Vicar on Fire!
A vicar from Plymouth, his parish, St. Budeaux
gave his virtual flock quite the spirited show
as he paused for a prayer
brushed a wick, unaware
then he ended his sermon with “stop, drop and roll”!
~kat
True Story: Coronavirus Vicar Accidentally Sets Arm on Fire While Recording His First Virtual Service. A Limerick seemed to be the perfect form for today’s NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo Challenge Day 7 prompt: Write a poem based on a news article.
give a heretic
paint and canvas, art becomes
psychotic, frenzied,
the stuff of nightmares, much like
a Bosch painting, demon play
~kat
A Tanka today for NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo Challenge Day 6. I just could not get into this painting with one disturbing image after the next. So I opted to write about the artist…he was certainly an odd fellow I think!
The challenge: Today’s (optional) prompt is ekphrastic in nature – but rather particular! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights. Whether you take the position of a twelve-legged clam, a narwhal with a cocktail olive speared on its horn, a man using an owl as a pool toy, or a backgammon board being carried through a crowd by a fish wearing a tambourine on its head, I hope that you find the experience deliriously amusing. And if the thought of speaking in the voice of a porcupine-as-painted-by-a-man-who-never-saw-one leaves you cold, perhaps you might write from the viewpoint of Bosch himself? Very little is known about him, so there’s plenty of room for invention, embroidery, and imagination.
The painting featured in the background above is the rather dark section of Hieronymous Bosch’s famous trytych, The Garden of Earthly Delights.
I used to live for weekends. We all did. During the week, 40 odd hours were not our own. We belonged to businesses, our bosses, the offices and cubicles, the worksites and workplaces that paid the bills and if we were lucky, we managed a few pennies to tuck away or spend on the glorious weekend. Our time.
But these days many of us find the lines blurred between work and home. Our weekend destinations are shuttered. We are rattle around in our houses forced to find new ways to entertain ourselves.
It’s hard not to write about this strange new normal we are all living. I suppose it is only normal to write from what one knows, and for me, for now, sheltering in, working from home, waiting for the storm to pass is what I know.
I used to think of myself as solitary, contemplative. I liked being at home, keeping to myself, but for daily conversations with the Muse and snuggling with my furry housemates. But when forced to shelter in place, home changed. It feel less and less like the sanctuary I once loved.
It takes effort to find new ways to notice my surroundings and to appreciate them. In fact, I am finding that there are all sorts of things I’ve never noticed before. Every moment is an opportunity to find the hidden treasures that have been here all along. I realize before this new reality, I had been living a superficial existence, content to exist on the surface of the familiar. But oh, the things I’ve missed in my busyness! I shall never take my freedom to move about in the world for granted going forward. But I have also fallen in love with the home that shelters and sustains me; the place that grounds me, where I can lay my head to sleep, the place where my soul keeps.
Happy Sunday. Stay safe and well. Peace…
i’m just listening to the wind
kitsch, in full, on crude display
crimson flushed, vexed by this calamity’s cruel din
it is quiet, oh so quiet, but for chattering birdsong, and rustling
don’t believe in everything you see
my mind won’t let me go to sleep
~kat
A ReVerse poem is a summary poem with a single line lifted from each entry of a collection of work over a particular timeframe and re-penned in chronological order as a new poem. Unlike a collaborative poem, the ReVerse features the words of one writer, providing a glimpse into their thoughts over time. I use it as a review of the previous week.
One sheep,
two sheep, three sheep,
four…how will I ever dream?
My mind won’t let me go to sleep
…daydreams!
~kat
I tried to stay on topic! Really I did. But I rarely remember my dreams! a variation on a cinquian today. NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2020 challenge Day 4 – write a poem based on an image from a dream. We don’t always remember our dreams, but images or ideas from them often stick with us for a very long time. I definitely have some nightmares I haven’t been able to forget, but I’ve also witnessed very lovely things in dreams (like snow falling on a flood-lit field bordered by fir trees, as seen through a plate glass window in a very warm and inviting kitchen).
Variation on a Cinquain
• Line one had two syllables.
• Line two had four syllables.
• Line three had six syllables.
• Line four had eight syllables.
• Line five had two syllables.
