Prompt # 23

I dreamed of welts from angry bees and people who were pretending to be my people but I recognized none of them. There was a sharp edged woman who wore an old flowered housecoat and had angry looking black hair that she kept smoothing down with her own spit. Her eyes were dark and mean whenever they landed on me but when I looked directly at her she put on a forced bright smile. Her teeth were even and white and large, like new, old fashioned dentures. She seemed to be the gatekeeper and she hated me but wasn't letting me out.She only let some people in. I couldn't understand why I was one of the chosen ones, or what I'd been chosen for. There were old time hymns in the air and grape juice in paper cups. People were sleeping in sleeping bags in a big auditorium. Every door I tried led right back in like stage doors in a play. Up or down stage right or left, in the wings I was always still there. I woke up grateful to be alone. 

***

I used to hate dreaming but now I look at it all as material. It's all good for the pen even if it makes me nauseous or scared or uncomfortable.

It's only a bee sting...or... the bees were 

***

This is the way out...or...the door refused to open

****

They only want you to.... or I don't want to (or she, they, he, ze) 

***

and 

The Girl with Bees in Her Hair

BY ELEANOR WILNER

came in an envelope with no return address;   

she was small, wore wrinkled dress of figured   

cotton, full from neck to ankles, with a button   

of bone at the throat, a collar of torn lace.

She was standing before a monumental house—

on the scale you see in certain English films:

urns, curved drives, stone lions, and an entrance far   

too vast for any home. She was not of that place,   

for she had a foreign look, and tangled black hair,   

and an ikon, heavy and strange, dangling from   

an oversize chain around her neck, that looked   

as if some tall adult had taken it from his,   

and hung it there as a charm to keep her safe   

from a world of infinite harm that soon   

would take him far from her, and leave her   

standing, as she stood now—barefoot, gazing   

without expression into distance, away   

from the grandeur of that house, its gravel

walks and sculpted gardens. She carried a basket   

full of flames, but whether fire or flowers   

with crimson petals shading toward a central gold,   

was hard to say—though certainly, it burned,   

and the light within it had nowhere else   

to go, and so fed on itself, intensified its red   

and burning glow, the only color in the scene.   

The rest was done in grays, light and shadow   

as they played along her dress, across her face,   

and through her midnight hair, lively with bees.   

At first they seemed just errant bits of shade,   

until the humming grew too loud to be denied   

as the bees flew in and out, as if choreographed   

in a country dance between the fields of sun   

and the black tangle of her hair.

                                                   Without warning

a window on one of the upper floors flew open—

wind had caught the casement, a silken length   

of curtain filled like a billowing sail—the bees   

began to stream out from her hair, straight   

to the single opening in the high facade. Inside,   

a moment later—the sound of screams.

The girl—who had through all of this seemed   

unconcerned and blank—all at once looked up.   

She shook her head, her mane of hair freed   

of its burden of bees, and walked away,   

out of the picture frame, far beyond

the confines of the envelope that brought her   

image here—here, where the days grow longer   

now, the air begins to warm, dread grows to   

fear among us, and the bees swarm.

Does an image stand out, or a phrase from the poem or a line or a single word? Sometimes I let my eyes wander down a poem and catch anywhere and that's where I start- like "out of the picture frame, far beyond" seemed like a good opening for me to write today. Or the bees swarming. If none of this makes your pen twitch, try and remember your dreaming self and what you saw last night or last year or in your imagination. What would you like to dream of? 

Write for ten minutes or twenty if you can.Write in a notebook or on your computer or on scraps of brown paper from grocery bags. It doesn't matter.  What or how doesn't matter. How long doesn't matter. Just write or dream of new material. 

I hope this day is good to you and your dreaming, writing selves. 

Prompt # 22

 It's a gray day today. The day began with a phone call full of tears and loss and wishes. I am wishing I could be closer, wishing I could bring over things that don't help but it's what we do when someone we love loses someone. We bring macaroni and cheese, or scalloped potatoes or a brisket or pot roast, we bring breads and cake and banana pudding. We bring the wrong clumsy words and our awkward earnest selves.

