Day: February 14, 2020

How a poem can come into being:

A writing prompt of Superstition (For the month of February, I am posting a new writing prompt to this blog, with some hints, tips, and thoughts about the prompt). I’m very much enjoying doing this, and find my creative input for the month has gone up considerably!

Some Initial Thoughts:
(These thoughts came to being in the comments section of a friend’s blog. The results show how useful and productive it can be to visit the blogs of people who’s writing you like, because they often have interesting people who also follow their blog, and can lead to interesting though pathways …)

A humorous poem about someone scratching off their cerebrals!? 

Wise owls watching, someone scratching … I’m getting hints of a poem in near rhyme here … 

I’ll work on it, and see if I can get some superstition into it too! 

I don’t have that many humorous poems in my collection-to-be yet, but I am a humorous kind of person, so a funny owl poem might be just the thing!

Owl Superstitions 

In some cultures, having an owl around may signal death …

I’m not a superstitious person, and I loved having this owl living in our shed last summer. I felt privileged, and no-one died because of the owl’s presence. I suspect some mice and other creatures may have died though. I hope the deaths were fast and relatively painless, unlike the one in the poem that was inspired by these thoughts.
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And so, after three days, much thought and some editing, (quite a bit of it, actually) the poem below is the final? result.

Having written that comment, some changes are always possible – it’s my poem and I want it to be as good as it can be!

 

Beware the Hungry Owl

(a poem in ‘near rhyme’)

Wise owl 

watching, 

a silly fool

head scratching –

man’s purpose unclear.

Steady stare, 

owl waits,

with no complaints –

Silly itching duff,

he’s ripping off 

his cerebrals!

 

Not surprised –

owl reaches,

its hunger aroused.

man retches,

brain bits to scoop –

a bloodied soup.

Man falls down,

owl follows to dine,

‘Loves fresh brains!’

owl claims,

‘yummy for my meals!’

 

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Many thanks to my poet friend John Malone , for his inspiration and input into this horrid grisly (but fun) poem!

 

Inspirations come from many places, and can go in weird and wonderful directions! And I love owls, a lot.

 

This poem has a rhyming scheme of
ababccddeef
ghghiijjkkf

Because the poem is written in ‘near’ or ‘slant’ rhyme, the rhyming pattern is not one that immediately hits you in the ear, and with the first rhyme not being there until the first line of the secone stanza, that may not be immediately obvious either.

Poets like playing with words, I think. I know I certainly do, and sometimes the games the poet plays might not result in a poem that receives great acclaim, but it keeps the poet happy, and they will go on happily ‘poeting’! It certainly works that way for me.

After all, I’ve spent hours on the poem in this blog post, and this blog post may be the only place the silly little poem ever gets published!

I’d love to read your thoughts about what I’ve written here. Do you have any thoughts about how some of your poems come into being? I’d love to read all about it, leave a comment!

I love my husband, my son, our dog, my Mum. I love all of my other family members, and I love my wonderful friends. All them are loved in different ways, but I care about them all, and wish them all good lives in their lives.

I also love travelling by car, driving around on country roads all around where I live, to see the crops growing, seeing them getting taller and taller, the heads fuller, ready for harvesting, and then all gone, harvested. I love the occasional wildlife I see in my travels (except for snakes, I don’t love them …), love to see the various creatures, but am worried about them being in danger, too close to the road.

And I love the tall eucalyptus trees all around, I think about them, am concerned about them, when there’s not enough rain, and happy when we get some rain come again. These trees, so elegant, the way their branches bend and move, reaching out, and up to the sun, showing resilience, bend don’t break!

But they do break, the big winds, coming after little rain, get them, and crack, down the big branches come, as well as smaller twigs, and sometimes whole trees go down. I realise that’s Nature’s way, but I don’t love that happening.

I love looking at the night sky, sometimes. Looking for interesting things, the planets that look like big stars, the moon in all of its various phases, and all of those bright and shining stars. Lovely!

These are the big things I love, I also love writing, reading, eating good food, and coffee. The writing prompt on this fourteenth day of February is ‘Love – What Do You Love?’

Take this prompt anywhere you want to take it, and have a good time doing it! If you found this prompt boring, challenging, weird, not interesting, fun, excellent, or whatever else, tell me about it, let me know, leave a comment, ‘cos I’m interested in knowing how other people are going with this Fabulous February of Writing Prompts!