NaPoWriMo 2025: Day 1

 

Stacatto City

The prompt for today is:

As with pretty much any discipline, music and art have their own vocabulary. Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word. For (imaginary) extra credit, work in a phrase from, or a reference to, the Florentine Codex.

And here is my poem:

Staccato Cityscape

I wander through this concrete fugue,

the abstract pulse of buildings against sky,

their edges dissolving in afternoon haze—

a cityscape dissolving into raw chroma,

bleeding vermilion at the edges of my memory.

Each window catches light in diminuendo,

glass fragments reflecting what we've lost

between the sharp interstices of presence.

I trace the skyline with trembling fingers

as if reading ancient codices of stone and steel.

The city's heartbeat—rubato—rushing then slowing,

like breaths caught between strangers

passing on crowded streets. We brush shoulders,

exchange particles of ourselves,

tiny universes of what-might-have-been.

In this cacophony of concrete and desire,

I am crescendo and decrescendo,

sound waves breaking against the shore

of my own longing—for what?

These buildings rising like prayers or lamentations.

Memory blooms in unexpected corners,

fragments of color divorced from form,

as if the Florentine scribes had documented

not conquest, but the way light falls

across your sleeping face at dawn.

NaPoWriMo 2025: Early Bird Prompt

 

Nostalgia

The prompt for today was:

Maybe one of the most common subjects in art is a portrait – a painting of one, singular person. Portrait poems are also very common. To get a sense of the breadth of style and form that these poems can take, take a look at Anni Liu’s prose poem, “Portrait Of,” John Yau’s, “Portrait,” and Karl Kirchwey’s “The Red Portrait.” Now try penning a portrait poem of your own. It can be a self-portrait, a portrait of someone well known to you, or even a poem inspired by an actual painted portrait. (If you’re looking for one to inspire you, why not check out the online collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery?)

And here is my poem:

Portrait of My Grandmother at Thirty-Six

In the photograph, her hands are folded—

neat origami of flesh and bone,

resting on a lap I never knew as young.

The light catches on her wedding band,

a thin gold circle bright as a small sun.

I search for myself in the slope of her nose,

the tender curve where neck meets shoulder.

They say we share the same eyes,

though hers knew a different century,

skies before they filled with satellites,

oceans before they swallowed islands.

What the camera cannot capture:

how her fingers smelled of garlic and thyme,

the way she hummed when she thought no one listened,

how grief folded itself into the corner of her mouth

after her fifth-born slipped away one winter.

I want to reach through the decades,

press my palm to her cheek still smooth with youth.

Tell her that the girl not yet conceived

who will become my mother

will name her daughter after wildflowers.

That someday I will stand in her kitchen,

roll dough with her hands—my hands—

inherited vessels of memory and flour.

That I will learn the language she abandoned

to survive in a situation that demanded her silence.

The photo curls at the edges now.

My thumb smudges her shoulder—

this touch, the closest we will ever come

to existing in the same moment,

her ghost and my flesh meeting in-between.

Photo A Day: Week 4

I try to take at least one photo a day and post my outcome every week.  At least...that is the goal.

You can find my original first post of this HERE.

I invite you to follow these breadcrumbs of light and shadow, and perhaps, a little bit of everyday mundane...

Who doesn't love doughnuts?

I'm really enjoying this book.  It motivated me to create my blogs again, so there's that...

Isn't that the cutest face?  A new addition to my reborn family.  She hasn't yet been named.

I found this little book of quotes at the Dollar Tree the other day.  A whole little calendar of inspiration for just $1.25.

I will forever be the kind of girl that says, 'look how pretty the sky is!'

The first dandelions of Spring.  I had to pick a few for Carmella (my guinea pig).

I took a selfie for the first time since Christmas.  Didn't even apply a filter.  I just have lost my sense of need to....showcase myself??

Of The Astro Travels...