 I want to make her pain go away. I don't have that power. I want to take care of her and be of good use. I am in another State. I am clumsy with my phone tight to my ear, just here. 

***

I hate grief. I find it sly and sneaky. It never meets me like I think it will. Tears don't chase it off. It is on it's own repeat cycle that can pop up again, without warning, for years. It's a silly thing to hate because there is no way of getting around it. Hating it doesn't help but I am stubborn that way. I'd like it to come in a package, clearly labeled in bold black letters- Grief Inside, handle with care. A sturdy box that I can open up and deal with and be done with it. If it actually worked that way grief might kill us. It's smarter than I am. That sneaky way of coming up and receding and coming up again means we get to breathe in between the assaults. 

This is a strange place for a prompt to rise but here we go. 

The words stuck in her throat... or...his words were useless... or... like a bad fortune cookie... or...I want to tell you

**

She lost her... (this loss doesn't have to be grief- it could be a key, a photograph, a wedding ring, her mind) 

**

They had no warning.or it came in the middle of the night 

If these don't work for you- go your own way with the words. Or mix them up, change the order, the pronouns- put a verb in where the pronouns is or an unusual object. Write about your favorite comfort food or the way your lover looks in her sleep or the way your hands itch to touch what is hidden behind the glass. Just write- for a few minutes, or more. Or wonder about something awhile. Wondering is great writing ground. 

I hope this day is good to you and your creative self. 

I want to thank you all for your support and generous giving that allowed me to get to this AWA training, that gave me so much- not just learning but community. 

Prompt # 21 Sunday

I woke up after not enough sleep and sat crossed legged on the floor. The dog was still sleepy too and draped herself over my lap and fell asleep. A sleeping animal resting on me, like holding a sleeping baby in a rocker will send me under every time. I was sitting up and I was dreaming, waking, dreaming, waking. A surreal lucid dreaming. I was looking for prompts while a harried woman was complaining about her husband who had impossibly large and smelly feet. I looked in a pair of his giant shoes- they were large,ripe smelling, faded green running shoes- for a prompt. A young woman came out of the bathroom holding a pregnancy test stick in her hand and we watched the little plastic window turn pink. I was watching it waiting for a prompt to appear- like an old magic eight ball-

Sorry ask again later. 

So here is the Sunday prompting fresh from the land of sleeping dogs and lucid dreams:

The shoe box, hidden on the top shelf of the closet that she could only reach on tip-toe...

What's inside? 

or 

He couldn't find his shoes anywhere

or 

She couldn't have known this was coming- or they always knew....

Write for ten minutes or five or make another cup of good coffee or tea or watch an old movie or try a nap today- see what comes to you in your dreams. 

I hope this day is especially kind to you and your creative selves. 

Prompt # 20 Weekender

 It is the weekend. My daughter very wisely suggested that if I wasn't going to take weekends off in this prompting, I should have simple prompts on the weekends. So this is the first weekender prompt- largely poem. It's timely, this easier prompting, since I am fresh from a night sleeping next to a peaceful tired dog and dreaming dog dreams. I am still thinking in colors, my paint stained hands are happy even when there are no words to say what this tangle of image and old time picture movie reel in my head is. I've had more good art time with my friend Emma. My words are coming slowly to me today.

 I offer this poem which grabbed me by the throat this morning.

Some People
by Wislawa Szymborska translated by Joanna Trzeciak
I am struck by the invisibility that would come in handy, that grayish stoniness and that non-being for a little or a long while. What stays with you? If this poem doesn't spark you- it might be a good day for a walk or some daydreaming. See what you see. Write if you feel like writing for a little while or longer. Play with a dog if you are lucky enough. Write some more. Or daydream, play in the mud or with some paint. I hope this day is good to your dreaming mind and waking mind- and your creative.

Prompt # 19

Today is a tired day. I'm feeling sluggish and achy and slow. I got to make art last night with my friend Emma.  She shared a visual journal making practice with me which involved painting on paper, building the paper that would then hold our words, other images, anything we liked. I'm still feeling high from that- from covered in paint, from the stillness we shared that was happy and full of possibility. I am becoming addicted to shared creative space. I like how the energy gets thick and charged in the room and the focused sound of people making things. I found this worked with art just like it does with writing and I loved being dropped back in to that place where it's just paper and color and quiet and exciting. Red on blue on white or the surprise of  yellow- the possibilities of color were kind to me. 

