Week One December’s Creativity Prompt Challenge: Once Upon a December

Creativity prompts for this first week of December

Brave & Reckless

For December, I look to book titles related to Christmas, the month of December, and Winter for inspiration.

The books that these prompts are drawn from represent many different voices and points of view. I hope that you find them as evocative as I do and that you will be intrigued enough to learn more about them.

There is only one rule to my prompt challenge: the poem or book title should serve as the title of your piece OR all the words of the title should be integrated into your piece somehow.

I LOVE posting your prompt responses on Brave & Reckless. I welcome your poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essay, and art. I will accept responses to any of December’s prompts on any day, but will not start publishing them on Brave & Reckless until December 1st.

Email your prompt responses with a short bio and…

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Misty Remains – Annette Kalandros

Each in turn in time

Brave & Reckless

At the kitchen table,

My mother and I sat.

Nothing new to discuss

Silence covered us.

Sometimes we glanced at each other.

Mostly, we stared ahead

Or at the plants

We always struggled to keep alive.

My mother lit another long cigarette,

Inhaled the smoke,

Blew it out in curls,

Spectral tendrils swirling

Bout her head.

At times, I looked up

To my mother’s eyes.

At times, I looked down

To my mother’s eyes.

At times, one of us would sigh

In spring breezes as if to start

Speaking soft words.

At times, one of us would sigh

In harsh winter winds as if to start

Hurling weaponized words.

In front of me,

I had a glass of milk

Or a cup of coffee

And once a vodka tonic with extra limes.

My mother had coffee in front of her

But more than once, many times

More than once, did…

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Strangers At the Feast – Larry Trasciatti

Who?

Brave & Reckless

Every year the family threw a feast for one and all

It was always on Thanksgiving so they named it Thanksgiving Ball

Soon something so very odd began to happen

Each year several new people would appear

No one could account for any of them

Were they all from the Big Rock Candy Mountain

They clapped their hands they clapped their hands they clapped their hands

And they did sing together Oooh Eeeh Aaah

What is it about this Ball that attracts the strangers

For whom no one can account?

Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash

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My name is Larry Trasciatti I live in Long Beach New York, am sixty two years old and have been writing poetry for around the past five years .

You can read more of my writing at EASTELMHURST.A.GO.GO

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Coming Through – Lynn White

Through the woods

Brave & Reckless

We used to head out from our homes

to explore what remained

of the countryside,

to walk in the lanes

and through the wood

hoping to leave the darkness behind

and push ourselves upwards and onwards

into the light.

Now you’re following us

making a new pathway

all the way through

to the river

where the golden glow of sunlight

will seek you out

as it passes

through

the wood.

Now we have all come through

and are ready to cross over the river

into the light.

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Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud ‘War Poetry for Today’ competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and…

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STOLEN WORDS – Georgiann Carlson

Women’s words

Brave & Reckless

our words have been stolen

twisted

taken out of context

shoved down our throat

hidden

lied about

destroyed

silenced

a woman’s words

often go unheard

even when she is

SCREAMING

words are power

words are life

words describe reality

all the things men in power

do not want women to have

they are even willing to kill us

to make sure we never speak

a word

 

 

Photo by David Carboni on Unsplash

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I’m an artist, a writer, a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, and quite a few other things as well. I love books, cats, philosophy, good conversation, Chicago and the arts. So my blog is full of bits and pieces but it’s the bits and pieces that make life interesting to me. You can read more of my writing at Rethinking Life

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Perhaps the World Ends Here – Larry Trasciatti

Perhaps

Brave & Reckless

My friend Perhaps the world ends here

There may be nothing past that line

The egg will soon make all things clear

My friend perhaps the world ends here

I gaze across a simple weir

And drink my one last cup of wine

My friend perhaps the world ends here

There may be nothing past that line

Photo by Dan Calderwood on Unsplash

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My name is Larry Trasciatti I live in Long Beach New York, am sixty two years old and have been writing poetry for around the past five years .

You can read more of my writing at EASTELMHURST.A.GO.GO

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TAKE CARE OF YOUR SILENCE – Robert G. Wertzler

Precious Quiet

Brave & Reckless

A right is granted

Directed to be announced

To the suspected or accused

To remain silent

But none such is assured

To have silence

No, not that

To be free of noise

The rule is relentless assault

On TV, they must talk on and on

City traffic a constant drone

And what is it to sit quietly

With a loved one and let

Eyes, touch, presence speak

What words can never capture?

So, what silence you can find

Whatever of it you create

That is yours alone to tend,

Guard, and hold close.

 

Photo by Boba Jovanovic on Unsplash

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Bob Wertzler is retired from almost twenty years in the mental health field in California and Arizona. There are times the title, “Recovering Therapist”, seems to fit. In 2006 he retired to move to Western North Carolina to help and become primary care giver for his father who had developed…

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Thoughts on a Windy November Afternoon

Tara on Tara

Raw Earth Ink

For nineteen years, I was beat and belittled into quiet submission. I was trained to understand I would never measure up. I laughed too loud, I talked too much, I read the wrong things, I didn’t fit in, I didn’t understand my peers. I was chubby and awkward and a weird loner who even the weird loners didn’t get. I walked barefoot in the snow and lay on a sled staring up at the stars in the woods. I stood in the bitter Alaskan ocean up to my neck and felt the shifting sands swirl around my toes. I watched you being you: intelligent, funny, charismatic and unreachable. I loved from afar and wished I was loved in return.

For nineteen years, I learned to keep my mouth shut and don’t share my intellect or my ideas. No matter what my thoughts, no matter what my plans, no matter what…

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Daily Writing Prompt: The Ice Storm – Rick Moody

The Daily Writing Prompt – Ice and wind

Brave & Reckless

For November, I look to poem and book titles related to Thanksgiving and Fall for inspiration. I fell in love with the title of Douglas Florian’s poetry collection Autumnblings,which beautifully captures this time of year and have chosen it for the name of November’s prompt challenge.

The poems and books that these prompts are drawn from represent many different voices and points of view. I hope that you find them as evocative as I do and that you will be intrigued enough to learn more about them.

There is only one rule to my prompt challenge: the poem or book title should serve as the title of your piece OR all the words of the title should be integrated into your piece somehow.

I LOVE posting your prompt responses on Brave & Reckless. I welcome your poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essay, and art. I will accept…

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Happy Birthday, Shirley Chisholm!

Calico Jack reminds us of Shirley Chisholm’s birthday.

The Psy of Life

The Black Community Holds The Aspiration of America

On 30 November 1924, Shirley Chisholm was born. She was always a personal hero of mine. Her election to the House of Representatives in 1968 somehow made it through all the childish fog and mishegas of that year and into my awareness. When she ran for president in 1972, I was a fan and hoped that she’d win, not quite getting that not only was it impossible for her to win, but that wasn’t the point.

Her run for president really opened my eyes to the inequities of the system. It wasn’t anything she did or said, but it was the way that the people around me reacted to her candidacy that clued me in. It was the idea of an issues campaign and that campaigns could be used for purposes other than winning that clued me in.

It all got me…

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