Welcome to the Discover Creative Arts CREATIVE WRITING GALLERY!
Starting in April, 2022, Discover Creative Arts will be posting online creative writing prompts in weekly Writing Challenges. Inspired by the weekly prompt, you are invited to free write for 10-30 minutes only, and email your writing to Lesley. No experience necessary! We will then post your writing in our DCA Creative Writing Gallery. Give it a try - You never know what you might discover.
Starting in April, 2022, Discover Creative Arts will be posting online creative writing prompts in weekly Writing Challenges. Inspired by the weekly prompt, you are invited to free write for 10-30 minutes only, and email your writing to Lesley. No experience necessary! We will then post your writing in our DCA Creative Writing Gallery. Give it a try - You never know what you might discover.
I was cursed with a gift, is that possible, I think so. I can read the pain in your eyes when all else about you denies it. You don't believe me. Come home with me and smell warm bread and freshly turned soil, wet dogs and old books, drying herbs and orange scented polish. Sit by the fire and sip herbal tea with me. Say not a word until the silence fills with birdsong and the scrape of the rose bush on the window. Sleep here tonight in sun dried sheets, let frog song lull you and if you wake, stabbed by the old familiar pain, let stars shining through the clerestory window calm you. The old pain stirs just enough to prick my attention, so I say come with me, it doesn't have to be this way. That is the gift.
By Sue Clark
In all this noise and daily news I hear my muse
I listen to the latest the seabirds have to say
Check the records where I’ve never been accused
Of having any place in the world I’ve ever had to stay
You heard me when you laughed at a cartoon
And found me when you read the yarrow stalks
A message on meaning won’t be texted soon
I tend to fall asleep when a politician talks
But I’ll be there waiting when they open up a flower
To make this funny voice in the back of my throat
Give me just a few words, I’ll make you an hour
Watch the stars gather, then you’ll get my goat
By Tom Keenan
inquisitive, I say ---- I need to know!
gardener, I say----- you need to grow!
affectionate, loyal and true ---gestalt
are these my attributes or yours by default?
Sturdy perennials are what we are---
No flash in the pan come early spring, all colour and scent but no staying power
We are the backbone of our home, of our garden,
We stand the test of time, not the minutes--the hour.
By Liane Arnstein
Two burly dogs walk by one eager for attention one kind of leary, not far behind a person trudges up the steep hills with a purposeful stride. Wearing rugged footwear and armed with a back pack this determined person goes goes goes not resting never slowing. This person drives home to work on machines in disrepair of various stages using skilled hands and mechanically trained brain to narrow down the various problems in a systematic method. Washing black dirty hands proceeds to harvest ripe vegetables from the abundance of growing organisms planted in the spring, making a stir fry meal with side salad, upon finishing cleans mess picks up a long book and reads before turning in for a much needed rest.
By Chester Boser
By Sue Clark
In all this noise and daily news I hear my muse
I listen to the latest the seabirds have to say
Check the records where I’ve never been accused
Of having any place in the world I’ve ever had to stay
You heard me when you laughed at a cartoon
And found me when you read the yarrow stalks
A message on meaning won’t be texted soon
I tend to fall asleep when a politician talks
But I’ll be there waiting when they open up a flower
To make this funny voice in the back of my throat
Give me just a few words, I’ll make you an hour
Watch the stars gather, then you’ll get my goat
By Tom Keenan
inquisitive, I say ---- I need to know!
gardener, I say----- you need to grow!
affectionate, loyal and true ---gestalt
are these my attributes or yours by default?
Sturdy perennials are what we are---
No flash in the pan come early spring, all colour and scent but no staying power
We are the backbone of our home, of our garden,
We stand the test of time, not the minutes--the hour.
By Liane Arnstein
Two burly dogs walk by one eager for attention one kind of leary, not far behind a person trudges up the steep hills with a purposeful stride. Wearing rugged footwear and armed with a back pack this determined person goes goes goes not resting never slowing. This person drives home to work on machines in disrepair of various stages using skilled hands and mechanically trained brain to narrow down the various problems in a systematic method. Washing black dirty hands proceeds to harvest ripe vegetables from the abundance of growing organisms planted in the spring, making a stir fry meal with side salad, upon finishing cleans mess picks up a long book and reads before turning in for a much needed rest.