Afterwards we did a little writing on our still damp journal pages. Then we shared what we wrote and we were quiet and happy and fairly high I think though the only drug was generating art, generating words. It can feel like high; it can feel hungover the next day if you go for hours, which we did. We didn't stop until we were absolutely exhausted and it was late. We talked about this luxury of time we'd had and how good it felt to just keep going. 

What emerged from my writing was a readiness for what comes next and not knowing what it is. These are questions I deal with all the time with my characters. What is she going to do now?  There in a gnawing anxiety for me in being ready for what comes next and not knowing what it is, and I feel it equally for myself and my characters. It's hard to rest with uncertainty. To be uncertain and face an open piece of paper whether painted or white requires a serious brave. 

****

Imagine (or remember) a canvas. It can be a finished piece or half done or blank. If it's blank do you see an image appearing? Are you thinking in colors?  Is the canvas sunlit or in shadow? You can ask for an image to appear- your mind will paint one in for you or not. You might see a favorite painting or a well known one- that works too. What do you see up close, the details, the textures....?  What do you feel as you look at it?  What does your character see? Or is your character the one painting?  Write and see what comes next. 

or

 Bravery takes care of her daughters.

or 

It was a tiny little thing. (or she or he was a tiny little thing)

 

As always if this prompt doesn't work for you- push it around until it does or start someplace different. If you are reading a book that you like, go back to a place earlier in the book and pick a sentence or a fragment and write from that. Write for ten minutes or seven, thirty or every chance you get. It doesn't matter- just write. 

I hope this day is good to you and your writing and your art. 

No poem today- I'm going to play ball with the dog. :) 

Prompt # 18

I love house-sitting. I love to step into someone else's place.There is energy here that is different from my own. All the books are lined up on the shelves and I can read them if I like. I don't have to worry about deciding anything. All the decisions that need to be made have been made already. I just have to safeguard, the order that has been established, the routines of the house: dog walks or plant waterings, I need to know which windows are locked in what way, how the door locks, the little things that are peculiar to someone else's house. There is always a normalcy I feel in other people's houses that I don't in my own. I also get to experience a different neighborhood. This one is near Lake Merritt. So there are birds, and trees and there is water nearby. This neighborhood is much quieter than my own, just off telegraph about a block from People's Park. 

My places always feel chaotic. Sometimes, like right now- the chaos is evident, everywhere. Too many papers, books and too much clutter. My tiny apartment is overcrowded- we are three in a one bedroom apartment and it's all close and a little hard to breathe in. Sometimes the place I live is tidy and the chaos just mutters underneath. I always leave these spaces I house-sit determined to change everything. To make my space peaceful and kind feeling. To sort the chaos and increase the space around us. 

The best part of this house sit is the dog. She greets me with an abandoned delight, with a dancing, happy, tail wagging affection and we end up on the floor, in that moment two creatures, one human, one dog, tangled up and laughing, or making grunty dog sounds (who does which?) and I am completely at home, as I can only be when I'm with someone who sees me and takes me in as one of her own. This dog is a rescue. I am a rescue too of sorts. I understand that certain things frighten her for no apparent reason. Certain things frighten me for no apparent reason. We do well taking walks together. Good company is hard to find. 

I found out last night that she likes being sung too. Long songs that tell of her bravery, mad skills at ball catching and wonderfulness. She likes the songs that end with you are a rock star the best. When I sing at home my cat folds his ears back and looks tortured. I do have cat guilt. I love my cat. He always knows when I've left him to spend time with a dog. He gives me a long wounded "how could you look" and turns his back to me until I am forgiven. 

This place is a writing place. A writer lives here. The air is thick with words.There are metaphors in the refrigerator and adjectives sitting on all the book shelves. There is the sense of possibility here that words will be written today until I am in that zone where my ink stained fingers grip the pen tighter and I race to get all the words down. I like that possibility. First I am going to feed the dog who is dropping her orange ball at my feet as I write this until I give it a kick and she races after it all long limbs and determination. The whole world becomes that ball. I am jealous of her one pointed focus. 

