Weekly Scribblings #42: About Those Bones...

Greetings, lovers of words. I hope inspiration has been haunting your writing space, leaving you ready to ink and share... Today’s prompt came to mind some weeks ago, when Magical Mystical Teacher posted the following haiku:

fingers framed by light
clutching an old rosary
carved of human bone

I’ve always found that MMT has a way with short poetry. She is so good at leaving the reader’s mind (all right, my reader’s mind) wondering about what took speaker and subject to the moment captured in the poem, and what might happen to them next. That sort of wondering is what brewed today’s prompt into being. We will have three choices (choose one, choose two, or choose all three):

1. Write poetry or prose which explores where the bones in the poem might’ve come from.

or

2. Write poetry or prose which shows why the subject is clutching a rosary made of human bone.

or

3. If one and two don’t entice your ink, write poetry or prose inspired by the poem.

As usual, our Weekly Scribblings ask for new poetry or prose. This prompt will stay open until next Wednesday. One link per participant, please. If you choose to contribute prose, the word count should be 369 words or fewer. Let us write (and read)!

Magical Mystical Teacher, thank you for letting us be inspired by your words.

Writers' Pantry #39: Plums and feathers

New acquaintances: 'Oh, you're a writer. What do you write?'

Rosemary: 'Poetry, mainly.'

Them: 'What kind of poetry?' 

Me: 'Um, all kinds.' (Which I'm aware is uninformative, albeit true.)

End of that conversational topic, usually – except for those who enquire if they should have heard of me, to which the answer is no.

But sometimes they ask, 'Where do you get your inspiration?'

Of course the answer to that is equally broad and unhelpful: 'Everywhere.' Though I do add that I respond to online prompts, among other things.

I love the way the community member we know as Magical Mystical Teacher put it recently:

From the ripened plum,
from the raven’s tailfeather,

let there be stories! 

Oh yes!  

And how brilliantly those two examples suggest the whole of the natural world.

Dear wordsmiths, please share with us your poetry or prose, old or new, fictional or fact, from any and every source of inspiration, and leave us your link below.

If you're giving us prose, please keep it to 369 words max (excluding title). The prompt will stay open for a week, which we hope is time enough for us all to come up with something, to enjoy reading what everyone else shares, and to leave them some encouraging comments.

Please add your piece (just one per person) to Mister Linky, and leave us a comment here too if you'd care to.

Advance notice: on Wednesday Magaly will be asking us for poetry or prose inspired by anything October. Think of traditions, colors, rituals, folklore, memories of events lived in that month… and then write.

Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. (Older material may be out of copyright). Both of these photos are from Unsplash, with thanks to Daiga Ellaby for the feather and Markus Spiske for the plum.