How do?!

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights” said the optional prompt for Day 6’s NaPoWriMo jolly. I had never seen this piece of art, and if you follow the link you’ll see why it is such a good prompt to be given!

I chose to write a poem from the point of view of the owner of the third foot in the shell on the man’s back (to the left of centre, towards the bottom of the middle panel, with a description on the website marked ‘travel journal’) 😉 I decided that foot belonged to a woman…

Again

And again, he muscled in –

Bade me clam up and cleave to him.

My wisdom:

Pearls among swine,

His one wish my eternal command.

I am to be cloistered with his need,

Unobserved by the world;

Just flesh upon

A mere shell of all I was.

Not the happiest little ditty, but one of those that arrived in my handwriting within 5 minutes and I didn’t feel the need to tweak (apart from adding one word to the last line). Always a godsend when time is at a premium!

I think I will bookmark this painting and come back to it – so much to look at and think about! What characters do you like the best?

Keep staying safe and well, and I’ll ‘see’ you for Day 7!

Monty X

[The pic of Bosch’s painting is from here]

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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 😊

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 21^st, 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…

[additional pics are from Pixabay, here and 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!

Hi!

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 😉

sweater, advertise, humor, basin, bend, location, Mars, bomb, Europe

It’s that sweater they advertise –

You know the one –

With the woman who has no sense of humor

But the guy is trying to cheer her up

And puts the basin on his head and pretends to be Oliver Hardy?

Who…?

Aww you know!? One of those black n white funny guys –

Like Charlie Chaplin but there’s two of them?

Anyway. 

I’ve been trying to bend Michael’s ear about the sweater

But he keeps ignoring me, and I reeeeally want it for my birthday!

What sweater?

Oh really!! Are you not even listening either?!

I’m kind of busy…

I am assuming you are on location right now then…!

Eh?!

Well: they say that men are from Mars, don’t they? 

And you are acting just like Michael does.

By driving?

No!! By not listening properly! 

Sometimes I think I would have to put a bomb under him before he’d…

Aww phew!

Phew?!

Yeah!  When you said I was from Mars I thought you’d forgotten

I’m from Northern Europe and

mistaken my sunburn for being proof of Red Planet heritage.

Aw, just shut up!

Charming.  Watch out or I’ll set you down in the next galaxy over

– and it might be cold without a sweater…

[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!

Hello 🙂

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.

Textfixer said:

So I responded:

imposter, blizzard, unsure, phenomenal, locust, distancing, rude, addictive, liberating

It’s a syndrome, apparently:

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 liberating silence 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… 😉

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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!

Hi!

As I have no doubt mentioned a few times before, I write at least 500 words every day as part of my daily creative practice. Sometimes it is ‘just’ rambles about my day or working out a thought/feeling on the screen (or paper)…but yesterday evening I decided to revisit the Random Word Generator site and write a poem.

This extended to a total of SIX random word poems in the end, so I will share two of my favourite ones below.

Both poems are about relationships that left an impression on the speaker, and both poems use the first two generated words as a small phrase that gave me the idea for the rest of the narrative 😉  I hope you enjoy them!

(As usual I got the generator to spit out nine words for each poem, following the procedure outlined here.)

PAST LIFE LOVE?

With her lucky horseshoe smile

And kind manner

I felt my axis tip;

We all hear that life is no rehearsal

But, in that small café,

I wondered whether there were acts we just forgot we’d aced.

While her eyes were the hook

I knew I should depend upon the frisson ‘cross my skin…

Amber was the liquid of my heart

Her memory suspended there by time.

ALL THE THINGS HE SAID

It was a college confrontation

Every painter, he said, produced rubbish with a plan.

Every teacher had failed at life.

Every rule abider had no passion in their soul…

His poetry swirled me like an autumn leaf

I wailed a waterfall

Or waged a war

At mere words.

I remember the last time

The doors slid closed;

Every button still shone

Alive from his touch.

[Couple 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!

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!

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]

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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!

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 19^th and 22^nd 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!

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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!

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]

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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!

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!