poetry prompts – Page 3 – Business in Rhyme

NaPoWriMo: Day 10

April 10, 2017April 11, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Poetry prompt: The moment

Go back to some pleasant moment in life – something nice that you experienced for first time, like your first bike ride, first swim, first love, hanging out with friends, moments from your travel: those special events in your life can be an inexhaustible source of emotions for a touching poem. Re-living the moments again reconnects you with your true nature and helps you get that intensity you need to move forward with your thinking and creativity.

The moment

Oh, that moment,
like no moment coming out of nowhere:
sudden crashing collide of uranus and sun
eclipsed by gracious moon

or brief rest of your eyes on my face
and pungent fragrance of your skin,
lingering in the air.

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NaPoWriMo: Day 9

April 9, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Poetry prompt: react to given act

Remember Newton’s Third Law in physics? Every action has a reaction. That’s simply how Universe works. Thus, use the following statements to imagine a dramatic situation – express emotions, describe scenery, what each of your senses feel and try to write your story or poem. It’s a refreshing activity and your untamed imagination and power of visualization will move your creativity in a positive direction.

Example statements:

You woke up alone, hurt and wet on the sand beach. What happened to you?

You heard a noise on the stairs, behind the closed door.
What made that noise?

A smiling child runs into you. How do you react?

A crowd has gathered below your window. What do they want?

You are in an unknown country: nobody speaks your language, nobody understands you. How do you communicate?

This is a great way to initiate your writing. There are endless options of imaginative situations that can spur your words and keep writing going.

Ocean

I liked the numbing sensation of the sand.
Anesthetized I looked at clouds, blue heavy formations
ready to pour silky rain. In the brushing strokes
drops persistently combed incoming waves,
but I didn’t care.

Melted with my surroundings I finally felt
the warmth of belonging. The ocean also didn’t care.
Just as the clouds didn’t. All they did, is their job.
To mix sand and shells in beautiful patterns and give
us unexpected showers. They just were and are.

I ran for days, until I came to this turquoise border,
everything saying to me ‘it’s enough, rest’.

The tide came and I wasn’t afraid of raising wall in front me.
It’s not another obstacle to jump over.

As water was filling gaps in between my fingers, I smiled
and let the ocean remember instead of me.

NaPoWriMo: Day 8

April 8, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Prompt: Tip – toe through your bag

Touch is one of the most essential senses we have. It translates everything that happens around us through our largest organ – skin. If we are cold, warm, if something is soft or sharp, we can feel it. Our sensors for touch give us that information. So today, simply grab your bag and dig your hand in it: your task is to describe the first object you find (no matter if you know what it is). How does it feel, what’s the color you imagine, is it cold or warm, how does it fit in your hand?

To make it more interesting, ask for assistance. Let someone else pick random objects and fill the bag that you will later explore and use for exercising your creative mussels. Now this is interesting, right?

That random object just might be someone else’s hand as it happened in my case 😉

What is hand?

A hand is not your five fingers
made of bones, wrapped in flesh
and coated in skin.

A hand is not your bluish sinews
revealed just below your knuckles
and joints.

A hand is not only to hold, squeeze,
catch, scratch, write, climb, speak, pretend, hide
show, offer, threaten, apologize or fight.

A hand is to love:
just like your tickle behind my ear.
just like the caress on my hair after tiresome day.
just like the warmth protecting my cold palm in dark winter months.

A hand is a first touch to bring us together
after mute goodbye –
your opened, raised hand in the air.

NaPoWriMo: Day 7

April 7, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Poetry prompt: Find a color contrast that appeals to you

For this exercise, let’s play with colors. Observing patterns and how colors interlay can help us train our focus and flexibility.

Look around you and find a pair of colors – any two colors will do. It could be just that you spotted yellow-green pattern on your blanket or the book near you have black-white cover. It doesn’t matter. Look in that contrast and then close your eyes. Write about what you ‘see’, what you feel. How does it appeal to you? Let it inspire your writing and focus on pictures coming to your mind.

New beginning

Those tender petals, pale pink
as they were suddenly kissed by the sun
and hugged by sin
they bend in my fingers and
cuddle the crevices of my hand

As they fade with the day
they fall on the ground in rose-like peachy puddles
feathers of outworn season,
announcing new, heavy coats of
fruitful and sweet deceit.

In contrast, there are soil-stained branches,
once in color of sand and cracked nut shell
that bleed with smile
and proudly wear scratches
of faithfully embossed
cat’s claws.

I’ll leave this innocent flower to silently
purr in my hand as haunting wind repeats:
don’t search for spring in outside reach,
spread your wings, with every breath there
is a new beginning.

NaPoWriMo: Day 6

April 6, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Poetry prompt: Fragrance in your words

For today, get ready to become nosy. This writing proposal is about object writing. It’s direct and straightforward. Pick a random object and recall memories and associations you hold towards it. What scent does the object invoke in you? What feelings? Use different metaphors, adjectives to do this exercise.

Book – as an object, for example:

It’s the scent of history, of collected words to drive knowledge. It’s the smell of rainy days and warm nights as I’m reading my favorite novel…

Chocolate

I knew I could always find it in the kitchen cupboard, on the first shelf, neatly placed among white plates we used for lunch. It was obligatory item in the house, just as bread. A 100 gr a day was my dose. I didn’t like to share it with anyone. If my sister would ask for a bite, I would rudely say: “One package, one person only”. And she would just smile at my 5 year old naive answer. Somehow she new how to steal last three cubes from my greasy pockets.

