A writing exercise suggested by an English Teacher.
Take your zip code and make a poem about your home with that many words or syllables in each line. I used syllables to describe the last 3 zip codes I lived in: 11741, 42701, and 32835.
New
York
Holbrook was my childhood home
Sometimes I miss
It
Kentucky was
Second
E'town is where I found him
...
Jem
Orlando
Is where
I am now and the plants here look
like fireworks
celebrating me.
Fruit Poems:
Watermelon Haiku:
(a Haiku is a Japanese poem style with 3 lines containing 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables. Usually they make you see an ordinary object from a different point of view. Here is mine.)
ooh, Watermelon!
how I hope you are seedless
it's so much less work...
Tomato Cinquain:
(a Cinquain is a poem style that with 5 lines containing 1 word, 2 descriptive words, 3 action words, 4 words that convey feeling, and 1 word again. Here is mine.)
Tomato
red, juicy,
fruit in disguise...
I think you're disgusting,
Tomato
A writing exercise from http://picturespoetryprose.blogspot.com
Cynthia doesn't care for coffee.
In contrast, she chooses hot cocoa.
It causes the coziness and contentment she craves.
From a childhood that had concluded so long ago.
True story, but not TOO long ago. :)
-Cynthia Smallwood
December 3rd 2008
Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She lived in a yellow house in the suburbs with her mother and father. One Sunday morning was just like any other until something unusual happened.
The little girl was sitting at the kitchen table picking at her cheese omelette with her fork. Her mother had gone into the living room to answer the ringing telephone. Her father sat quietly behind a newspaper, more than likely reading about the strategies the newly appointed coach of his favorite football team was going to attempt in the upcoming season.
The little girl leaned her cheek in her hand and, swinging her feet which barely reached the ground, looked quietly at the front page of the paper. There was a picture of an older man with an unfriendly scowl on his face. She tried to read the headline, but it was covered by the tip of the paper which was hanging lazily over itself.
Then, suddenly, something surprised her causing her to stop kicking her feet. The man in the picture blinked at her and was then seeming to squint his eyes menacingly at her. She held herself completely still as her father brought the page tips together and then back apart, turning the page and grunting disapprovingly. When the picture of the older man on the front page came back into view, he was smiling. It was not a friendly smile like the one her teacher or her uncle had. It wasn't even a happy smile. It seemed angry and the picture of the man suddenly opened his mouth wide as if to bite into an overly large hamburger.
The little girl screamed and dropped her fork, jumping out of her chair making it scrape on the tile. At that precise moment that the man in the picture had moved, her father let out a roar of pain. The newspaper had jumped towards him, causing him and his chair to fall with a loud clunk. Underneath the paper, the little girl could not see what was happening, but her father was now on the floor struggling with the newspaper. Red blood began to smear on the clean white tile below him.
The little girl's mother walked swiftly into the kitchen at that time, asking if everything was alright, but she stopped in mid-sentence to scream and raise her hands to her cheeks. When her mother screamed, this caused the little girl to squeal again in horror. It was then that the mother leapt forward and bravely pulled the newspaper from her husband. His body twitched beneath her and his face was unrecognizable.
Another scream was heard as the newspaper had then began attacking the mother's bosom. The little girl ran forward and tried to tear the newspaper out of her screaming mother's arms, but the newspaper was as strong as the flannel of her yellow pajamas. By this time, there were knocks on the door and people peering through the windows. A man's muffled voice from outside said something about the police in a rushed tone and a window was broken open.
The girl sat on the kitchen floor with her hands over her face, squealing in fear. She watched the bloody scene from between her fingers. People came into her home from the windows and the front and back doors. She watched in terror as they, too, were attacked by the black and white menace. Men in dark blue uniforms came, too, but were also attacked and remained twitching on the floors throughout the little girl's home.
Hours later, all was finally quiet and the little girl sat, curled, under the kitchen table where she could see the blood smeared below her father's arm and her mother looking at her with fear and worry frozen in her eyes. Her stomach growled. She had not eaten much of her omelette that morning and it must have been past noon as the sunshine had left the eastern windows and the kitchen was slowly falling under a calm blue darkness of the reflected robin's-egg-blue walls.
The little girl cautiously put her hand on her chair and pulled herself shakily from under the table. She hugged herself and walked quietly through the house, being careful where she placed her tiny, bare feet. She was looking silently at all of the bodies spread throughout her home, but she was not sure what she had been looking for until it found her.
