The optional prompt for today was for me to write a poem inspired by my favourite music. According to Spotify, I listened to the artist Pink the most last year, so I thought about an episode of Ellen I watched about Pink’s battle with Corona Virus; and wrote a song. Not commercially viable, of course (!) but here it is:
V1:
Covid-19 you weren’t supposed to be mean
To a 3 year old boy
That I shelter.
That helpless young frame…
And despite all my fame
They couldn’t test,
And then make him better.
Chorus:
We draw our rainbows large,
Health service supercharged;
We’re staying on the couch
None of us going out.
The horror on T.V
Could take out you or me
So we’re trying to be kind
Keeping our loved ones in mind.
V2:
Covid-19, oh tell me what does it mean
When can life be resurrected?
We spent Easter alone,
Just ghosts on a phone
Lord tell us:
How many souls are infected?
Chorus:
We draw ourrainbows large,
Health service supercharged;
We’re staying on the couch
None of us going out.
The horror on T.V
Could take out you or me
So we’re trying to be kind
Keeping our loved ones in mind.
Bridge:
What’s with the hospital surge,
Then talk of flattening curves?
A pandemic, but no vaccination –
A president in a rant
About fake news, who can’t
Admit failure
Towards his own nation!
(Chorus)
Rap:
How do we fight this disease?
C’mon answer me, please?
Just out for my groceries
And masks are all I can see.
And I’m searching the skies
Massive tears in my eyes,
Lord, now please hear our cries
Before more thousands die.
Outro
Covid-19, oh tell me what does it mean
When can life be resurrected?
(Chorus to fade)
I hope you are all doing ok today?
I had Youngest out in the back garden yesterday, but Eldest didn’t want to join us. He soon regretted his decision, however, when he saw how much scope for hilarious mis-hits the sloping lawn afforded us, and also how many angles Youngest managed to shoot from that frustrated my efforts at goal keeping! Youngest even managed a spectacular chip shot that went perfectly over my head and yet landed before it was in danger of clearing the fence into the lane 😉
So Eldest had no complaints today when the garden was suggested again! The kids were giggling a lot, and once more I was suitably rubbish in goals…and also at scoring them. The sun shone for us again too, which is always a great way to lift one’s spirits.
What shenanigans have you seen kids getting up to in your neighbourhood?
We also made biscuits with the Easter cookie cutters today:
Later we iced them with glossy goopy wonderfulness that tasted goood. Who knew sugar, milk and golden syrup would be that much fun?!
Stay safe, and I’ll catch you soon for Day 16’s piece.
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 give up, it is definitely going the way of the short poem this year!
Day 12’s prompt on the NaPoWriMo site asked me to construct a triolet poem.
Rules of the Triolet Form
The requirements of this fixed form are straightforward: the first line is repeated in the fourth and seventh lines; the second line is repeated in the final line; and only the first two end-words are used to complete the tight rhyme scheme. Thus, the poet writes only five original lines, giving the triolet a deceptively simple appearance: ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines. [from here]
I think the author of the above might have a different take on the word ‘straightforward’ to the rest of us?! Anyway, I think I figured it out 😉
Introvert In 2020
This staying in is music to my ears,
I never excelled socially at all!
Don’t you know I’m a slave to my fears?
This staying in is music to my ears!
Hat’s off to those with fancy-pants careers
(I know if I’d to do them, skies would fall)
This staying in is MUSIC to my ears,
I never excelled socially at all…
Big hugs to anybody feeling trapped and hemmed in right now, I can imagine extroverted personalities especially will be feeling very ‘wronged’ at the moment. How are you coping with the social distancing restrictions? I hope you are doing ok and that you can find some positives within your day to stop you thinking about the grim side of all this for at least an hour or two.
I’m looking forward to Day 13’s prompt, NaPoWriMo seems to be flying past this year, but I am sure my days would feel slower if I didn’t have the kids about 😉 Catch you soon!
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!
“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!
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…
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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!
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.
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!
“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…”
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!
“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”
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!
“Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something mysterious and spooky!”
Not one to deny theNaPoWriMo godstheir 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!
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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