OctPoWriMo #31 – The Song Goes On

Step off the dance floor
Draw breath. Relax. Have a drink.
Song changes; goes on.

So, OctPoWriMo has come to an end. I’ve published a poem a day during this month (actually quite a bit more, when you include other challenges), and I’ve tried to engage most days with the daily prompt… if I haven’t, it’s been at least a response to the prompt, even if in a “two-fingered” sort of way! I respond well, generally, to challenges and prompts, and have been pushed beyond my comfort zone this month, with varying results. Will I ever write a paradelle again? Not unless money changes hands…

I need to scale back for a bit now, and focus on re-drafting a picture book text ready to submit for critiquing at the SCBWI Conference in Winchester in three weeks time… poems have superseded the picture book writing lately, and I need to create some time to finish a draft of a heartwarming Christmas story… written entirely from a villain’s point of view (naturally).

So, thank you to everyone for your likes, comments and follows, and hope you will join me, at a less frenetic pace, for whatever I come up with next. What will that be? I genuinely have no idea. Watch this space and find out as I do 🙂

OctPoWriMo #30 – Home

Stoic, sturdy brickwork
Smiles on the walls
Toys scattered everywhere
Shoes strewn along the hall

The fish tank’s gentle thrumming
Squabbling between boys
Angry chelping from the kitty
A constant background noise

The smell of laundry drying,
A dampness in the air
A whizzpop from a boy’s bum…
Neither fragrant nor fair

Some far-off food is cooking,
Sizzling in the pan
The cat gets all excited
At the opening of a can

Mum clacks along the kitchen floor
The youngest crawls the rug
Sneaking up on daddy
For a ninja hug!

It’s a feast for the senses
Wherever we may roam.
But when I’m with my family
I simply call this “home”

 

 

Today’s prompt was : Your prompt today is to write a poem that incorporates each of the senses (Or I guess if you want, focus in on one of them?) Free for all on the form, but go one by one with see, feel, smell, hear, and taste. Tell me a story or tell me a memory. Really put the reader into that fleeting moment of life so that in every way those words are alive. Let them be the truth of the moment.

OctPoWriMo #29 – The Last Leaf

Winter’s winds are coming,
Friends scattered on the breeze.
I remain here stoic:
The last leaf on the tree.

I’ve clung on for so long,
It’s all I know to do.
Life has lost all meaning
Without my dear love true.

I’m browning at the edge,
The green is draining fast.
Summer’s strength is fading.
How long will I last?

I’ve withstood many storms
But no more can resist.
The final wind is coming.
I hope I will be missed

 

Written for OctPoWriMo. Today’s prompt was “drawing to a close”.

 

 

 

 

flickr.com/photos/clairity/2968040925

OctPoWriMo #28 – The Challenge

Today’s prompt for OctPo is headed “do you accept this challenge”?… Here’s my reply!

Knowing when to walk away
And when to play along
Is a skill that I’m still learning.
But today I’m feeling strong!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

flickr.com/photos/stevon/3574126257

OctPoWriMo #27 – Something Whimsical

I come from Planet Poetry
My skin is sunrise red
If similes were sandwiches
You’d consider me well-fed!

Life’s whimsical and wonderful
Down here on planet Earth
With freedom to express yourself:
You don’t know what that’s worth!

I come from Planet Poetry
Words whizzing round my head
If metaphors were magazines,
You’d consider me well-read!

Life’s fantastic and it’s fleeting
On this, my blue new home
So why do you court misery,
Like fleas jump to the comb?

But I come from Planet Poetry
You can tell by my third head.
If I’d said this all in front of you,
I’d hope you say…
“well said!”

OctPoWriMo #26 – Endless Loop

Everything is cyclical
Nothing ever ends
Cyclical patterns loop, repeat
Ends, old; new beginnings
Repeat unto exhaustion.

Beginnings never nearly fresh;
Exhaustion of the soul:
Fresh weariness on everything.
All of this amounts to nothing. NOTHING.
Everything is cyclical…

 

 

 

Today’s OctPo prompt was to write a loop poem. If you want light and comedic, check out either of my two earlier posts today – this one is not for you!

How to Loop 101:
There are no restrictions on meter or syllables or rhyme schemes (YAY!)
BUT we have a few rules!

Take the last word of a line. Skip a line. Use that word as the first word of that line.
I know, sounds harder than it is, so basically take the last word of the FIRST line and use it as the first word of the THIRD line. Take the last word of the SECOND line and use it as the first word of the FORTH line. Last word of the THIRD line is the first word of the FIFTH line. And it keeps going on and on like that.
Some people do it by stanzas.
Got it? Sounds fun right!

Word Prompts:
Cycle
Transparent
Petrichor- the scent of rain on dry earth
Rarity

OctPoWriMo #25 – Reminiscing on Childhood

Never had a favourite toy,
Not that I recall.
No comforter or teddy.
No treasured bat and ball.

How many other grown ups
Had their memories overwrit,
By some grainy photos,
Or a loved ones reminisce?

Is the poet’s search for truth
Similarly tainted?
Objectivity lost as I become with
Others’ views acquainted?

Memory is fluid;
Perspective always shifting.
Maybe truth matters less
Than the process of truth-sifting

 

 

Written for OctPoWriMo. Today’s prompt was “childhood favourites”, ie beloved childhood toys.

OctPoWriMo #24 – The Cat on the Stair

The cat sat.
Sat and stared.
Sat and stared upon the stair.
Upon the stair, it sat and stared.

It was a cat and mouse affair.

Without the mouse.

 

 

Today’s OctPoWriMo prompt was to search through the photos at PublicDomainPictures.net until you find one that sparks a story poem for you…

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?utm_campaign=Bobek%20Ltd&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_source=39150&tpl=39150-43068&id=120899200&irgwc=1

OctPoWriMo #23 – The Power of Words

All of this has been said before
All will be said again.
There’s nothing new left to say
Between thought and pen

26 letters, mixed together
In idle combinations.
The basis of our language
Rests on slim foundations

But the right word, at the right time
Has a certain magic.
A nudge here, a shift there
And we move from comic to tragic

And even the greatest of words
Still have to be felt in the heart.
So, thank you for this connection.
Thank you for playing your part.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s prompt was thinking about the greatness and smallness of things in comparison to each other, and about how small things fit as pieces to a whole.

OctPoWriMo #22 – Two-Thirds of the Truth

Today’s prompt for OctPoWriMo was to give two untrue statements about yourself, and one true one. Here is my take on that:

I am tall and complex.
My wit is like kung fu.
I never tell a lie:
Two-thirds of each is true!