Category Writing Prompt

Chiaroscuro – dVerse Meeting the Bar

freyathewriter 15 Comments

It’s been a very long time (yes, I keep on saying that, I know), but I’ve been itching to get back into contributing (and therefore supporting) the wonderful dVerse Poets Pub.

Last night’s Meeting the Bar, hosted by the lovely Peter all the way from Australia, was all about sound. Let’s do a sound check, testing, testing, 1.2,3! What sounds do we hear when we write? Do they resonate, do they amplify the meaning of the words and the subject matter? I love playing with sound, whether it’s following a well-known (or less well-known) poetic patters, or by going full free-form.

Why not take part yourself? Pop over to the Meeting the Bar post, have a read, see what you think and dive in!

Here’s my contribution, which I hope you enjoy – Chiaroscuro.

He fell foul of the rule
the fool
he drooled over her –
slender, tall, willowy
of the opposite gender.

Taking advantage
of the gloom in the room,
the shade and the shadow, 
the gap

the break

the chance he would take to
throw his fate to the wind

The wind that ruffled his
waiting wife’s feathers
arousing the rage
unleashing the tiger – 
the cage
was no match
for the scratch of his nails 
marking 
his paramour’s back.

Illicit
Complicit
Guilty as charged.

SoCS Dec 21/19 – Dorian Gray’s Cupboard

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This time of year is full of pressure to mingle, to socialise, to network (if you’re in business), to buy, buy and spend, spend.

I’m not anti-social (yes, yes you are, Freya). I like (some) people. I love my partner. I love my family. I also love hunkering down, curling up under a blanket with a steaming cup of coffee or tea, a book, or a good film or my laptop so I can peck away at the keyboard on my work in progress novel. I like to put distance between me and The Outside.

Partly it’s how I’ve been for as long as I can remember. I was an only child until I was almost 13 – I was pretty self-reliant (and writing stories) even then. In fact, I’m almost certain my mum still has some of these stories filed away in the Sideboard of Doom. You know how Dorian Gray had his aging picture in the attic? I’m pretty sure that my mum’s excellent memory for All The Things Her Children Did When They Were Little is because she has filed pieces of our lives in that darned cupboard!

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It’s time for Stream of Consciousness Saturday where the lovely Lynn invites us to write using a word that includes ‘ingle’ – I just added an M!

Please do join us to read, or let your mind wander and join in!

SoCS Nov 30/19 – No tea, no shade

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I’ve been infected by popular culture!

I first heard the phrase  “No tea, no shade’ on RuPaul’s Drag Race, not all that long ago to be honest. I’m soooo late to the party with that series! To be even more honest, I haven’t watched them all. I was caught at a weak moment when I was feeling a bit under the weather, and got sucked in to the spectacle which is drag!

But then it got me thinking. Behind all the glitz and the in-fighting and the drama and the make up, RuPaul has done a huge amount to bring drag queens to the forefront of society’s consciousness and, I can only imagine, help this particular part of what used to be an underground culture, be more acceptable to people who may otherwise have been unwelcoming at best.

Did you know that the term ‘drag’ was first used in British theatre in the late nineteenth century, and was used t describe women’s clothing worn by men? Some say that ‘drag’ is an acronym for ‘dressed as a girl’ – which makes sense, but who knows. But then there is the phrase ‘putting on your drags’ which comes from Polari, the British theatre slang that was also popular with the then gay ‘subculture’ (as well as circus performers, wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, prostitutes and criminals. Sadly the language has all but died out, although the positive spin is that it has almost disappeared because gay men no longer have the need to speak in code – back in the 1960s when Polari reached its zenith, it was a crime to be a homosexual.

Anyway, no tea, no shade – or rather no arguments or insults from me!

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This is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday, hosted by the lovely Linda – please visit her here to see what it’s all about.

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