She was legs, hips, breasts, and bone. Same as a cow, worth less perhaps. Dredged up words from the dark well of your mouth, not ancient, just old. “Ace” a hiss, curled around the syllable. Careful, you are wearing history with no place here. Tonight’s Quadrille prompt from the bar is the word ‘Ace’. I did a bit of a google search and discovered that in the middle ages, the word ‘ace’ could be used to be ‘of no worth’ or ‘bad luck’.
March turned into a slower month than planned for me and I’m not entirely sure why that was. Perhaps it was the expectation for April and NaPoWriMo, or the relief of getting my submission in to The Poetry Business for their Book and Pamphlet Competition. Either way, I didn’t really write much in the second half of March and I feel a little guilty for letting myself slip into old habits for those two weeks. On the other hand, I’d managed to be pretty productive during January and February in terms of submissions to journals and competitions, and March isn’t particular busy when it comes to deadlines, so if you’re going to pick a month to kick back, March would be it. April has been busy with NaPoWriMo kicking off and the first week is just about to come to a close. So far I have managed to post a-poem-a-day for the prompts provided and unlike some years, I’ve found myself connecting with the official prompts. Previously I’ve sat there staring at the screen wondering …
We did not so much fall as… saunter vaguely downwards, wrapped up in each other. You brought the sky along, strung like a child’s balloon. We did not so much fall as… Drifted like seeds let loose, wandered a little lost, wrapped up in each other. Settled, we marked here a strip of green we’d found, we did not so much fall as… Play house and families. Make believe until made real, wrapped up in each other. Whispered this is what souls are made of. We did not so much fall as wrap up in each other. Day Five’s prompt is to include one of the following (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. Now I’m aware that this is not a perfect Villanelle. I was halfway through the draft before I’d realised that I’d forgotten about the rhyming scheme but since I’m not a fan of rewriting to make something rhyme I decided to …
I’m weighing words. Counting them like beach glass. Trying to judge how you might distort the light through them. Most I will slip back inside my hollow throat. Swallow, like tablets or seeds. Ignoring the fizz as they hit my gut, sprout up, and wrap around anything else there is to say.
Does it count as taking your time, pausing between each item fingers on clasps, heartbeat a tempo dancing beneath the skin in a skip, skip rhythm I felt against my breastbone. Slid my foot along the seat of a chair like the one I sat in, bare skin cold against the plastic. Counted the buttons, two, four, six, stopped when they ran out and fabric hung loose from my shoulders. Open. Parted my thighs the same, slow, or maybe fast, the motion of it blurred in memory distracted by your face close to mine. Open mouthed. Kissed you, slowly. Open legs. I won’t say what we did next.
You have to swim here. Kick to keep afloat, and scoop the water into yourself, with arms winged either side of a weightless body. Dug out by the flow, a pool deepened by cascade. A bridge masked by track and concrete. This place is thick green almost jungle. Clear right to the sand, easy to pretend I know this place. Too well to be tricked. Safety in confidence I say. Water washes all clear away, but to where, and when, will it come to shore again? A prompt mash up tonight. Ending on a question for NaPoWriMo Day Two and ‘Cascade‘ for dVersePoetsPub poetics night.
Slip your hands beneath the ocean, sift the sands, though the debris laid to rest and the bones of forgotten things boiled down to soup stock in the murk. There is still a thread there, find it. A silver of something live, whispering as an eel beyond your fingertips. But you are not the trap or the bait or the line. You are the caught thing, the lost thing, the forgotten thing. Slip your hands beneath the ocean and find yourself.
They name me jealous one. Plait snake through my hair, till it rises about my shoulders a mane of venom. Perhaps this is true enough. They say I crush men, the ones who come to me through their own will and actions. Lay the cruelty of betrayal at my feet. I am not my sisters, blood avenger, unceasing in pursuit. I am an emotion painted upon every action I set forth. I am furious and bright, burning beyond recognition till they shield their eyes and call me ugly. I am a woman of power. I’m so excited that it’s NaPoWriMo again and I get to drive in with the Early Bird Prompt. For anyone who doesn’t know what NaPoWriMo is, it’s an annual poetry challenge that takes place over April. The idea is to write a poem a day for all of April, resulting in 30 poems in total. (31 if you include the Early Bird Prompt). The NaPoWriMo site provides prompts if you want to use them but …
Megha Sood is an avid reader, loves to sing, an ardent lover of poetry and sometimes can scribble few lines too. She has worked in the IT field for almost a decade as a manager, worked crazy hours and traveled around the world. She is also a contributing author at GoDogGO Cafe,Whisper and the Roar and Poets Corner. Her works have been featured in GoDogGoCafe, Whisper and the Roar, Duane Poetree, Visual Verse, Poets Corner, Modern poetry, Spillwords,Indian periodicals and soon to be featured in Literary heist,Morality park, Poets head and many more. You can find her work at meghasworldsite.wordpress.com How it started: This is my first time taking part in NaPOWriMo as I started writing poetry last September. Being on the author panel of few literary collectives, I was already aware of April being the National Poetry Month and I decided to roll out an anthology about the “Sexual Exploitation of Women”on my personal blog .While researching about the National poetry Month I came to know about the #NaPoWriMo started by Maureen Thompson and …
Alison Aldridge is a blogger and writer of fiction novels. Her short romance story was published in the Scribblers Anthology to raise money for the Children’s Hospice. She maintains a personal blog on writing and organic beauty. She has contributed articles to third parties on gaming, fashion industry and writing. She was one of the first featured writers on Opuss for her poetry. Alison has delivered courses to develop the English skills of her students. As well as education, Alison has experience as a model. She is a member of Scribblers, a local writers group and enjoys attending the annual Felixstowe Book Festival. Alison is an active member of many online writing communities. Alison is currently reworking Drift, a coming of age Young Adult novel about a mermaid and first love as well as other YA fiction projects. Why I took the challenge: This was my first year attempting the NaPoWriMo challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. I hadn’t even heard of the challenge before I started. Posting one poem a day sounded …
