? Or I could call you later…?”
*sounds of walking, a scream of a frustrated child some way off*
“Hi!”
“Hello?”
“…oh thank you, why don’t you come in?…oh not at all, I was just going to put the kettle on anyway. Come in, come in!”
“Becky I’ll just go if that’s you got a visitor…? Becky…?”
“Oh, yeah I was just speaking to Lucy, you know, from toddler group? Yeah, yeah, that’s right, Hannah’s auntie”
“Becky…? Do you want me to let you go…?”
“I just need to pop out of the room a sec, the cupboard behind you has the biscuits, and I’ll pop the kettle on, see you in a sec…”
*hurried walking, voice changes to a hiss* “Luuuuce! Gary’s here!”
“Oooooh…wait…GARY Gary?!”
“Yes ‘Gary, Gary’!!! What do I do?!”
“Why did you invite him into your house, Becky?!”
“I don’t knooooow! I thought he was here to confront me, then when I realised he just came to give me a parcel he’d taken in, I panicked!!”
“Oh. My. God. What are you going to do?!”
“Lu-cyyyyy! I asked YOU that!!”
“Well I don’t know! You can’t very well deal with him with Hayley in the house!”
“I could get him in the other room…”
“Do you still have the carpet covered?”
“Yes”
“Well that might work, but how will you distract Hayley? And when will Steve be home?”
“Not for another two hours or so, he’s working late. Hayley could get the Disney Channel…”
“You need my bagging skills again? Say in half an hour?”
“Could you, hun? It would help me out, what with the tight timescale.”
“Ok. You called me on your burner phone though, right?”
“Of cooooourse I did!”
“Cool. See you soon then. Oh, and don’t get ick on your shoes this time, ok? If I have to hear another elegy for a damn pair of shoes…”
“Don’t worry, I’m indoors this time, silly!”
Until tomorrow, dear friends… 😉
[Pic is from here]
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Copyright © 2019 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
Hiya 🙂
“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that…presents a scene from an unusual point of view. Perhaps you could write a poem that presents Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery from the perspective of the apple. Or the shootout at the OK Corral from the viewpoint of a passing vulture. Or maybe it could be something as everyday as a rainstorm, as experienced by a raindrop”
[Glo/NaPoWriMo prompt, from here]
I have concealed myself
At the foot of your bed many times;
Waking to the dawn,
The dust,
Your steady breath at last.
You never discover my vigils.
You’ve not spoken to me in days.
I know how he hits you:
How your sobs sound
Through two floors
And many tight doors.
Why does he always return?
Why do you allow such violations of your peace?
He reeks of things
I’m not sure you quite fathom.
It’s hard to tell he ever came from you.
Your face last night looked different.
I know it made you flinch, but I just had to lick it clean.
What’s happening there, then…?
Catch you back here tomorrow 🙂
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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 13
Hi!
“Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something mysterious and spooky!”
Not one to deny the NaPoWriMo gods their fun, I came up with this wee ditty:
It’s eerily quiet
The playroom’s awash
With the sound of their nothing
And tidiness – gosh!
 One of the last schoolday cuddles of them being 8 and 5!
There’s none of the bickering/
Playing the fool
I do believe…
…what’s that…?
They’ve gone back to school?!!
Two weeks have gone by rather quickly, all in all, and I will be walking our boys down the road on Monday a ‘whole year’ older (and with a few sad little hugs along the way, no doubt). They are getting so BIG and, although it is rather full-on parenting 12+ hours every day for two weeks, the house will indeed be ghostly without them.
They will be off again on the 19th and 22nd for Easter, mind you – and so will hubby! 😉
I’ll see YOU here tomorrow, as it also marks the end of the second week of Glo/NaPoWriMo! Exciting!
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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 11
Hi 🙂
My optional prompt said:
“Today, taking a leaf from Elhillo’s work, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually?”
I can feel a bit of emotional turmoil coming on…
My ‘reality’ lies in a place far from here
(That I carry around every day)
In a flounce of blonde curls
In the twirl of a dress
In the unfettered rapture of play.
My ‘comfortable’ lies in the accepting smiles
Of a generation I still miss,
In a record’s crackle,
In the stories and songs;
In the slow and muted Sunday bliss.
My empathy mourns at too many graves.
Borne too early, it’s said from ‘misdeed’;
The silt of their follies
The sting of their regrets:
All that potential joy gone to seed…
In a church wrapped in mist, sits a being of light
(Who is male, because that’s what I craved)
He sees only my good,
I’m fin’lly understood!
