Category Archives: Challenges and Writing Prompts

Depression Moved In
he’s come to stay
slipped through the cracks
of a drafty door
settling, like the dust collecting
leaving traces
stacks of dishes
crusted with rot
window shades drawn, but for light
piercing the gray
warming the cat
dull-bladed daggers
razor streaks slashing through grime
dripping water
leaky faucet
tv set to mute
white static strobing, tick tock
trays of ashes
twisted faggots
blobs of wax, melted
charred wicks long spent from burning
unopened mail
crumpled wrappers
half-finished crosswords
stench of bleeding ink and sweat
dreary pallette
laundry piled
blackness on blackness
layers of rags, dark as night
heavy-boned, dead
to the world
nothing to see here
just lock the door when you leave
~kat
My response for NaPoWriMo 2018 Day 4. Prompt: write a poem that is about something abstract – perhaps an ideal like “beauty” or “justice,” but which discusses or describes that abstraction in the form of relentlessly concrete nouns. (adjectives are okay too).

9 Comments | tags: depression, digital art, free verse, NaPoWriMo2018, photography, Poetry, Prompt Challenge | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, free verse, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings

magnificent day
early signs looked promising
then the clouds rolled in
~kat
For Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge, Prompt words: Regal (Magnificent) & Hopeful (Promising).
Leave a comment | tags: Challenge, digital photography, Haiku, Hopeful, Magnificent, Poetry, Promising, Regal, Ronovan Writes Haiku Challenge, word prompt | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, Haiku, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings

cultivated plots
are a gardener’s cachet
but Gaia’s first blooms
burst through concrete, cling to walls
vagabonds in dapper hues
~kat
A Tanka for Colleen Chesebro’s Tanka Tuesday Poetry Challenge using synonyms only of the prompt words, Grow: bloom, burst, cultivate & Honor: cachet.

17 Comments | tags: bloom, burst, cachet, Challenge, cultivate, grow, honor, Magnetic Poetry, Poetry, synonyms, Tanka, word prompt | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Digital Art & Photos, nature, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings, Tanka

The Scream by Edvard Munch
mangled pronuncifications
it can be amusing or confusing to hear a word
that’s not the word you think you heard…
- When a tree boughs, does that mean it’s leaning?
- And why do some tree bows hang low?
- Are you moot if your oral preception is effected?
- Should a defendant except council’s advise as a matter of course?
- Do you find erotica titivating?
- Are doctors proscribing too many drugs these days?
- Is it good practise to complement someone on principal alone?
- Can a flounder founder?
- When a sale is on do hoards fill the horde?
- Mitigating is not a result of militating…or is it?
- Must I cleanse my palette before my next coarse?
- What sort of peddles does a bike maker pedal?
- Does poring over a book lose wisdom.
- Should comments in the forward be foreword?
- Can you insure someone that exorcise will help them lose weight?
- Life can be a tortuous path, or is that torturous…or both?
- Do the poles lie about what we’re really thinking?
- Does a 50 story building have many a storey to tell?
- Would you close a window if it got a bit drafty?
- Can you have your desert and eat it to?
- Is it possible to have a duel personality?
- I wonder if cereal killers were forced to eat serial as kids and hated it. Was that what struck a grizzly cord leading to there climactic rain of terror.
Now before you loose your head, I’ll leave you on a note that’s light
as painful as this was to read, harder still, was it to write!
~kat
For today’s NaPoWriMo 2018-Prompt: write a list poem in which all the items are made-up names, I cam up with a List Poem of questions using mangled confused words. Not exactly made up words (except for the title) but a horrifying misuse of words just the same. This was incredibly painful to write! haha! Please refer to the source* below to learn the correct meanings. I cannot live with the thought that I led anyone misspelling down the wrong vocabulary path! 🙂
*Source – Commonly Confused Words – Oxford Living Dictionary

17 Comments | tags: Challenge, List Poem, NaPoWriMo2018, Poem a Day, poetry month | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, List Poem, Random Thoughts and Musings

Photo from Pinterest
The Battle is Real – A Cleave Poem (see below for instructions on reading a Cleave*)
you know you want to / oh, I really shouldn’t
no one will notice / but it’s my favorite
just go for it while no one’s looking / of course I can’t; I won’t
you know what they say / the guilt would kill me
better to ask for forgiveness / all it would take is one look at my face
than beg for permission / and they’d know it was me
so go ahead / just walk away from the table
take that last cookie / you don’t need the calories
it’s calling your name / let someone else
savor every sweet bite / eat the last cookie
somebody has to / you have manners after all
might as well be you / there is reward in doing the right thing
~kat
For Day 2 of NaPoWriMo 2018’s Challenge. Prompt: write a poem that plays with voice.
This is an example the battle that happens inside my head between “good me” and “naughty me”. I thought a cleave poem would be the perfect format.
*Read it top to bottom three times, column one first, then column two, and finally the entire line across.
18 Comments | tags: Challenge, Cleave Poem, NaPoWriMo2018, Poem a Day, prompt | posted in Challenges and Writing Prompts, Cleave Poem, Humor, Poetry, Random Thoughts and Musings