absolutwillie

Tag: creative writing

  • Zulu love letter assignment (Diamanté poem): Genealogy

                                                                               birth
                                                                          wet, sacred
                                                            expanding, stretching, reaching
                                           boy (who is) son (who is) brother (who becomes) man

                                                      man                            graduate, caregiver, activist, leader
                                                 naive, bright                             burning healing hoping
                                       reading, thinking, playing                         fierce and loyal
                                 graduate, logician, soldier, hermit                         woman

                              iron and leather, envelope and shield                         wife
                                    teaching, showing, carrying                           soft and fragile
                                             classic strong                          enlightening, strengthening, loving
                                                  husband                         the earth, his hearth, crystal and flower
                                           gentle, protective                        life-giving, defending, guiding
                                  reviving, supporting, believing                 beautiful though embattled
                              provider, champion, guardian, father                        mother

                                                  firstborn                              rebel princess, survivor, genius
                                           fierce but hidden                             singing, laughing, crying
                                       striving, shining, lying                             depressed, blessed

                                    poet, writer, leader, faggot                                    sister

  • For the love of our children

    Today just blew my heart wide open…
    My Grade 8 learners (similes-and-metaphors class the day before yesterday) read the poems they wrote aloud in class today. Each and every one of them – even the shy and immovable ones! And boy did they write the most amazing little pieces!! Each tiny poem crept straight into my heart.
    And then came one about me, and it was so sweet I welled up like the Titanic. The second one about me nearly had me crying with joy!
    I just wanted to hug each and every one of those shining, joyful little souls.
    (EFAL learners, so forgive all the errors and see the intent.)

  • New

    staring at a full moon
    spilling over crashing waves
    spraying foam in shining eyes
    staring at a full moon
    – MOSSEL BAY, 27 NOV 2012

  • It Isn't Your Town – It's You

    Compliments Worth County Times
    Grant City, Missouri
    If you want to live in the kind of town
    Like the kind of town you like,
    You needn’t slip your clothes in a grip
    And start on a long, long hike.
    You’ll only find what you left behind,
    For there’s nothing that’s really new.
    It’s a knock at yourself when you knock your town.
    It isn’t your town – it’s you!
    Real towns are not made by men afraid
    Lest somebody else gets ahead.
    When everyone works and nobody shirks
    You can raise a town from the dead.
    And if while you make your personal stake
    Your neighbor can make one, too,
    Your town will be what you want to see.
    It isn’t your town – it’s YOU!

  • Happy Frabjous Day!

    Jabberwocky

     ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
    All mumsy were the borow groves,
    And the mome rats out grabe.

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
    Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
    The frumious Bandersnatch!”

    He took his vorpal sword in hand:
    Long time the manxome foe he sought–
    So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
    And stood awhile in thought.

    And as in uffish thought he stood,
    The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
    Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
    And burbled as it came!

    One, two! One, two! and through and through
    The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
    He left it dead, and with its head
    He went galumphing back.

    “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
    He chortled in his joy.

    ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
    All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.

    from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll (1872).

  • flickering

    oh were i a dying man
    who had no need of your forevers
    but was at peace with merely
    being liked

    then would i drink the
    love of light and
    ne’er be afraid of all
    of beauty’s eventual end

    but lo! i am a living man
    who needs but hear a whisper…