OctPoWriMo 29 - Bursting Forth

Prompt: Lightness of Being

Image by Adina Voicu from Pixabay

Bursting Forth

I will reach
For the stars
I will spread my wings and fly
Casting off
All heaviness
I am free to reach the sky
I leave all my
Cares below
On Earth, which I hereby defy
Nothing will
Keep me down
Bursting forth, I am a butterfly

OctPoWriMo 22 - I Broke My Heart

Prompt: Broken pieces

I Broke My Heart

I opened the door
Stepped off the edge
Fell into love

I thought I was soft
My heart open
But I shattered

I picked up the pieces
Glued together with gold
Better than I was

---

Kintsugi "is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum."

OctPoWriMo 18 - You Lied

Prompt: disappointment

You Lied

You told me love was ultimate
You told me everyone
You told me “all means all”
You lied

You told me there was nothing I could do to lose God’s love
You told me “just as I am”
You told me you loved me
You lied

I am apostate, heretic, backslider
Lost

You pray for me
You silence me
You wish that I would disappear

Where is the love?

OctPoWriMo 3 - Barren

Today's prompt is womb. This one was a little painful to write for me.

Image by Marion Wunder from Pixabay

Barren

“There is nothing more important to society than the raising of children, for its very survival requires it.”

Desolate
Empty
Dry and dead
The wind cries across the arid expanse
Seeds don’t sprout here
Rain doesn’t fall here

Nothing but sand and bare rocks as far as the eye can see

“...they have many of the collateral features of marriage, but they do not have its inherent feature, as they cannot commit to the natural procreation of children.”

Natural
Real
Creation
But nothing grows here

“They cannot therefore be married.”

My womb is empty, dry, and dead
I do not have the inherent feature

~
All quotes by Andrew Scheer, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

OctPoWriMo 1 - October First

Welcome to another year of poetry!

Today's prompt is "surrender" and I went with the suggested form of free verse.

October First

October first
I woke this morning to snow
The first snow of the season
Part of me wanted to rage and weep
To grieve for a year near gone
But
It was so beautiful
So soft and clean and pure

OctPoWriMo 20 - Memories So Sweet

Today's prompt, Desires and Remembering, asked us to write about the last time we really, truly wanted something.

Memories So Sweet

I remember years ago it was such a treat
My favourite dessert
Sweet and fluffy cake with creamy frosting
So many years have passed
I saw it in the store
Memories came flooding back
But it was not the same
My tastebuds have changed
Such a disappointment

OctPoWriMo 18 - Dancing on the Clouds

Free verse is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult form. With no set rhyme or metre, the poet can go anywhere, write anything. And there is the difficulty. I find the strictures of a form help to sharpen my focus, while free verse leaves me flailing. I used to write a lot of free verse, but it's been a while.

Today's prompt is senseless, and the suggested form is free verse, so I gave it a try. I thought about writing of things that make no sense, but then I decided to just do a nonsense poem. I've written a couple of these before, but people always find meaning in them that I never meant to include, so we'll see. Here's a poem that makes no sense at all.

Dancing on the Clouds

Give me your hand
And
We will walk together
Wading through the deep
Swimming in the sky
Loving one another
‘Til a’ the seas gang dry
And melting rocks
And melting clocks
Will mark our time together
Forever

OctPoWriMo 31 - Journey's End

It's hard to believe another OctPoWriMo has come and gone, but here we are. Today's prompt is about journeys and endings.

Journey's End

Every end is a beginning;
Journey’s end can bring new life.
Everything is ephemeral
So enjoy it while you can.

OctPoWriMo 23 - One in a Million

Today's prompt is about how small things fit together to make up a whole. I took the line 'a drop in the ocean' and kind of went a different direction with it. I also used a song I loved from my teenage years as inspiration (video is embedded below).

One in a Million

A drop in the ocean
A grain of sand on the shore
Just one in a million
That’s what you are
A work of art
Treasured by your creator
Truly one in a million
That’s what you are

OctPoWriMo 19 - Dear Departed

Today's prompt suggests that we write a poem where each line starts with "Dear [name]" and speaks to some significant love. I decided to use only those I have lost to death.

Dear Departed

Dear Grandpa,

I remember sitting on the stairs with you,

slowly hitching ourselves up or down one step at a time.

You made a child believe it was a game

though you were too sick to walk up and down normally.

Dear Grandma,

you were my favourite singer.

My head is still full of your songs.

Dear Grandad,

thank you for bending your thumb backwards to make me laugh when I was a child.

You didn’t talk much, but I always knew you loved me.

Dear Oliver,

I miss the way you would sleep on my pillow and purr.

You were my baby.

Dear Mom,

how can I ever thank you for everything you did for me?

