Fifteen-minute writing exercise day 4

Writing prompt: "Silent Friend of Many Distances"

Wild child unspoken

lost young woman

knowing always there was more than

this bitter misunderstood taste 

of failure

Bell resounding

heart responds

breath deepens as

turning once more inward

I encounter my silent self - 

true one, friend of all the years

Fifteen-minute writing exercise day 3

Writing prompt: "Climbing" by Lucille Clifton

Hungry hands long filled

empty nest long-abandoned,

swimming, calm-floating the drifting currents of desire - 

maybe I should have wanted less?

Well-past the gnarled rope-notch marked 60

braids, if I grow them now

will in truth shine like slated rain

But still the sunshine falls

gold on the silver sea

still the white birds call

and the white stones mark the way

Fifteen-minute writing exercise day 2

Writing prompt: "Blackwater Woods" by Mary Oliver

Ah, familiar words,

these I have quoted

over and over

in the cinnamon and wood-scented rooms of memory

to those faced with the loss

of all we hold most dear -

father, mother, 

child (oh nameless, fathomless horror!)

How CAN I stand before their losses, cries torn from our bodies, and quote her words?

Only bearing compassion in my hand and heart,

All must, when the time comes, be relinquished, and to live our lives now we can only practise

letting go

Fifteen-minute writing exercise day 1

Writing prompt: 'From Blossoms' by Li-Young Lee

Oh to breathe in what we love -

all the impossible

possible

all the blossom-light dapple-dark

of the world

in each inhale

Ah to take wing over

the orchard of the world

soar upwards on the scented air

of  healing

scatter love and light

like bright petals 

as we drift

"Channelling Lewis Carroll"...something retold in 200 words

Once upon a time, in a shiny part of this lovely land, happily a-gyring and a-gimbling, lived the little locals. Music lulled their sleepy woodland groves -

BUT monsters were reputed to stalk the deepest forests - the Secretive Jubjub Bird, the Fiercely Frumious Bandersnatch, the Totally Terrifying Jabberwock!

Our princely hero, (listen well, my Beamish Boy!), grasped his fabled sword and, fully-armoured, bravely left the Palace, seeking to slay the fearsome, flame-eyed monster.

Princey entered the tulgiest part of the wood, hunting high and hunting low until, iffing and uffing slightly, he rested his weary body in the shade of the Tumtum tree.

"What's that I hear?!" He caught up his blade and snicker-snack! Off came the head of the unsuspecting Jabberwock, as it came a-whiffling between the trees... 

Grasping the gory head, leaving the body dead, our hero hurtled lickety-spit through the wildest woods and galumphed-up to beat Callooh-Callay on the Palace gates!

"Oh what is this, my Beamish Boy?! Have you triumphed over adversity and restored peace to our Kingdom! Come to my arms, come sing the frabjous news!"

And we all lived happily ever after, a-gyring and a-gimbling in the mimsiest of Borogroves...

Paws for thought

Here is a pic of Kitty's crossed front paws as she relaxes after her walk...

Why? Only because I came across a photo-challenge and, being a techno-wally, am unable to post my b&w pic of the day...

A poetry challenge...

...to limber up and get me moving again!

The challenge, to take a hitherto unknown poem, use a few phrases, thoughts or ideas to write my own...

Here is Seamus Heaney:

STERN - in memory of Ted Hughes

‘And what was it like,’ I asked him,
‘Meeting Eliot?’
                     ‘When he looked at you,’
He said, ‘it was like standing on a quay
Watching the prow of the Queen Mary
Come towards you, very slowly.’
 
                     Now it seems
I’m standing on a pierhead watching him
All the while watching me as he rows out
And a wooden end-stopped stern
Labours and shimmers and dips,
Making no real headway.

And a quick version of my own:

SCAFFOLD - I met JA who had met JG

I  "so how was she?"

asked you, and you said

"like a monument, a monolith,

a cathedral shivered

when she spoke..."

And now it seems

I'm watching you afar,

undaunted build your own,

a rickety wooden fragile

church of dreams