The dog knew  all of her secrets 

or

There are no ghosts in this house. Only...

or 

She knew _______ when she saw_______

or 

I've never been at home or I've always been at home

If something sparks you- go! If nothing does, what story does your body tell you today. What do your hands have to say, your hips, the small of your back? 

May this day be good to you and your writing. 

No poem today. The dog wants to play. 

Prompt # 17

Today it's cool and I can't tell just yet what kind of day it will be. I've walked my old Siamese cat who (before he adopted us) used to travel all over Oakland, all the way to the Port of Oakland and back to Piedmont Avenue. He is very old and still likes to prowl the apartment grounds and assure himself that all is well and I travel along as his body guard since he is too old to safely tangle with the other cats in the neighborhood. He likes to think he's a writer. He chews on my pens, eat my pages and loves to drape himself over the work and me. I often write with him attached to my thigh, or draped over my shoulder or between me and the keyboard. He also drinks coffee, tea and loves Mexican food. Now that my children are grown my cat is often the only thing between me and my writing. 

If I am not cat hampered, I have to look at what else is between me and the writing. Sometimes, even after all these years of being able to put pen to paper and write without stopping, I am still afraid. Afraid nothing will come to the page, afraid too much shadow and dangerous colors will come to the page, afraid of what I will write or what I won't write. I've learned to use fear for my own. Meet it and use that as material, or as impetus, as movement out of my sticky stuck places. Fear feels like two unseen hands pushing me down a flight of stairs and in caching myself I find my words. 

Dorothy Allison said- Write to your fear. These words have never failed me. Whether it's fear of the page, or fear of an image that arises, or that shadow man from last night's dream who kept appearing, always at a distance. Sometimes the scary stuff is where the juice is- where the writing is thick and rich and good. 

What are you or a character afraid of? I knew a man once who was terrified of bread. 

What keeps you from the page or your character from doing something she wants to do most of all?  One of my characters is afraid of losing his teeth, and dreams about them crumbling to dust. Another is afraid of crows, and I have one who is afraid of nothing and that is scary too. 

 She only wanted...

     or 

  Fear is just...

     or

 They or he or we knew exactly how to ...

    or 

The wild berries were 

Today might not be a day to write about fear in any of it's shades. Sometimes the opposite is the way to go- write about where you or a character find safety and warmth. If none of these words work- check out a the poem below. If all the words are wrong- pick different ones, look out the window and describe one thing you see as it is, or start describing it and change it as you write into something different. Write for ten minutes or more if you can today- just write. 

And always if this writing feels risky or hard (today is a day all writing feels risky to me), be especially kind to yourself. 

Whatif

from A Light in the Attic (1981)

Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow taller?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!

-Shel Silverstein 

Prompt # 16

I dreamed so much I am tired on waking. I don't have any specific memories, just the sense of tension, conflict and hungry ghosts. It's one of those mornings I was relieved to have my eyes fly open; glad to put my feet on solid ground. It's raining and wet outside and the sky is grey and I like how that makes me feel ready to write. I've had an aversion to my pen since I came back from the training. I came back feeling over-tired, over-exposed and wanting to pull back from the page. 

Today I want to write. I want my mother's ashes to finally arrive so that we can scatter them at Ocean Beach where she used to walk with a little bit of peace and hold a young girl's hand as if she liked her some and collect sand dollars. Today I want to have soup simmering on the stove and filling the house with the smell of garlic and roasted vegetables and bitter greens. Today I want to day dream the night dreams away, and listen to what comes forward to the page. I want to write. 

Today, just for today, imagine a space for wanting. For some of us wanting is something we've never been allowed to do. It can be a revolutionary act to want something. Wanting belongs to us. We get to want, we get to imagine, even if it makes us, or the world, uncomfortable. 

In this moment,or your imaginings past or future- what do you want? What does she want? 

I want to... She wants to....

or 

I never wanted that

or 

She never thought she could 

or 

This is what the soup smells like. This is what the soup tastes like. 

****

I Want To Write

    - Margaret Walker  

Listen.