When the Veil Thins

Chronos Whispers in Reverse

I touch the old photograph, edges worn from contemplation. Time—that merciless river—suddenly ripples beneath my feet as the room dissolves around me. I am falling, floating, unmade and remade with each heartbeat.

The Greek villa rises around me, impossibly white against deepening twilight. Women with eyes like dark wells carry water from the fountain, their laughter a music I understand though words remain foreign. I follow them, a ghost among the living, wondering if they sense my presence—a ripple in their reality, a whisper from a future they'll never see.

Night falls like a veil. In the distance, drums pulse beneath silver moon. Some ritual perhaps, some celebration of mysteries my modern mind cannot comprehend. I'm drawn to it, wondering whether black magic or science has summoned me here—to this primal rhythm civilization has forgotten.

Morning arrives with cruel swiftness. The nebulous white of dawn erases night's reverie. I feel myself fading, molecules returning to their proper place in time's tapestry.

Black magic ticking

Nocturne shrouds stark Greek Villa—

Nebulous white dawn

Words I included in my poem:   black magic, nebulous white, Nocturne, Greek Villa

I wrote this poem for a prompt at dVerse Poets.  Today we were to write a hiabun about time traveling.  

Writing About Myself...

 

painting by Amrita Sher-Gil,  image courtesy National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi

Wild Geographies

I breathe freedom like morning air,

my lungs expanding with possibility.

Words spill from me in the dark hours—

raw, unplanned, necessary as heartbeats.

My home is wherever creation happens:

windowsills crowded with half-read books,

tables bearing the rings of countless midnight teas,

floors scattered with fragments of tomorrow's art.

I've learned to trust the chaos within,

the way thoughts tangle and untangle themselves

like wild vines growing toward some invisible light.

This is not performance but survival.

I drink wine from chipped mugs, eat bread with paint-stained fingers.

My body remembers what my mind sometimes forgets—

that beauty lives in imperfection,

in the spaces between intention and accident.

Ginsberg speaks to me across decades,

Plath whispers secrets I've always known but never named.

Their words are oxygen, not decoration;

I breathe them in and they become part of my blood.

Each canvas I touch becomes a mirror,

reflecting not what I wish to see

but what must be seen—the boundless,

messy truth of being alive and awake.

My lovers understand that loving me

means loving the storm as much as the calm,

the woman who wakes at 3 a.m. to write a single line,

who cannot separate her flesh from her art.

Some days I wonder if I could live differently,

walk paths more traveled, speak in simpler terms.

But my soul knows its own language,

and it has never been ordinary.

When morning breaks across my unmade bed,

I rise into myself again, authentic and unbound.

This is not a costume I put on but a skin I inhabit—

every freckle, every scar, every beautiful flaw my own.

I wrote this poem for a prompt at dVerse Poets.   The prompt today inspired us to write with a selection of paintings.  I chose the painting that resonated with me most and allowed it to guide my words...

Every Spring, We Are Born Again...

 

Barefoot

The Cruelty of Spring

April is the cruellest month, they say—
I've come to know this truth in my bones,
the way daffodils pierce through frozen earth
like memories we thought safely buried.

How merciless this thawing,
this insistence on rebirth
when I had learned to love
the numbing quiet of winter.

Green shoots break open
what was whole in its emptiness.
I watch my carefully constructed walls
dissolve like morning frost.

The light stretches longer now,
exposing corners I had shadowed.
It asks questions I cannot answer:
Why do you fear what grows?

Each blossom an accusation,
each birdsong a reminder
of all I've failed to become
since last spring's promises.

Cruel indeed, this resurrection—
to be forced into feeling
when dormancy had been
such a perfect prayer.

My body remembers what my mind
tried to forget: how hope hurts
most of all, how possibility
is the sharpest blade.

I stand barefoot in new grass,
dizzy with scent and sudden color.
The earth turns regardless
of my readiness to bloom.

