Today’s National Poetry Writing Month prompt asks us to use a news headline as a jumping off point. I chose to go with the one about the chap giving up solid food (and subsisting on beer only) for Lent this year. Enjoy: ** The body aches for absolution, for forgiveness and release from the weight around my waist, this man born by past seasons of surfeiting. So I offer this, a libation of liquid to quell the sounds of my inner monologue.
Off prompt today… \\\* You have taken seven years to get here each one a memory lodged deep in the space between the hunger of anticipation and the malaise of hope deferred. Now as I hold you in my hands, and see you, frail yet strong, you are Mother returned. I call you Aoife, for you have brought beauty to our broken places
My grand plan for Lent this year was to post a poem a day using the Church of England’s #LiveLent reflections as a jumping-off point, but life happened (we lost G and then went into a full COVID-19 related shutdown) and I ended up stuck on 17 days. Poetry as prayer seemed like a good idea given the difficult season of faith I was in, in which prayer felt alien. It is not an entirely novel idea as I found out with more than a few essays reflecting on the subject, two examples being these excellent pieces at Talking Writing and The Millions. There is a rich history of the poetic form in various religious writing and in their associated rites; some might even argue that the enduring allure of the King James Version of the Bible has more to do with the cadence of its words than anything else. Come to think of it, the Psalms sometimes read like the brain dumps of a conflicted person, like transcripts of therapy sessions. ...
For Day 5 of National Poetry Writing Month, the prompt is to write something aligned with “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” originally developed by Jim Simmerman. Here goes (very loosely interpreted): \\\* The sun parts the curtain of the night its light like a knife cutting through the crust of bleary eyes. In its wake comes the sound of birds waking - a mellifluous melody and tribute to the muscle memory of the cycle of life and time. ...
For national Poetry Month day 4. The prompt for the day asked to write a poem based on an image from a dream. I chose to go with dreams as a genre of mental experience.. Here goes. \\\* What if a dream is the whisper of God, his touch, light on the shoulder feather-like, a word in the ear of the worn and the weary: Come drink, fill yourself with this water? ...
For Day 3 of National Poetry Writing Month. Today’s prompt is to make a list of ten words, and use Rhymezone to build a bank of words for use in a poem.. Here goes. \\\* Without a care the sparrow flits between the trees oblivious of the need to fret for bread or bed but returns each day to its nest, its place of rest from the coming and the going - from first light to the gloaming - and the cycling of the seasons as they decay; birth and death, being and becoming. ...
Place, for NaPoWriMo2020 Day 2, the prompt being to write a poem about a place. My old house on the corner of 3rd and 39th with its stubborn grass and red earth came to mind. I miss it! \\\* I carry your memories in my heart, the bright tint of your red earth whipped to fine dust by the Harmattan wind, the whistle of your tall pines, the smell of your freshly cut grass in the aftermath of mowing. I remember the sound of cocks crowing the call of the muezzin, piercing the morning air like a knife and cherish the memories of small things, of peace, of beauty and of simple days.
And so in the midst of all that’s broken in the world, its Day One of National Poetry Writing Month for 2020. Today’s prompt is to write a self-portrait poem in which you make a specific action a metaphor for your life. My choice is life as peeling onions. \\\* When it all falls apart, like a ball of yarn slowly unravelling, the wind whispers in my ear: this is how life is, an onion, complex in its layers each hiding and being hidden, drawing tears as its juices released in a flash rise. In the stinging we remember the promise of savoury things where in the present bland things lie.
For Lent Week 5, Monday. A response to the CoE’s #LiveLent reflection for the day. Photo by A Perry on Unsplash \\\* Without a care the birds flit blithely between the trees, their bare branches lit briefly as though by the light of exploding stars, bright colours and persistent chirps in their own ways declaring this is good.
For the start of Week 5 of the CoE’s #LiveLent Devotional for Lent 2020. Photo by Dane Deaner on Unsplash \\\* In the swoosh of the wings of the bald eagle diving to snatch fish from the sea - its sustenance elegantly eked by dint of labour day by day - and the quiet resplendence of the colourful coral, goodness resides; each in its way declaring, this is good, this birthing on the fifth.