Tag Archives: challenge

Clouds

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Clouds

Do you see the man in a fedora  with his back to you,
                     staring at a woman in the distance
with her arms around a giant heart,
or perhaps it is a man
she is reaching up for…

or it is a dog      jumping up
as though enjoying him
in Braille.

                  Can you see the things I see?
            The woman exploding      into glorious light
and a grumpy schoolteacher.
                  These are not things of any significance,
                                     just things caught in the clouds.
            If you don’t believe me, look for yourself.
                         There are worlds there for your investigation.

Fourteen Minute Challenge

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Ever played a word in Scrabble that you didn’t know the meaning of? They acknowledged it as a word but you hadn’t the foggiest? This happened to me a short while ago. The word was siriasis and extra points to you if you know what it means. Quadruple points if you can write a poem making use of it within the next 14 minutes. Here is my 14 minute poem:

 

Rainy Day Reminder

You rue those rainy nights and days
when everything is in a haze
and you cannot go out the door
without whiffing petrichor.
Your hair is soggy, face too ruddy,
raincoat sodden, rain boots muddy.
And suffering from all this damping,
girls are in no mood for vamping.
It’s hard to flirt, I must confess,
when one is such a dripping mess.
But consider now the opposite.
When all day in the sun you sit,
you’ll never find men making passes
at girls who suffer siriasis!

 

(To save you the bother of your looking it up,  siriasis means sunstroke, but it was Bushboy who gave me a hint that led me to investigate the very interesting Australian origins of the word petrichor.)

6:54—Six Minutes to Spare

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IMG_1305 (1)

6:54—Six Minutes to Spare

These prompt words wag their tales at me and scamper here and there.
Each sits upon its haunches, issuing a dare.
The distance that’s between them grows vaster with each stroke
of my fingers on the keyboard. I decide to go for broke.
Nearby the clock hands tick and tock. Time edges toward the wire.
The time left for this challenge is starting to expire.
Comminatory judgment awaits me if I fail it.
I cannot face that verdict. I simply have to nail it!
I must rely on humor to help me tame this mob.
Herding words, as you must know, is such a thankless job.
But now they throng about me, tongues extended for the licking.
I’ve met the challenge, time to spare. My alarm is still ticking!

 

I’m still at my writing retreat, but I got up early to try to fulfill the blog prompts before our first meeting of the day. Prompt words today are vast, rely, wag, comminatory and wire.

 

 

First Steps

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First Steps

Blushing cheeks and fluttered lashes,
cotton frocks with satin sashes.
That first dance, paired with a boy,
equal parts of fear and joy.
Sweaty palms and faltering feet.
A different style, each boy you meet.
Shyness, then—a major dose.
Terror he’ll hold you too close,
then, affronted when he doesn’t.
Wrong when he was and when he wasn’t
romantic in that pre-teen way,
as forward as that time of day
permitted, with your parents there.
Beaded foreheads, scraggly hair.
School dances never missed.
Holding hands, but never kissed.
Except one time, when cheek-to-cheek,
that butterfly kiss, furtive and meek.
Eyes met for just a moment, then,
to celebrate your mutual sin.
Oh the terrors and the joys
Of school dances and touching boys!

This is the second poetry challenge that resulted when Carol from the Relax blog posted a poem about her kittens that had an opening two lines I loved. Her poem veered off completely from those two lines, so I challenged her to write a new poem that centered around the opening lines. I did the same, but one of her images prompted a new prompt. This time I “dared” her to write a poem about butterfly kisses. She accepted the dare but said me first, so here it is. Carol, your turn. Post a link, please, after you’ve written your poem. When will this end?  If anyone else cares to join in, you are most welcome. The prompt is “butterfly kiss.” 

Relax Redux: Empty Nest

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Tonight, one of my favorite blogs, written by Carol and titled “Relax,” published a poem that begins with the lines:

Tonight, I am missing
all half-grown kissing
–oh! I meant kittens—
an orange one, Mittens,

(HERE is a link to her entire poem.)

I, however, loved the original typo (or contrived typo) and challenged her to make a poem starting from it and remaining with that idea.  I promised to do so myself, and have, hoping she won’t mind my stealing my version of her first line.  Here is mine:

Empty Nest

I’ve been missing
that half-grown kissing
that lasts a minute
with chocolate in it.
Runny noses.
Heads of roses
picked off stems
like rarest gems
presented in
a tuna tin.
Priceless treasure
for my pleasure.

My life lacks
these loving smacks––
even a quickie,
albeit sticky
with peanut butter.
A parting stutter,
and then they’re gone
and off upon
adventures new,
away from you,
taking their kisses
to other misses.

I’m awaiting hers.  Are you up to meeting the challenge, Carol?

Treed

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Forgottenman gave me a prompt tonight, just for the fun of it. and said he’d do it, also. The word he gave me was cul de sac, and here’s my poem, for what it’s worth. (It’s 1:34 a.m., I had 4 hours of sleep last night and I hope I’m about to get a better night’s sleep tonight.)