Perhaps cruelty is just another word
for necessary transformation—
the violence of becoming
what we've always been.

I wrote this poem for a writing prompt at Poets and Storytellers United.  The optional prompt this week was to find inspiration in a line by T.S. Eliot "April is the cruelest month."

Poetic Thursday #3: City Lights

 Every Thursday, I post a poetry-writing prompt here on the site.  This weekly tradition is designed to help you explore new ideas, experiment with different writing techniques, and expand your literary horizons.  My aim is to is to provide you with thought-provoking themes, intriguing images, or captivating wordplay that will stimulate your poetic senses.  You are free to interpret the prompt in any way you like and express yourself through poetry or creative writing.

artwork created by me ©Stacy M.S.

I have always been inspired by city lights.  There's just a certain vibe about sitting beside a window, gazing into the lights of a city.  I particularly remember all the time's I've sat by a window in a hotel room and gazed into the bright lights of a strange city...daydreaming, reflecting, imagining.  There's just something magical about how the streetlights and stoplights and the lights from windows in tall buildings sort of highlight the complete skyline, particularly in a big city.  

Small cities are just as enthralling to me.  The quirky side-streets and lost alley-ways.  The secrets of ancient cobblestone and the stories of historical buildings, especially alit at night.  I remember college dazed, crazed by the idea of opporunity, dancing beneath a streetlamp while cars whiz past.  

And I'm always delighted when I come across poems about the city, written by other poets and dreamers.

Like the short poem by Carl Sandburg, as he describes the incoming fog of a city:

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

>>Read the complete poem here

Or this nostalgic poem by Robert Frost, as he describes a walk through the city at night:

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

>>Read the complete poem here

artwork created by me ©Stacy M.S.

So, my challenge for you this week is to write a poem that portrays your perception of the city at night.

You can draw upon the artwork posted and the sample poems for inspiration, or you can go entirely your own way!

My challenges and prompts are not interactive.  You don't have to come back to link up.  No comments are required, just your creativity!

For more inspiration, here is the poem I wrote:

This City

This city

is a breath

between the void

of what I feel

and what 

you feel you need.

It's an invisible

bridge I can't

quite precede.

We settle in

our separate ways,

merely miles apart

but it might as

well be galaxies

and decades.

And I

am suffocating

beneath the weight

of what

I still carry.

My chest

is bruised,

ribcage bulging

of the love

my heart

still hoards.

I want to shed

what's left of you,

the things you said,

like the flowers

shed their dead,

or how the earth

sprouts new seed

from the depth

of decay.

But I can't.

I am 

immobilized

by the orange

flash of moon

across tin roof,

the many 

lighted windows,

the secrets of 

their shiny

ice-block facades.

I walk streets

manmade of

lonesome loitering

and dirty sidewalk,

wishing I had

somewhere to go,

wishing that

where ever I end

up this night,

you'll be there too.

Even though

I know you won't;

I know.

I won't find you

in doorways,

waving me past,

or in old beds

in seedy hotel rooms.

We once joked

about that, 

do you remember?

You won't be

riding shotgun

in my red car,

nor driving us

to empty parking lots

or department stores

where strangers

won't know

our sin

as we hold hands

and steal kisses.

Photo A Day: Week 3

I try to take at least one photo a day and post my outcome every week.  At least...that is the goal.

You can find my original first post of this HERE.

I invite you to follow these breadcrumbs of light and shadow, and perhaps, a little bit of everyday mundane...

Veggie soup, made by yours truly.

Best friends (sometimes).

I have been working on this huge collection of 1:6 dioramas.  I plan to do doll photography with accompanying stories...very soon!

I'm not sure how I feel about this book.  I don't think it's teaching me anything I don't already know.  But...I suppose the prompts are interesting enough.

I actually wrote this poem with the aid of a prompt from the book in the previous photo.

Another one of my favorite mugs.  Because...you might as well!

My white chocolate latte...made by me, of course...with extra cream!