Embracing a Wealth of Words

Many thanks to DVerse Poetics for the fun prompt. Follow the link to discover a bunch of beautiful words. ❤ 🙂 I was going to wait until tomorrow to write for this, let alone post, but the words just needed to put themselves together into something resembling a poem. Let’s consider this a work in progress. 🙂 The prompt was to use at least 3 of the words featured in the prompt, but I embraced the challenge, or rather, multiple words embraced me and begged to be included.

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This is a Danish word — I didn’t know that English had borrowed it! Since I’m currently learning Danish, I had to include it!

Not sure what to write,
Words burble out of my brain: 
Several speak to me directly,
Like a susurrus in a dream,
Wanting only to find the right space,
Their home, their ikigai --
I feel forelsket with these.
Again, don't know where they're going,
Only that I am aliferous 
And novaturient, finding 
New wings with which to fly.

Dive, Swim, or Waddle?

For the 3 Things Challenge today, the theme is still “ducks,” and the words are DIVE, SWIM, and WADDLE. My self-imposed challenge was to use all these words and not write about ducks. 🙂

This is barely a poem, but here is what I came up with:

Life is like a swimming pool
And I, an alleged swimmer:
Unable to dive, I am thrown into depths
Probably able to keep from completely
Drowning,
But my swimming is equivalent to waddling.

Yeah, I’m not good at this whole “life” thing. The good news is, I’ve been peaceful recently, and writing makes me feel alive in a good way. 

Fun fact: This poem does describe my actual swimming ability (or lack thereof).

Shoot for the Stars

Yesterday and today I wrote this 6-sentence story to share.

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The question posed to every little girl or boy: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Rebecca, at age 6, wanted to be a ballerina — or maybe a teacher, an author, or an astronaut. “Maybe,” she exclaimed, “I can dance in space and teach all the aliens!”

Twenty years later, Rebecca found her path much less open than it had appeared before, and even being a teacher seemed out of reach. The world was changing, had been for years, and all she could do was watch everything morph into unfamiliarity.

“If society gets too crazy, if Earth becomes uninhabitable,” she thought, “I could still become an astronaut.”

A Sorely-Needed Leap

I am on the fence about whether to share this one or not. It’s a décima. I’m not sure if it’s “good,” but it’s the best poem I’ve got for today. I wrote it yesterday and wanted to post more than a meme today. The situation this poem is about is very complicated… Also, I realized belatedly that this poem fits with the theme of Brian’s prompt about insecurity, so I am linking up. However, I intend to share another one tomorrow, since this only coincidentally has to do with feeling insecure.

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The time will never be just right
To make a necessary change:
It will always feel a bit strange,
Walking with only a dim light.

When fear arises, know life might
Get better on the other side,
Fear weakens when it is defied.
There is a sorely-needed leap
For one to take, and must not keep
Putting it off, so terrified.

Photo by Balram Swain on Pexels.com

Party Animals

This is a sijo for this week, using the word “party.” I wrote one earlier this weekend because my family got together on Saturday to celebrate Independence Day, my dad’s birthday, and my twin brother’s and my birthday (the birthdays were celebrated about 2 weeks late, but that’s fine!). Anyway, that’s not the one I am sharing today.

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Grown weary of seeing only the elephant and donkey,
Same old discourse has become long stale, without doing anything:
I strongly believe that we need more party animals.

Twelve Words

For Sammi’s weekend writing prompt.

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Breeze
Rushing by,
Ever-changing
Vitality —
Is it gone,
To fade with
Yesteryears?

Décima: Future Uses

Even though Ronovan Writes no longer hosts a décima challenge, from time to time I still like to write in that form. Today I used “future” as my jumping-off point, and the MVB and FOWC one-word prompts helped to inspire the rest of the poem.

It turns out that this is only tangentially related to “future” — this is the future that doing all that stuff in high school was supposed to prepare me for and make better. For a long time, I’ve felt like I’ve wasted all of that, and what I hadn’t wasted all by myself was stolen from me. 😦 😦 😦  But maybe that wasn’t wasted. Lou’s comment on my sijo made me rethink, just a bit. I’d never actually thought, “Maybe it wasn’t wasted!”

I write all that as a way of saying, I didn’t have to force this somewhat-optimistic ending today.

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My academic achievements
Could not prepare me for real
Difficulty, nor help to heal,
For the pain of waste is intense.

Did that hard work have recompense?
Not in the way one likely guessed
But it was wise to do my best.
A certain success foreshadowed,
But forced down a different road,
Worked hard to pass another test.

 

Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels.comAs for this picture, I just think it fits somehow.

I liked calculus and was pretty good at it — but I always hated real-life change.

The Way Ahead

This poem was inspired by the images for these 2 prompts: MLMM’s Photo Challenge #417 and Sadje’s WDYS #137. I wrote it, a curtal sonnet, a few days ago and was not entirely happy with it so almost forgot to post it before the next WDYS is released!

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The way ahead could be vast as the sky,
Its limits only bound by my belief --
Yet how closed-off it feels, making me cry,
Unable to find a path to relief.
How much is self-imposed, a needless thief?
Suspending disbelief for but a day
Might help me find a sky that is not gray --
And in those clouds some brand-new shapes are found.
Then on the Earth I'll stand and look around,
And hear a voice point out, "This is the way"--
How sweet the sound!

Photo Credit: Darrell Whiley

Photo Credit: Keith Hardy @ Unsplash

Something Other

This week’s word for 6-sentence stories, which I am not procrastinating on this time, is “fluid.” Also for FOWC: Array and MVB: Catalog. I have never tried to write anything remotely science-fiction, so tell me if you understand my story or not! 😅

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Martin desperately wanted a new life — that’s why he had come to the NeoVita Corporation’s office: so that they could construct one for him, to his liking.

He browsed wide-eyed through the enormous, digitized catalog, its array of countless options for his perfect life nearly overwhelming for his finite mind to handle.

Would he want to possess the life of this famous movie star, or that record-setting athlete, or how about having her music career or his political power? He could have any of this, even more than one, as the NeoVita technicians would be able to make his perfectly-curated life flow fluidly.

“It’s just too difficult to choose,” Martin told the technician, continuing, “All I know is, I’ve got to have something other than my current life!”

Taking a long moment to think, the technician answered, “I know the perfect option for you” — and after Martin disappeared, his wife and three children mourned him, with gaping holes in their hearts.

 

Not About Hats

I can wear several hats, but none of them fits very well.

There are some that people say look good on me, but I don’t really like them.

There’s one that I’m used to wearing, only now realizing it’s not quite comfortable (though I should have known from the beginning).

One of my hats has a ribbon.

My life is made up of hope-ribbons, shredded into confetti.

Let’s throw it in the air and have a party!

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A 6-sentence story using the word confetti, combined with today’s SoCS: hat and the MVB prompt: Several. Glad to have finally written something, even if it’s a tiny little story that’s not actually about hats at all.