I want to write
I want to write the songs of my people.
I want to hear them singing melodies in the dark.
I want to catch the last floating strains from their sob-torn
        throats.
I want to frame their dreams into words; their souls into
        notes.
I want to catch their sunshine laughter in a bowl;
fling dark hands to a darker sky
and fill them full of stars
then crush and mix such lights till they become
a mirrored pool of brilliance in the dawn. 

   Link to listen from Internet Poetry Archive 

*** if you didn't listen to the poem hit the link- you won't be sorry you got to hear Walker read it. 

Write for ten minutes or five- or take little moments in your day to scribble for a little bit. If you are at work, type a little while in an email to yourself on a break. Writing like exercise doesn't care if you do it all at once or break it up. It still counts if it's short or in spurts. 

And if  you can't write- day dream a little today. Imagine something that makes you smile or wince or frown. Let it simmer awhile. 

If this prompt didn't do it for you use another. Open a book and randomly point to a word and write from there. 

I hope this day is good to you and your writing/dreaming self. 

Prompt # 15

Yesterday I had a terrible encounter with a boundary- less, wildly homophobic, raging neighbor. It wasn't the first time and it probably won't be the last. I was sitting outside, home all of ten minutes, talking to my partner on the phone- fresh from a quiet place that was full of supportive and accepting writers. My usual be prepared for anything because you live in a neighborhood full of unpredictable people (and rabid neighbors) was missing. My skin had grown thin from safety and my muscles were sore from all that good risky writing. 

The surprising thing that happened was this: another neighbor- a shy young man who grows succulents and flowers like magic, who often wears skirts and deals with her verbal assaults daily went inside and got his megaphone out that he uses at protests. He turned it on and from the window of his apartment, began speaking loudly into it. The rest of the time she was standing in such a way that I couldn't escape her screaming, foamy mouthed tirade, we heard things like this through the tinny megaphone: 

" Step away from the.nice woman, she's trying to talk to her friend" 

" Please step back. Back away from the woman on the phone"  "Return to your apartment immediately." 

He never stopped except to breathe and hit the switch again. It was lovely. So was the expression on her face as she began to lose focus, distracted. She now had two people she was furious at and we weren't in the same place.

 I wish I always had a shy eccentric cactus grower who got loud and brave just for me, to assist me in all my conflicts. After she finally walked away, he looked out his window directly at me (he tends to keep his eyes down when he talks), grinned at me and gave me a thumbs up sign. 

I dreamed wild cactus gardens and heroes in summer skirts. I dreamt I was six feet tall and my raging neighbor was tiny but loud. I dreamt in loud colors and wild music played through a tinny megaphone. In my dream she was disappeared forever, neatly packaged and shipped to a far away land. 

Can you imagine or remember a conflict between two people when something unlikely occurs?  Who or what appears? 

I knew she was crazy but
or
He's doing that on purpose
or
You never know when  or  I never knew when 

You can write from an unusual perspective, switch things up, change the pronouns or go your own way into the words that are waiting for you. 

Write for ten minutes or fifteen if you can. Try not stopping or pausing until your hand cramps if you have the time. 

I hope this writing day is good to you. 

 I thank you all for your support, for the amazing training I received last week. I now have a shiny certificate making me officially a trained AWA trainer and I couldn't have done it without you and I will never forget that particular kindness. 

Prompt # 14

I am walking around in a daze both wired and exhausted and my head is full of words, rich bits of remembered conversations and writing I've done and writing I've listened to. I am full of delight and the kind of tired that comes with risk.  I'm stuffed full of so many triggers I can't swallow around them.
~ ~ ~

I walked in the dry grass escaping the buildings and memories and trigger after trigger and looked at the stars that are bright and seem close enough to put in my pocket.

The night is so dark here I am stepping slowly because I forgot my flashlight. I hear animals I can't see all around me and I am only curious. Fear lives in other places, man made and stagnant.

Tonight I am moving on the trail with the sign that tells you how to talk loudly to a mountain lion and to never tempt them with small dogs. I am looking for wild things. I am leaving humans behind.