I will never stop missing you.

OctPoWriMo 18 - A King in Rags

Today's prompt is to write about something that isn't what it seems. I wrote this one in church this morning.

A King in Rags

A carpenter’s son
From a backwoods town
With nowhere to lay his head,
He walked the land
Through the dust and the mud,
No majesty about him.

OctPoWriMo 10 - I Hide

I am the type of writer who rereads, edits, and rewrites everything several times. I believe in polishing and reworking something until it is perfect. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, and I believe that most of my rough drafts need that in order to shine. Like a diamond pulled from a mine, a rough draft needs to be cut and polished before being set in a ring or necklace and shared with the world.

Having said all that, I decided to give "wild writing" a try. In todays' prompt, Morgan Dragonwillow suggests that we try to turn off our brains and just write from the deepest part of ourselves. I wasn't able to exactly stop thinking, but I think I managed a stream of consciousness free verse. I listened to the Piano Guys and just allowed myself to feel. And I didn't rewrite it. This is the raw, unedited words I threw down as I listened.

To get into my headspace, play the video while reading.

I Hide

There’s a fire burning deep within my soul

A raging inferno

But I let no one see

The deepest part of me

A storm of ice and flame

This is who I am

But I care too much what others think

And so I hide

OctPoWriMo 6 - I Will Fall

Today's prompt is perfect/perfection. I kinda went a different direction with this. Instead of talking about what I see as perfect, all I could think about was how my ex used to call me his 'perfect angel' and how much that bothered me. He never understood why, but I think I've explained it  in this poem.

I Will Fall

He told me I was perfect

His angel

I saved him from… something

Without me, he would die

He would fall

I am not the Saviour

I am not an angel

Please don’t set me up

For I will fall

I am small

I am human

Don’t make me your idol

I will fall

OctPoWriMo 4 - All Are Human

Today's prompt asks us to write about something we believe in. I chose to tackle racism. Recently, I saw a post on Facebook complaining that in Canada, we press 1 for English when calling a customer service centre, and then someone commented that we will soon be "forced to learn Punjabi and Arabic" as if this would be the most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing. Racism makes me very angry.

All Are Human

Speak English!

Not some heathen tongue!

How awful would it be if we all had to learn another language?

Now, let’s be real:

Studying makes you smarter,

(Well, duh)

And racism makes you dumb.

We’re all the same inside:

Male and female, any colour,

All are human.

OctPoWriMo 25 - You Are My Jubilee

Any day with you is a wonderful day
You are my holiday
My vacation
My celebration
My festival
My gala
You are my jubilee
I love you

Today's prompt.

OctPoWriMo 26 - I'm Sorry

Today's prompt is forgiveness. Who do we need to forgive and who do we need to apologize to? I'm not one to hold a grudge, so I wrote a poem about apologizing. I'm Canadian, so I'm used to saying "I'm sorry" but how often do I really mean it?

I'm Sorry

To the boy who passed a note to me in English class:
I’m sorry I rolled my eyes and tossed it in the trash.
To the friend I spent every lunch hour with:
I’m sorry we lost contact after graduation.

To the first guy I kissed:
I’m sorry it didn’t work out.
To my parents who broke up:
I’m sorry you weren’t happy.

To my husband:
I’m sorry I’m not always easy to live with.
To my brothers:
I’m sorry I don’t call or write often.
To my sister:
I’m sorry I don’t visit.

To my Farmville friends:
I’m sorry I stopped playing.
To my Facebook friends:
I’m sorry if I sometimes spam your walls.

To anyone I ever hurt:
I’m sorry.

OctPoWriMo 22 - Still Sick

I hate being sick
I really wish I could stop coughing
I want to write a poem, but my brain isn’t working very well
It feels like my head is floating
And my nose is stuffed with cotton
It feels like I’m watching life instead of being involved
Outside, looking in

OctPoWriMo 18 - I Lie

When a stranger asks me, “How are you?”
I smile and lie.
“I’m good.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m doing well. And you?”

My mother told me, “Never lie.”
And yet I lie.
Don’t you?

OctPoWriMo 17 - I Am Lost

My mother is dying
I am lost and helpless and so alone
I don’t know what to do

OctPoWriMo 16 - What Choice?

Today's prompt challenged us to pick a side on an issue. I decided to write on something that is very controversial but is personally very painful for me. Any attacks in the comments will be instantly deleted.
For more on my personal struggle, see OctPoWriMo 11 - Sometimes.

What Choice?

You say you're pro-choice?
Good for you.
I don't get that choice.
I'm like a starving person
Watching someone toss their leftovers.
I'd take them.
I'd take them all,
I'd love them all.
My choice means nothing though.
I still have no child.