This love affair continued in the years of my primary school. Every afternoon, upon coming home, I would kick my books in the corner and run into my parents bedroom to indulge in the new comic and delectable pieces of sweet hazelnuts melting in my mouth. Yeah, my mom did mind that her pillows smelled like cacao, but I was too fast for her to catch me, anyway. And my fingers became very crafty in making small silver ducks and chickens out of foil wrap. But not only did my dark and sweet addiction help me to become an artist, my arithmetic skills improved too – by knowing how to add and subtract any new cavity. A reason for making friends with dentist, a way to kill time and satiate my teenage angst, it meant everything to me: now at 41 my pockets are still greasy, while my sister smiles at my stale lie: “I have non!”.

NaPoWriMo: Day 5

April 5, 2017April 6, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Poetry prompt: What’s in the news today?

Pick one news headline and that can be something you really dislike; now write your own news that are quite the opposite, news you would like to hear or read in the newspaper, news in the form of poem or a story.

Original news: Evidence of ancient ‘geological Brexit’ revealed

The UK has now started the formal process of leaving the EU, but scientists say they have evidence of a much earlier “Brexit”. They have worked out how a thin strip of land that once connected ancient Britain to Europe was destroyed. The researchers believe a large lake overflowed 450,000 years ago, damaging the land link, then a later flood fully opened the Dover Strait.The scars of these events can be found on the seabed of the English Channel.

My response:

There are no borders.
The tailor of world maps lost his pen:
The stitches of our joint hands now hold this
earth together.

NaPoWriMo: Day 4

April 4, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Prompt: Blend and tune in

Listen to everything and everywhere. ‘Blend and tune in’ with your environment and listen to the sounds, conversations (I’m not suggesting you spy on anyone!) and notice what randomly catches your attention: a word, song, laughter, baby cry … and write about it. Let that be the initial spark of something you absorbed from your environment and you are creating further. Don’t censure yourself, just write your story, a poem or whatever comes – let it surface.

Orographic

I told you about this place.
A nicely framed postcard
where orographic clouds chase
cars and the rain falls off the ground.
We can write together on the backside
of moonlight paper
with our joint fingertips –
memories carved in stars with a swing of future.

NaPoWriMo: Day 3

April 3, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Prompt: Let gratitude empower your creativity

Here are some ideas where to start:

Read something inspirational at the start of your day;

Imagine experiencing your good;

Celebrate your small everyday victories;

End your day with thinking of 3 things you are grateful for.

Poetry does have that restorative power, so use it into your own advantage: as you might pour out those negative feelings in your poetry, try also to step back and write your poem about all the good things in your life, that you love and care about. The more you write, the more things you will find you like about your life.

That look. Just one look into your eyes,
blue skies full of possibilities to bright up
my days. Smile becomes natural thing
and I don’t ask questions ‘who am I’?
Being vulnerable and open is all I seek.
No fear, no judgment. That look, just one
look into your eyes, clean and innocent as
midnight rain reminds me how it is to be alive.
Thank you for that look. Just one look into your
eyes telling me I am enough.

NaPoWriMo: Day 2

April 2, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Prompt: Get acquainted with your creative side

For this daily prompt think of certain words like:

creativity

passion

purpose

inner voice

stillness

success

failure

and try to picture in your mind, metaphorically, what kind of living being each word could be? What kind of associations does it bring? Is it an animal, plant, flower, tree, insect, child, another person, describe everything in detail, write a short story about it. It will help you reconnect with your creative force to more vividly sense what it means for you to be alive, creative – where to search for your passions and purpose.

A voice looking for mouth to rent

You tickle me. (I try to cough.)
Like accidentally swallowed dog hair, you tickle me.

Why are you trying to climb up my throat? Don’t collect words,
it’s already midnight, I need to sleep.

I know you are there, but I don’t have time for you right now.
Maybe tomorrow we could talk?

I can’t borrow you my mouth. It’s already rented to pain.
Don’t jump over my tongue! Teeth are white bars keeping you safe…

…until ache subsides and then I will listen to you as you bath
on the surface of my cherry lips.

NaPoWriMo: Day 1

April 1, 2017 by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, My personal rhyme - from time to time

Prompt: awaken creativity

What makes you smile?

What makes you angry?

What are you curious about?

Who would you like to be?
Write a poem using these questions as pointers.

I wanted

Empty hands lying on the table:

it’s not enough to squeeze them in fists
and say you have caught the air.

Wrinkled curtains above the windows:

it’s not enough to drape them down
and say you have hidden the sun.

Cold silence lingering in between us:

it’s not enough to turn your head
and say you didn’t know.

Bony face changes expressions,
fast as traffic lights.

I used to love to place my thumbs
in small wholes of your withered cheeks
and pull them slowly towards your chin.
As self-contained sigh would spread over your face,
my heart would gallop in circles, impatiently waiting
for sign that is safe to walk and cross on the other side
of your presence.

And when red light would start to dim from your metallic eyes
I’d smile, despite the hurdles of your pouting nose
that would tear the clouds, higher than any skyscraper
with tall shadows where we used to hide.

I would pretend I’m angry but all I wanted is just to keep
you safe, near me, but away from my deceiving past
and tell you
everything,

everything,

everything
from the very beginning.

and be free

become free.

I wanted you and me, in us:
wrapped in time,
forged in lust.

Maja S. Todorovic