I've joined a new group which writes about aspects of our spiritual journeys once a month. Our February theme is Attitude. You can find out more about this here. We try to control our attitudes in life. But sometimes we need to acknowledge the attitude we inhabit before we can control it. There have been times, far too frequently in my life, that I have sat in my sulk of anger, knowing that my attitude wasn't pleasant, but deciding that I was justified in it.

I’m going out to join the new resistance I don’t know what I’ll do or what I’ll say But things have gotten worst from day to day I shan’t be gone long-You come too. I’m going out to fight against the evil dIemands for people to compel or die I don’t know if I’ll win, but I will try I shan’t be gone long. You come too.

With time on my hands, vowing not to go out into last week's nor'easter, I decided to paint a mural on my art studio wall. I used to paint murals on my kid's walls when they were young, and on the sunday school room walls when I was the director there, and even some set designing when I taught in middle school.

As I walk around the yard, challenging myself to one more lap, to keep going, to reach my goal, I remind myself that there is no time table. There are no rules. And if I walk slowly I will still get where I was going. The pressure I put on myself isn't necessary. So I listen to the birds, laugh at the zoomy dog and keep moving one foot in front of the other on this unusually warm January thaw.

Listen In the quiet of the morning somewhere between awake and imagination i pull the covers over my head and listen. Gone are the headlines and the commentary, the emotional response ripped from my body as justification that I care. In the quiet of the morning I listen to my heart beat. To words that bubble up from somewhere deep within my soul and know that If I take it slow I will survive, we will all get by this Alice in Wonderland nightmare together.

Today I was reading on a blog, "the new year always brings new hope". And for me, this has most often been true. But this year doesn't feel that way. I am tired of all the politics, facing each new issue with resignation and disgust, while still wanting to somehow save the world. I see friends and families facing difficult situations, not ones that are easy to fix, but ones that require time and consideration and above all compromise as they aren't going to get better.

I got caught up in the whirlwind of Christmas, and didn't get any further on this month's daily poetry prompts. But today I wanted to take a moment to think about Poetry Friday, and maybe write a new poem. One prompt did stand out to me. Write about a line of poetry you want to carry into the new year. …

Dec. 3rd: Write 5 small things you are grateful for Always, my family (even when we are not together, they are the most important) 2. My retirement (for allowing me time to do the things I love) 3. My love of writing. (which brings me great joy to both do, and in my reading) 4. Kids. (grandchildren, nieces, friends and students.

Dec. 2nd: Write about a time when someone showed you kindness It Takes a Village I wanted to find an old picture from a group on facebook, but no matter how hard I looked no matter how detailed the search my hands remained empty. So finally, I asked the group. "Does anyone know where I can find this artwork?" ( I think her name is Maura.)

Dec. 1st: Notice one delight today and write it down. Zoomies I no longer have that urge for zoomies, running at full speed as fast as possible for sheer joy. Children and dogs do whether to expend excess energy in being alive or being outside or being inside a moment of delight, they zoom. My joy is more quiet, watching fall leaves shiver…

Matt, from Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme wrote about having his students write freely by taking a famous poem and rewriting it in their own words, or changing the words based on how they were feeling. It got me thinking of my favorite poems, and playing along with their rhythms. One of my favorite authors is William Carlos Williams. His poems can easily become earworms, they are so short and pithy.

Poetry Friday is being gathered today by Laura Purdie Salas. I was browsing through a folder named "random writing", and enjoying poems I've written that have never made it into any public work. Someday I'll pull them together and try again. For now, I"m sharing a poem from a WWII story, though it could be any war. It's always as hard back home as it is on the front.

Inspired by, This photo wants to be a poem. ---------------- ’Twas chilly when the mystic forms would wander through the neighborhood, a flashlight holding up the night to beg for candied goods. Beware All Hallow’s Eve, my friend! With wolves that bite, and skeletons! Beware the Frankenstein and run from evil masks of death! A young one dressed as knight of old,

thanks to Reflections on the Teche. I love writing to photos and surprising myself at what first comes to mind. FROZEN IN TIME Was it Lot’s wife who froze them in place? Pillars of black salt clinging to outstretched branches, frozen in mid step. Did they not have faith that they would emerge as butterflies or did they have regrets that their lives as they knew them were over.

I'm starting a new course with Laura Shovan on poetry techniques for verse novels. I am very excited to be in a group of like minded individuals. One of our homework assignments is to find a conversation on Youtube from someone the same age as the main character of our book. We were to transcribe that conversation and make it into a found poem.

@ Firewor of floral . Ribbon arms explode and fade with pops of pollen. Surprise! Lily for a burst of Autumn.

Many years ago, when I first started writing poems and discovered my passion for verse novels, I was asked in a writer's group, "Do poems in verse novels need to be about emotions?". Of course not, I thought. They are amazing in description and voice, in creating mental pictures and making you hear, feel, smell or taste things you might have overlooked.

I've been writing my verse novel, and am at the point where I am going to talk about the pink dragon boat racers at the Dragon Boat Festivals. Women who have had breast cancer gather to race these boats (thus the pink) during the Dragon Boat Festivals. It's. a tradition that started in 1997 in Canada, in order to prove that women who have had beast cancer can do better with vigorous exercise, and that there are no detrimental effects from post treatment exercise.

On the back of my car is a wall design that I turned into a bumper sticker. It's a statement by Picasso that says, "Every child is an Artist". It was always my mantra as an art teacher and I've had a version of this on three cars. But my newest car is white, which screams to an artist that this canvas is waiting for something more.

Hymn For The Hurtingby Amanda Gorman Everything hurts,Our hearts shadowed and strange,Minds made muddied and mute.We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.And yet none of it is new;We knew it as home,As horror,As heritage.Even our childrenCannot be children,Cannot be.Everything hurts.It’s a hard time to be alive,And even harder to stay that way.

There is a job, a real job, whose title is "puppy cuddling" where employees must cuddle their way through litters of puppies being trained as working dogs. For no matter what their futures or how much good they will do in the world, today they are still puppies and need love. If only we could remember that more with our own children, and worry a little less about their futures.

Responding to "This photo wants to be a poem" Partners for 47 years Walking on waterseems like an impossible thing to doand yet, we are askedto do it every day.Difficult problemsare more the normthan the abnormality.Let me be your pebblejust below the surfaceto hold you uplong enoughto get to the other side.

I read a lot about anthologies, and love to see them come out with so many types of poems focused on a theme. But I don't know how to find a call for poets to submit to an anthology. I love to write to a theme and used to have great fun with ezines and web sites that played with themed poems.

An online challenge for the month of July is to create a Triptych Poem. Like the old art that showed a story in three parts, triptych poems also work in three connected parts. Often they are past, present and future musings on one subject. Similarly, when looking at old triptych art, we see the main art as the present tense, and the side panels as things happening before or after this event or certainly related to this main event.

Welcome to Poetry Friday. This week is hosted by Marcie Atkins the challenge is to write a sedoka poem.– 2 three line stanzas–5 syllables in the first line and 7 syllables in the second and third lines of each stanza-the first stanza is an observation on nature or a comment on love