He just loves: needs no deference or slave.
What do you feel are your roots…?
Meet you back here tomorrow to see what new poem originates from my keyboard!
(Yes, I am definitely missing my biros and pencils, but I am having to speed-write these as the kids are off…so it is straight into type at the moment!)
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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 06
Hello!
Today, write a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.
instructs the NaPoWriMo site on this: the sixth day of poem-scribbling in a row.
If I get up tomorrow at sunrise
Scrub out my fantastic to dos,
Tiptoe around putting clothes on
And leave without a “toodle-oo.”
I could just phone up a taxi
Ride out to somewhere quite new
Eat at a quiet lil café
Sample a pastry or two.
I could go shopping in London!
(If there was an early train down)
I’m sure I’d find someone to meet me
In case I got lost around town…
My husband would be a bit perplexed
To wake up and find me long gone –
But surely my Eldest won’t need me
To be there as his birthday dawns?!
Don’t worry, I’ve made a cake that requires to be filled and decorated tomorrow, and I need to act as the family’s personal paparazzo, so I’ll not be sneaking off in the morning 😉
Day six done! Almost a full week of writing accomplished already, woohoo!
(Big hugs to my faithful readers for all the encouragement, your messages on here and offline mean so much to me!!)
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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 05
Hi!
A foray into the villanelle style was one of the three suggestions to get me crafting today’s poem. Not an easy task, but I had a bash at it!
The site says:
The classic villanelle has five three-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the last lines of the following three-line stanzas, before being used as the last two lines of the final quatrain.
I also found it described as having a rhyme scheme of: A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 on Wikipedia, where the capital A stands for a repeated refrain, and the number after each signifies which of the two it is…
I went for the version that has 10 syllables to a line, too.
Anyway, all this complicated stuff can be explained better by just getting to the poem! So here goes:
I cannot run, also I cannot kill.
This conundrum – it haunts my waking hours.
Why’s every word they say so freaking shrill?
To stay civil is taking all my skill,
All I want’s ten minutes in the shower.
I cannot run, also I cannot kill.
 Our two having a Lego superhero adventure together on the X-Box (semi-amicably) “I can’t make brothers disappear at will…”
(Thank the lord our tablet still has power)
Why’s every word they say so freaking shrill?!
“I do not have a magic wand or pill.”
“Don’t make that face at me, your milk will sour.”
I cannot run!! Also: I cannot kill.
“Get down from there! No jumping off the ‘sills!”
“Flatulence is not your superpower…”
Whyyyyyyy’s every word they say so freaking shrill…?!
Their hearts and tummies never seem to fill,
I feel one day they’ll all of me devour.
I cannot run. Also, I cannot kill.
WHY’S EVERY WORD THEY SAY SO FREAKING SHRIIIIIIIIIILL??!!!
Did I mention that the kids were on holiday this week and next?! 😀
Hope you got a giggle or two out of today’s poem (I like the superpower line!!), and I’ll hopefully be back soon with tomorrow’s offering 😉
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Copyright © 2019 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 04
Hello!
Well, the prompt for today suggested that I write a sad sonnet in plain words.
I failed.
I wrote a Spenserian Sonnet (rhyme scheme of: abab–bcbc–cdcd–ee, 10 syllables to a line, 14 lines in total) that started well but became a little too flowery by line 8 and totally went the way of the pompous by the end.
Ooops…! 😉
The train ride there I sat backwards, thinking –
Watched sunlit fields and houses pass us by;
Shared the table of a lady, shrinking
Into her book so’s not to catch my eye.
A peace settled, without the need to try;
I smiled at pithy snippets overheard
My stop came fast, I felt the brakes apply –
Along the glass, reflections became blurred.
Alone, among the pigeons, something stirred:
A prowling beast of destiny or fate?
Or just my blackened pride becoming burred
As those clock chimes declared him more than late…
Many fair maidens fall prey to this ruse
But learn, with time, much gentler paths to choose.
It is the Easter Holidays, so I really didn’t have any time left to write another poem after kid wrangling all day, and I do like to get these posts out on the correct day or as close to it as I can…and, well, it’s an optional prompt, right?!
Hee, hee – meet you back here tomorrow!
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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
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 🙂
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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!
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 😉
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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 01
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!
[Pic is from here]
Come visit the Facebook page and follow @ComfyRestless on Twitter
Copyright © 2019 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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