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Treed

Stuck here in this cul-de-sac,
my mental skills are out of whack,
and I don’t seem to have the knack
for learning lessons as I look back.

I’m tortured as if on the rack.
My muscles wrench and joints all crack
my loosening bones go click clack clack.
With prospects dim, my soul is black.

Value in life is what I lack.
My life’s comprised of bric-a-brac.
I circle round and round the track,
until I’ve lost my will to quack.
Then
I
give
up
and
join
the
pack.

The prompt word today is “trust.” It may not be obvious what this poem has to do with the prompt word today, but actually it has everything to do with trusting yourself and your own unique views of life and to resist “losing your quack” and settling back into being like everyone else.  The narrator of this poem is not me. It is only who I am determined not to become.

Since both the illustration and the shape of the poem are trees, I think it is also appropriate for Becca’s Sunday Tree Challenge.

Judy’s “Prompt Answers” Challenge #1: Dastardly Words.

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Dastardly Words

Because it is a rainy rainy day and too wet, even, to make my way down to my studio, I’m going to recruit your efforts in trying to keep me busy and out of trouble. With this in mind, I’m posting a challenge for you to tell me the word you hate most in the English language. (This challenge was prompted by Helen Miekle’s absolute refusal to answer this question.  To console myself, I’m calling upon friendly bloggers to show me theirs if I show them mine.)  Not really fair, as if you’ve followed me for awhile, you already know that the word I hate most in the world is . . .. Nope, can’t say it.  Instead, I’ll reblog this poem I wrote about it a few years ago:

img_2272This is!!!!


Empty Praise

There was a time when awesome really meant ”inspiring awe”—
events like the moon landing that made one drop one’s jaw,
sights of numbing beauty or achievements of great skill,
art pieces by the masters or achievements of great will.

Yosemite is awesome and so is Everest.
Those climbing it are awesome.You know they are the best.
But today the word has fallen into widespread use—
ubiquitous right to the point where it’s become abuse.

Rap music is most awesome, as is that way-cool blouse.
You drive an awesome car and live inside an awesome house.
My friend’s boyfriend is awesome. So are her dog and cat.
Her garden blooms are awesome, like her new purse and her hat.

You might have guessed by now that awesome’s not my favorite word.
I think the overuse of it is frankly quite absurd.
This pizza is not awesome, though you may find me petty
for saying it is merely good, and so is the spaghetti.

Your child is lovely, so’s your dress, your silverware and smile.
But none of them are awesome—that word brings up my bile.
Please use some other word for it—some adjectival jaw full.
Because in my opinion, using awesome’s simply awful!!

 

img_6979This isn’t!!!!

So now that I’ve told you mine, please participate in this challenge in one of two ways. Either post your answer in your own blog with a link to this post and a link to your blog in my comments section, or simply answer in the comments section of this blog posting. It won’t take long, so please participate and if I receive enough words, I promise to make a poem out of them.

Update: I’ve written the poem! You can see it HERE.

Circadian Verse Non-pareil (NaPoWriMo Day 20—10 to go!)

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Prompt: Today we were challenged to write a poem that uses at least five of the following words. In my own rodomontadian fashion, I decided to use all of them. I italicized the words as they were used in the poem so you can check up on me!

Word List: owl generator abscond upwind squander clove miraculous dunderhead cyclops willowy mercurial seaweed gutter non-pareil artillery salt curl ego rodomontade elusive twice ghost cheese cowbird truffle svelte quahog bilious

Circadian Verse Non-pareil

Enough, I say! It’s bad enough when poetry stoops to puns
or limericks, but now we’re asked to write of guns????
NaPoWriMo!
Just say, “No!”
I, myself, would journey over dale and hillery
to avoid the usage of artillery!
There is enough of it in every news report
with vivid details: magnum, caliber or loudness of report.

It am so sick of it!!!
Guns don’t fit
in poetry and that is why
I choose to write about fine dining under a cowbird sky
on truffles svelte and mercurial with just a ghost of cheese
upon my plate—a dish that’s sure to please.
No salt, no clove, no quahog purloined from its oceanic lair
should be added to this perfect dish. What dunderhead would dare?

Overhead, an owl drops like a comet to abscond
with some small creature scooped up from the pond.
He flies away, upwind, then curls his flight to fly back over
and in one miraculous swoop, his talons comb the clover
in search of prey that is elusive
and wisely, seconds later, is reclusive.

Twice more, we see our willowy feathered friend descend
while our teeth keep chewing and our elbows bend
to stuff yet one more morsel into bodies slightly bilious,
turning a deaf ear to talk now supercilious.
Our whole gluttonous, cyclopean brood
(one eye on the owl, the other on our food)
is loath one morsel of this groaning board to squander
on predator now circling over us, then over yonder.
His wings held straight—no bend or flutter,
he soars down low and eyes the gutter.

The seaweed now he surveys—that generator
of frogs and tadpoles and perhaps a gator.
But, finding nothing this hungry day,
he dips one wing and flies away.

And so must I desert my task circadian,
Lest ego turns me rodomontadian.