TW/FT Prompt: April 21 2016: Rethink – Rewrite – Erkla McKurkle

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Michael

8b7626a1e638425c7b89cdc2b3b421ca

For this challenge, choose a fairy tale/fable that is familiar to you, whether you love or hate it – and REWRITE some aspect, element. 

 

Erkla McKurkle stood before the mirror and squinted as she looked at the woman before her.

She was for a woman in her late forties still a reasonably attractive woman. She liked to think so as she secretly lusted after the father of those dreadful twins Hansel and Gretel.

Oh how she loathed their niceness, their innocence and the pull they had over their father who was a man who did things to her, made her yearn and desire in the most unfairy tale manner.

She knew if she played her cards right she could lure the man of her dreams to her side. After all she did have considerable charisma along with a very welcoming bosom.

She was well aware that if she succeeded she would be written off immediately not as Erkla McKurkle but as the nameless wicked stepmother as every one knew of her dislike for children.

In front of the mirror she saw herself as Mrs Henry Woodgetter a far more practical name than McKurkle, which was one of those names she knew, made most people sick to the stomach to say it.

But until then she was Erkla McKurkle, spinster and pastry cook.

Her plan was to make herself indispensable to Henry. Shower him with love and apple pies. Once she had him in her grip she would then work on getting rid of the children and thus having her man all to herself.

She knew Henry loved his food. His poor wife had not long died and during the grieving process she knew he would be most vulnerable. In the kitchen she heard the oven timer go off, the apple pie with extra allure was ready, a cool down over night and he would be putty in her hands.

The children she had long decided could easily be gotten rid of by taking them to the enchanted forest and pointing them at Madge Allsorts’ Gingerbread House, a never fail attraction for every child she had disliked in the past. Madge was, bless her soul, very fond of children.

With Henry wrapped around her finger he would be easily manipulated. The children history. Her life complete.

She hummed softly to herself as she frosted the pie with a liberal sprinkling of her magic icing sugar.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/twft-prompt-april-21-2016-rewrite/

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing prompt | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

2016 April PAD Challenge: Day 20 – The Unsaid

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Michael

658ef675aed46bc0b3895aa3ac976293

For today’s prompt, write a poem of what goes unsaid.

It was the unsaid that drew our attention

That’s why it was unsaid.

There were feelings to consider

Decorum, convention and dignity.

What if the truth were revealed

Shame would engulf her

She was already on a knife’s edge.

Public humiliation wouldn’t serve

To belittle and beguile

When all the while behind her back

Whispers were promulgated

The snide allowed to fester

When there was nothing to be gained,

Save the annihilation

Of a character we actually all respected.

So it was to be ‘keeping mum’

Watching and waiting

Hoping the unsaid stayed

In the box it currently

Was loosely housed in.

 

Written for: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2016-april-pad-challenge-day-20

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Hump Day Poetry – Week 11 – Relics

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Michael

hdp-banner

Can you get over it?

The pain? The turmoil?

I feel it grabbing me

Like a hand from the grave

Pulling me back

Dragging me down to that one place

We fight tooth and nail to avoid.

We set out on the right course

To forge a new life

From the crumbling relics

We both held as reminders

Of where we would never go again.

Standing upon the cliff top

We cast them in to the sea

Watched as they floundered

The surf tossing them

With no consideration for the importance

They once thought they had.

Holding hands.

We wandered down the hill

Thinking of our pasts

That in that one moment

We’d expunged from our lives.

 

Written for: https://ionanerissa.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/hump-day-poetry-week-11/

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

2016 April PAD Challenge: Day 19 – Cool/Uncool

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Michael

6486363631_6d4a96e2a2_b

For today’s prompt, take on one (or both) of the following prompts:

  • Write a cool poem. Or…
  • Write a uncool poem.

 

Summer is really uncool

You sweat and perspire

You stay in out of the sun

For fear of skin cancers and such.

But you get to wear cool clothing

Trendy stuff, bright colours

All giving the illusion of how cool you are.

Summer is really uncool

When you go the beach

And there’s a crowd

All looking better than you.

But its also cool

To have a great towel

And swimwear that fits.

Winter is approaching

And is uncool literally

With heaters running

Blankets on the bed.

But it’s also cool

Snuggling on an icy morning

Loving the one you’re with.

 

Written for: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2016-april-pad-challenge-day-19

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Photo Challenge #109 – Hold My Hand

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Michael

follow-me-15

Image: Murad Osmann

 

It started off a pleasant jaunt

With both showing the way

My world your world

The magic of discovery.

Then you said you had more

That I had to trust

You’d show the way

And taking my hand

You took me places I only dreamed of

Locations not always exotic

When I wondered my own ‘where with all’.

But gently you pointed out highlights

Moments to savor

Moments to explore.

To trust you would not

Lead me down dark alleys.