Tonight  I am old and dry skinned, old and other timed. Dry and tired of two legs; I dream four. I move  low and quick in this tall dry grass under ancient oaks and taste secrets that are not sour. They are just old and dry and edible. I am small and smaller. I am ready to sleep tucked against a rock.
~ ~

She was dreaming of
or
Playing dead hardly ever works
or
He was sleep walking again

Write for ten minutes or more if you can.

If these words don't work mix them up or write where the words want to go.

I hope the coming day is good to you and your words.

Prompt # 13

It's Friday the 13th and the 13th prompt. I love synchronicity. I always get anxious on these Fridays. I also don't like full moons (despite their beauty$ ) ever since I worked at the horrible convalescent hospital which housed a number of people who belonged in a locked Psych ward. I didn't believe the other nurses aides who would trade shifts two on for one full moon night off. They were scared to work a full moon. Then I heard it for myself. That normally silent, late shift would erupt.   The long slippery hallways would echo  with moans and screams and keening and wailing. We had to watch the rapist on our floor extra carefully. One full moon he went for another girl ( we were 17) and got his hands around her throat and it took two of us to pry his giant hands loose. I have no anecdotal evidence about broken mirrors or ladders. I knock on wood and throw salt over my shoulder and I don't remember how I learned these superstitions I just know I got them young and I can't seem to oust them. I'm not liking feeling haunted on a Friday the13th. Are you superstitious? Can you imagine a character that is? What is she afraid of? Why?                ~~ She knew about bad luck before the mirror broke Or All their cats were black and her rabbit left with all four feet Or What you don't know about me ( or her or him) is... Write to this prompt or write wherever your pen wants to take you.  My eyes are closing so off this  goes.  Have the best day.

Prompt # 12

The heat faded into cool at last. Six deer just went loping by right in front of me. I wonder where I got the idea that deer are quiet. Probably hunting shows.

Still with the haunting. I see my mother everywhere and beg her to stay past, stay gone. I miss her with a deep And terrifying ache. She was a terrifying woman. Too tall to carry so much crazy. All night I woke up thinking she was standing over my bed. It made me want ice cold vodka in the family tradition but I drank water instead. I'd like the dead to stay dead. I'd like to love her at a great distance- the farthest distance possible.
 ~~
I want different words for you tonight. Something lighter or sweet or challenging. But my brain is still running hot like the engine of my little red Honda climbing up and up on the grapevine headed to LA years ago. Nothing to do but pull over and bake in the sun till it cooled off.

So-hot brain prompts :

She hated that drive
or
This is too beautiful to be a crime scene
or
I already said goodbye

Is there a word or image coming?
If the words here leave you by the side of the road pick a new direction.

Flip the words on their sides and see what they do. Negate, switch up. Dare the pen to write you a story.

Just write. Today the facilitators wouldn't tell us how long we were writing. It was just random. It was maddening but had interesting results.

Write for ten minutes or until something unexpected happens.

I know I promised you a cooler brain tonight. Tomorrow promises a high in the low eighties. That should work.

Thanks for reading and writing and sharing. May the coming day be full of good words.

Prompt # 11

It was hot today. 98 degrees and we had fans all around us in the training room. My body remembered that kind of heat from when I was here before.

My body remembered being at this very retreat house and all day the past was supplanting the present and I kept feeling my body doing yoga, seeing my dead mother, teaching, in the front of the room by the old heavy stone fireplace. It was like watching a home movie super imposed over the people in the room doing the AWA training.

I kept thinking the heat made everything more fluid and malleable, even time. I was sure that a winter day would not have had that thick slow blending of two times. Maybe a quick glimpse or memory, but not the persistent duality that made me want to take a walk. Which I did in the blinding sun, the asphalt so hot it burned me when I sat on the curb in the driveway holding on to the present through the hash heated light and the Familiar cigarette smoke.

~~~

Can you remember a time or imagine one when the room held the past and the present at the same time?

Or

It was too damned hot to
Or
Ghosts should never
Or
I am never going to tell you about

Does an image or idea spark something?

Can you or a character be someplace unbearably hot? What happens there?

Does your character believe in ghosts? Is your character a ghost?

This is rambled  prompting. My brain feels like it got soft boiled today. Tomorrow should be better.

May the coming day be cool to the touch and good to you and your writing.