2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
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2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 5 books toward her goal of 265 books.
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Poetry For a Grey Saturday (that’s not actually a Saturday anymore)

Yes, yes – I know it says “for a grey SATURDAY” and today is, in fact, Monday. I wrote this Saturday and intended to post it then, but then was notified about my Major Award, so this post got bumped…

So here we are, a grey, soon-to-be-rainy Saturday, and I’m feeling a tish inspiration-less, blog-wise. I had a GREAT fiction writing day yesterday. Nearly 4000 words flew out of me in a relatively short amount of time, on two different novel ideas – hooray! – plus I got a slew o’ things done around the house, so all in all a tres productive day. As a result, I’m sort of in a creative writing-ish mood. Which means, lucky readers, you are going to get some random writing from me today. Hooray, she said!

I have these ongoing novels in my head, so didn’t want to separate my brain from them by writing other fiction. So I went through my list of writing exercises gleaned from the magical Internet, as well as my list of blog-topics-for-a-rainy-day and, even though today is in fact rainy (it started while I was writing), none of them jumped off the page. So I said to myself, “Self, what on earth will we do that is creative-ish and interesting both to me and to other people?” And Self replied. Yes, it is a sad but true fact that I do actually talk to myself, out loud. I also respond to myself. Yes, I am more than a little crazy – what was referred to as “touched” back in the day. Sigh. Although, as my friend Grip used to say “my neuroses are what make me interesting” – and dear lord I hope that’s true!

Anyway, as Self was saying, “why Jill Elizabeth, remember how much fun you had writing Ode to Mother’s Day (Literally) as an actual ode in rhythmic meter? Why don’t you pick a random bunch of poetic forms and write some random stuff that way?” So that’s what I’m going to do. I hope they will make you giggle a little and smile a lot, and hopefully they will hold your attention enough to make you read through all the way to the end… 🙂

Haiku
Rain falls on my head
Pouring down from blackish clouds
No hammock today…

***

Flowers in the yard
Burst into bloom when it rains
Soaking up new life

English Sonnet
I love when the world goes quiet and still;
When everything stops, pauses, ceases for a moment in time.
Unlike many, this absence goes not give me a chill –
Rather, I find it perfect, peaceful, sublime.

If it were up to me, there would be mandatory silence
At regular intervals throughout the day –
Required time to just sit and be ruled by calm and patience;
Empty time, devoid of work, absent all play.

I need time to just be – not be helpful or be clever or be nice,
But to just exist, lost in my own world, my own head.
I am not a rock, don’t want to be alone forever, am not made of ice;
I need interaction too, need love and conversation as much as water or bread.

But handfuls of placid moments, scattered here and there
Are essential to my psychological welfare.

Cinquain
I think,
Therefore I am.
But what am I she asks?
Wondering if she will ever know
The truth.

***

We live.
And then we die.
What really matters though,
Is the aggregation of bits
Between.

Acrostic
Just in the nick of time,
I figured out that who I am does not have to be who I was.
Looking backward, I was trapped in selves that no longer fit.
Looking forward I am completely free, which is a trap all its own.
Everything is possible – or is it?
In any given moment,
Someone, somewhere is stuck between a rock and a hard place –
A sword and a stone.
When you don’t know what you are looking for,
Rarely will you find it.
I see that now, and realize
There is no need to fear freedom or worry about what I will find if I look.
Everything has a time, a place, a reality of its own –
Reaching for it can only help.

Limerick
There once was a girl named Jill-e
Who was ridiculously insufferably silly
Since she started a blog
Her head’s in a fog
And she writes about things willy-nilly.

***

So I’m trying to write a whole book
And get people to come take a look
But the words from my head
And the things that I’ve said
I’m afraid seem like gobbledy-gook!

8 comments to Poetry For a Grey Saturday (that’s not actually a Saturday anymore)

  • Elsie Love

    Oh. My. God.
    I thought I was the *only* one that did the talking out loud thing.
    Maybe it is a writer trait?
    I do it all the time. Sometimes I do it in public (and get caught).
    They haven’t locked me up yet…

    • Teehee – Elsie my dear, I do that ALL THE TIME (and get caught at it more often than I’d care to admit)!! So far I too am still free to walk the streets, altho I do spend an increasing amount of time watching my back. After all, it’s not paranoid if they really *are* out to get you… 😉 Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!!

  • Hey there! First blog I’ve read today…and so glad it was! I did giggle a little and smile a lot therefore your mission was accomplished. 😉 Thanks so much for brightening the day. And even though it’s not raining here, I could have sworn the sun just beamed a notch brighter after reading your work and enjoying your photos. Have a great day! ~Janet~
    http://jlbcreatives.blogspot.com

  • So fun!! Your poems are fantastic! I loved the first haiku, the sonnet and the first limerick the most. You are amazing! Thanks for sharing and making me smile.

  • Thanks so much Dana! They were very fun to write, actually. I have been surprised at how much I enjoy the forced structure of poetry, since I started writing/stopped working as a way of escaping forced structure… (teehee) I’m extraordinarily (perhaps inappropriately so, teehee again) pleased with myself to hear that I made someone smile – hooray, she said!! Thank you again for making my day!

  • Lovely haiku. I dabble in it myself on occasion.

    • Thanks Bryan! It really is a lovely writing form – the requirement to be sparse, yet descriptive, with one’s words really makes you focus your thoughts and play with language in a way that I have found to be both challenging and fun…

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