You promised to take my hand

As we ventured into places we

Both wondered did exist.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/photo-challenge-109/

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

FFfAW – Week of 04-19-2016 – Uncle Joan

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Michael

photo-20160418071828242

Image: TJ Paris

When Uncle Joan built the windmill in the back yard most of us thought he had well and truly lost his marbles. He was a strange relative. He was adamant we had ancestral ties to the little known Dutch pirate Klaus Vander Bergernfries, whose only claim to fame was sailing his ship out of the harbour and blowing himself up in an attempt to find treasure he believed was in the bottom of the harbour.

Uncle Joan who in my childhood was Uncle John had a lot of issues, so my mother said, identity being one of them.

Once the windmill was built he spent an inordinate amount of time locked inside writing his own version of the Bergernfries saga. So much of it he made up, if not the whole lot for I could never find any record of a pirate by that name. But it never deterred him, he dressed as a pirate and had an “Ahhhhhh” anyone would be envious of.

 

Written for: https://flashfictionforaspiringwriters.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/fffaw-week-of-04-19-2016/

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing prompt | Tagged , , , , , | 19 Comments

Moral Mondays: “Don’t Take On More Than You Can Bear”

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Michael

moral_mondays_logo

For the umpteenth time that day he found the child huddled in the corner. Withdrawn and forlorn, the child, ragged and bedraggled stared at the wallpaper between sobs and sniffles. He knew the issue at hand.

The child was thinking of home and going to another episode of her nightmare.

He had tried talking, tried getting her help, tried passing her on to others more qualified. Whatever he tried she eventually returned to the corner.

He felt hopeless as he surveyed the scene knowing that home for him was his version of the same nightmare.

 

Written for: https://moralmondays.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/moral-mondays-dont-take-on-more-than-you-can-bear/

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing prompt | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

2016 April PAD Challenge: Day 18 – In the Staffroom

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Michael

Sad-teacher-010

For today’s prompt, write an office poem.

It’s the hustle bustle

The urgency of every decision

Piles of requests and orders

Referrals from over worked staff

The endless paperwork

Rising stress and trauma

Of deadlines and student reports.

I breathe a moment as lunch arrives

A time to walk outside

Chat with the office girls

Discuss the family and weekend plans.

Then it’s back into it

The lawless Year 8’s

Pushing every button

Teacher barely survives.

The phone rings

A disgruntled parent

The staffroom pauses

Knowing its Mrs Never Happy

Again questioning her child’s results.

Explanations given

Promises of future action

Reduces the teachers

Days on the job.

 

Written for: http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2016-april-pad-challenge-day-18

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Wordle #106 “April 18th, 2016” – Martha

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Michael

week-106

This week’s amazing words to play with: Goatskin Wind Close Whiskey Misery Illicit Goddess Insatiable Adronitis (n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.) Creation Hunt Husky

 

It was fair to say that Martha was regarded as a goddess. Whether she wore a humble goatskin garment or the most expensive fur she was a stunner.

And she knew her looks got her places, places most humble women could only dream of. But her looks were all she had.

Underneath the façade of glamour to burn there lay an insatiable appetite for attention.

When you have not much but a front and no substance you become an adronitis to anyone who tries to befriend you. Every question is greeted with a blank stare; there was nothing creative happening with the vast arena that was her mind. You always felt there was something happening inside her but you knew she had no idea what it could possibly be. It was as if any idea simply got lost within her brain and found other things to play with rather than process it in a logical way.

So often she sailed close to the wind when she was interviewed. Many was the time her interviewers were tempted to write about Martha as an empty vessel in literal terms. The hunt to find some substance about her was never ending.

Some went down the alcohol track plying her with whiskey to get her to open up but all that did was make her usually husky voice huskier as she giggled and flirted shamelessly her way through what could have been a fascinating interview.

Another time she was invited to try a few illicit substances which only led to her already miserable life being made a greater misery for when she woke up she would often be disorientated with an insatiable urge to devour three cheeseburgers.

But finally it was understood that with an adronistic personality there would be no telling what she was about and each reporter had as good a chance as anyone to discover what it might be. The closest was the woman reporter who claimed Martha reminded her of a house with every light on but there was clearly no one at home.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/wordle-106-april-18th-2016/

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing prompt | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Writing Prompt #155 “Collage 21” – When a Life Writes Itself

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Michael

collage-21

When a life writes itself

There is no telling

Where the next sentence starts

Nor where it ends.

There is no way of knowing what tomorrow brings

Even though inside you want

More of what today gave you.

So you wake up in expectation

Feel the warmth of nature

Wrap itself around you

As it reaches out into your soul

Allowing you to feel invincible.

But life invariably gets in the way.

Suddenly with no warning storm clouds

Gather overhead

The rumble of thunder

Alerts you to dangers

The streak of lightning

Is an intrusion into your soul.

We live for the dream

Of a seat with a view

Books read and written

Of road trips and shared adventures

But all the while there’s a barrier

The barbed wire that is our life.

Your need to lock yourself away

Where the black dog keeps you company,

Licks at your hurt of a haunted past.

Our saving grace, our redeeming feature

Is the place we go to bask in the beauty

Of our uniqueness.

Where an abundance of love, life and laughter flourishes,

Enriched and nurtured,

Within the chemistry

That is us.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/writing-prompt-155-collage-21/

Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Comments