Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt

Sammi’s Weekender #233 (vellichor)

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Because it was not in my MW online dictionary: John Koenig wrote that the word vellichor, which he apparently created, refers to “the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time…”

Dear Enemy

When Jean Webster
lived, wrote, and died,
grandmother was still alive.
Both lives ended
from new life inside.

My century+ old copy
with stains and library marks
has redolent suggestions
of hidden stacks in bookstores.
Vellichor, the petrichor of paper,
print, and the souls
of past passionate readers.

Look both ways as you hold hundreds of years in your human hands.
Mind the gaps in time as we admire the history of the human mind.

Sammi’s Weekender #232 (question)

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The Weight of Truth

Your question cuts to my core.
You long for unnuanced truth bathed in heavenly light.

Who am I, naked, closeted?
Yet, you ask for the dark light, to know my vulnerable,
captive, and bound heart.

Will my truth set you free?
Shall my vulnerability be set back upon me?
My silent deception belies both truth and trust.

Long sleepless nights.
Regret, haunting wonders of who I am.

If I answer your question the world will hate me.
My truth is heaviness mankind cannot hold.

Look both ways before you answer.
Value truth but weigh the gaps and consequences.

Sammi’s Weekender #231 (legion)

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Our Masked Morons

The Kadiddlehoppers:
Abbottomy the bot,
dirty Dan,
and Perrywinkle,
planned four Guard brigades
of water boy warriors
to battle back
Obama’s invisible invading
legions, thirty already here.
Save us
from such morons.

Look both ways for details and the big picture.
Mind the gaps and trust none of them.

Sammi’s Weekender #230 (brush)

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Damn Yankees

Peckerwoods range southern from taproot wormwood sagebrush out west,
to different dialects in deep East Texas’s vast Big Thicket Forest
with snake-filled, gator-infested swamps.

Coon hunters haul coonhounds, like Ol’ Blue,
in pickups circled round night fires.
Dogs tree them coons for the bark and fun of the run.

Where cultural racism thrives as casual and common as an Easter toothache,
in tasteless towns, where hate breeds happiness decayed.

Damn longhaired, white-assed Yankee,
“What cha mean ya never been coon huntin’?
Grab yer wahoo and follow me.”

Look both ways and wonder, why does it have to be this way?
Mind the gaps for gators and snakes.
“Old Blue got one treed, but Scout is a-trackin’ some tail.”

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Plan Reveal

A few years ago, I completed writing my fifty-thousand-word memoir during Nano. The unfinished manuscript haunts me. I want to finish it, get feedback, and maybe self-publish.

I also want to put some poetry book pages together, but that may have to wait until later in 2022. Maybe I’ll discuss poetry as I contemplate National Poetry Writing Month (April).

I’ve acquired a training course, and I have other books on writing memoirs. Writers Write suggests doing a few other things, such as completing their 127 free memoir prompts. Flash memoirs. Why not?

For Nano 2021, I intend to write about 400 words for each of the 127 prompts before November 30th. That would be five prompts per day, each about the length of this post, yielding almost 2,000 words daily. I’ll commit to 50,000 words for the month. I shall neither edit nor revise. That’s a Nano no-no.

It’s not as creative and crafty as a novel, but I am not in the novel or novella mood. I want to commit to my memoir by January of 2022. But I also want to do Nano.

Additionally, I’ll post two poems, one essay, and a flash fiction story each week.

My weekends may be busy. Sammi’s prompt requires fewer than 100 words. That is one poem. But I must wait for the prompt which pops up about 3:00 AM (US central time) each Saturday morning. My writer’s group, RRWG, zoom meeting is 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM on Saturdays. Maybe I’ll write more words on other days to reduce required weekend writing.

I post a 1000-ish-word essay for my Dispassionate Doubt blog each Friday. I’ll get a head start on those before Nano begins. I moved my midweek poem to Thursdays, and I want to continue that. Maybe I can get them drafted, if not written.