She heard a sudden rustling of paper and she felt a sharp pain on her right ankle. She screamed as only a little girl could and fell to the floor, grabbing onto a man's robe to try to pull herself away, but the sharp stabs were moving up her leg, through her yellow, and now red, pajama pants like hundreds of terrible paper cuts.
She felt her stomach growl again and give a terrible lurch. Everything in the room in front of her moved suddenly to the right and she felt something soft hit her left ear. She could no longer hear the rustling paper, and a muffled ringing drowned out her weakened screams. She began to lose sight of the red robed man in front of her eyes as if she had rubbed them too hard, or had stared into the sunlight too long. She felt sick and she shut her eyes and then knew nothing.
The End.
We’re goin’ to Kentucky!
We’re goin’ to the Woods
to kill flesh-eating zombies
just like a good friend should!
Rumble to the bottom!
Rumble to the top!
Then punch and stab
and maim and kill
until they f***ing stop!!
We’re going to Kentucky!
We’re bringin’ lots of guns
to kill flesh-eating zombies!
It should be lots of fun!
Rumble to the left!
Rumble to the right!
Then sit and aim
and shoot and kill
until they f***ing’ die!!
We’re going to Kentucky!
Out to Holly’s place
to kill flesh-eating zombies
and shoot ‘em in the face!
Roll’em on the table!
Roll’em on the floor
to see if we can make it
just out the f***ing door!!
We’re going to Kentucky!
We’re gonna roll some dice
to kill flesh-eating zombies
just like those good ‘ol nights!
Roll’em really low!
Roll’em really high
and hope you have attributes
and enough points to survive!!
a writing exercise from http://picturespoetryprose.blogspot.com/
and inspired by On The Turning Away by Pink Floyd
Walking through fields of gold
I step away from the shadow
Of life's hard, painful hold
and the sorrow inside
On the horizon there's light I see
Other worlds that are calling me
And so I walk towards the light
Through these fields of gold
Flying on eagle's wings
Though the sunrise is coming
And these words that he sings
melts the tears from my eyes
From up here I can see the stars
I can touch them, they aren't far
And way down below I see
The fields of gold
Such a simpler life
Without money or desire
Without greed, without strife
or the blood spilt from war
Is this only a dream I feel
Why couldn't this all be real
Or is it truly a vision
Of the fields of gold
Lying in a field of gold
I feel the sun touch my face
I no longer feel cold
or alone
I have hope that new days will bring
A happy end to all our suffering
And some day I will be
Leaving here to go home
-Cynthia Smallwood
January 2nd, 2008
Something happened down the street,
down at the edge of town.
The people cried for the police;
they couldn't hold them down.
I'm looking out my bedroom window,
listening for a sound
of something moving in the low
light down upon the ground.
They're coming from behind the fence
and just around the trees.
My dad says shoot them in the head
but they look just like me.
They look just like me.
My breath is stuck inside my lung,
my stomach don't feel right.
I'm losing my grip on the gun,
my head is feeling light.
My mother takes me by the hand;
says, "It will be all right.
Just stay here with your sister and
keep safe and out of sight."
They're coming from behind the fence
and just around the trees.
Your dad says shoot them in the head
but hey look just like me.
They look just like me.
I can hear my father crying
over all the roar
of the bang of bullets flying
just outside my door.
I can feel my sister shudder,
sitting on the floor.
I see the shadow of my mother.
I can't take it any more.
But they're coming from behind the fence
and just around the trees.
My dad said shoot them in the head
but they look just like me.
They look just like me.
I take my sister's hand and bring
her into the dark hall.
My parents have gone missing
and there's blood on all the walls.
I try to find them in our home.
I raise my voice to call.
I hear the deep gurgling moan.
We turn and see them all.
They're coming from behind the fence
and just around the trees.
My dad said shoot them in the head
but they look just like me.
They look just like me.
They seem to sense us standing there.
My sister froze in place.
One lunged and reached and grabbed her hair.
I saw his scary face.
Then I spotted on the stairs
my dad's 9mm Glock.
I snatch it and point it towards the pair
but I get an awful shock.
My sister's eerily inert,
her head between her knees.
I promised her she won't get hurt
my heart just skipped a beat.
Now she's rising from the dead;
she's reaching out for me.
My dad said shoot them in the head
but she looks just like me
and she's reaching out for me.
by Cynthia Smallwood
September 18th, 2007