Moving my midweek poem is because I plan to continue with Friday Fictioneers (FF) prompts. At 100 words and technically three days to finish posting, writing FF is doable. The reading and commenting on others will take longer. But I can do it.

Many Nano participants work eight or more hours a day, have kids to deal with, and lives with less time available to them than I have. If they can find the time, so can I. We’ll find out.

Look both ways.
The reason to accept a challenge is to meet it.
Mind the gaps for wasted time (Facebook and rabbit holes).
Plan.

Sammi’s Weekender #229 (caboodle)

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It’s All Just Stuff

Measure married history
with social mobility
and acquired caboodle from:

Abilene to Ankara, Turkey,
then back with bounty
to College Station.
Then Woodville.
Then Abilene again,
and on to Del Rio.

Sacramento before
Fort Worth,
then to Guam
for booty from China Pete’s,
Korea, and South Pacific trips.
Back to SAC,
then to San Antonio.

Edmund, Oklahoma,
and Albany, Texas preceded
San Antonio’s redux.

Florida came before Seattle.
Finally,
Georgetown with another
van of encumbrances.
Stuff.
And memories….

Look both ways for what was and will be.
Count blessings, mind gaps, and cherish memories.
Measure happiness and adventure carefully.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #228 (portmanteau)

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Little Blue Suitcase

Mom’s sister,
Lorry, was so apropos,
most correct old maid aunt
in navy blue turban with pin,
granny glasses,
self-assured in sensible shoes,
purse over left forearm,
her small portmanteau
gripped right,
I loved Lorry, now I know.
But then one day,
I had to let Lorry go.
Back then,
what the hell did I know,
long, long ago?

Look both ways, to the past for memories,
to the future for better days.
Mind the gaps in memory but hold on to what you can.

Sammi’s Weekender #226 (yard)

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My Fantasy

Like old, faded white, torn, photographs
faces with names I forget, family
I never met. Dead people still
physically and mentally part me.
Memories. Pulpy puzzles without pieces.

Forgotten years of backyard child’s play
where I fell for the girl next door,
Tootie, older than I at three or five,
my first fetish. Desires I never
understood or confessed till now.

Grass, dirt, fences, porches,
clothes drying, neighbors.
My first snowman.
I remember her name,
how I felt, nothing else.
No Tootie photo.

Look both ways.
The past equals no future.
Mind the gaps and fill them with memories of whom.

 

Sammi’s Weekender #225 (newspaper)

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Delivery Pros

Times Leader trucks stopped
at Butler and Main
around four each day,
any season, any weather.

We carried bundles,
cut binding wires,
counted papers,
rolled them and stuffed full
our heavy canvas bags as only
experienced newspaper boys can,
for precise throwing
onto porches passed
on our route.

We knew customer’s names,
addresses, dogs, gates, and fences.
We collected cash, paid the Times.
Made profits. Businessmen at twelve.

Look both ways and remember the days when print was king.
Mind the gaps, bumps, hard work, and headline news.
Collect politely to keep customers.

 

 

Sammi’s Weekender #224 (marshal)

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America’s First

An army of one
Pompously preened
Proud Field Marshal for
Pearl of the Orient Seas

Baroque of dress
Greater than grace
Without humility
In defeat or dismissal
Pride over human life, yet
Human to the core, to the corps

Look both ways. History is prophecy.
Mind the gaps and seek the truth that may never be told.

Only one American has held the title of “Field Marshal.” Douglas MacArthur was appointed Field Marshal of the Army of the Philippines in 1936 when the island nation achieved a semi-independent status. MacArthur was to create an army for the fledgling country. He wore a special uniform, complete with a Field Marshal’s baton.

Many beautiful lyrical poems pine after the Philippines. Here, “Pearl of the Orient Seas” alludes to the phrase coined by Juan J. Delgado, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, in 1751, and to a poem by Jose Rizal (Mi ultimo adios), wherein he refers to the Philippines with that name.