By Chester Boser
I've gotten so much older. As a boy, my bedroom was easy entrance to daydreams and magical dimensions only I could find. Lying on my bed now, snowy head on my pillow, I wish the window might become a pirate porthole, curtains the luffing flags on some foreign battlements, the rug to fly me to Siam. I want the furniture to dance. But the dresser barely bows. The chair has fallen asleep. The bedpost points to the wardrobe. There’s a lullaby and a light coming from its door ajar. That’s funny…I thought I closed that cabinet.
By Tom Keenan
He glimpsed at a crack of light in the well that he could see through the open cabinet door that was supposed to be closed. There was hope as the grungy dank basement he dwelled upon had no windows. There he sat with fixation watching the crack in the wall for signs of life. One day a lady with a stern demeanor walked past his crack; he banged on the wall with the crack and with deliberateness in her motions she turned upon hearing the knocking. Their eyes met and it turned out the stern demeanor she was fronting a facade to hide the twinkle in her eyes. She approached the wall and knocked a rhythm; knock knock knock knock knock knock. He replied with a rhythm also and they began communicating through morse code. They were both war vets and had fought for the same brigade......after a month of knocking morse code messages their love for each other had grown like morning glory in the garden, one day she brought a chainsaw, he didn't know what was going on as he heard the saw from his basement. Suddenly light burst through as the wall with the crack disappeared in loud two stroke motor and flying sawdust. Finally he was free of his basement he'd created while having a ptsd flashback over two years ago. She dropped the saw and pulled him into her large bosom hugging him as they recognized each other. They both moved into his dark cellar after several days of renovating the dismembered wall. They were happy in their misery.together.
By Chester Boser
Secrets…don’t we all have them? Secrets in our mind, or our heart, or sometimes in our reality. Some secrets hide under our beds or in our purses or behind closed doors. The funny thing about secrets is we sometimes forget they exist, and that can lead to embarrassing moments in life. My favourite hiding spot belongs just to me, or so I thought. I don’t want my partner to know about my secret stash, so I keep my treasure hidden behind everyday things in a cupboard seldom used. I even chose this cabinet because it’s hard to open and scrapes on old wood each time. Then something happened. I was having a morning of exasperated nothingness and needed a fix to get my butt in gear. I went to my secret stash and relished in the wonderfulness of my escape. The day was saved. But as the evening routines progressed, I saw something that made me ponder. My special cupboard was open. And that’s funny…I thought I closed that cabinet. Was my secret out…had I been discovered? My heart rate increased, suddenly I was sweating as I silently approached. A smile crept across my lips. I had been discovered. And there it was. 2 bars of my Kit Kat eaten, and 2 bars left to share.
By Sue Beaton
My mother had a dream of living on the beach. I heard mention of it many times as I was growing up. And at age 57 she made it happen. Retirement and a big move from the city brought her to a beach house with the ocean just steps away. My mother passed away many years ago after living a retirement full of all the things she loved. Her life was beautiful. She loved to walk the beach where she would collect rocks and shells…but only white rocks. She was funny that way. She had large, glass containers that she collected the rocks in over the years. Her grandchildren loved to look for them and add them to her jars when they came to visit. When my mom passed away, we took the rocks and shells and put them back on the beach to wash in and out with the tide.
I recently was having lunch with my own daughter and a beautiful thing happened. She slid her hand into her coat pocket, and was surprised to find a smooth beach rock. And it was white. And in that moment my mom was there with us. We don’t know how the rock could have gotten there after so many years. And my daughter did not remember putting it there herself. I can only believe that my mom put the rock there herself as a nice little surprise for us to find one day. It was a wonderful surprise.
Happy Mothers Day to my mom.
By Sue Beaton
In the last of the small hours of the morning, just before dawn, Leah left her small flat in her small town with her biggest sadness. Her bed was empty of sleep and the dream of someone to share it. She had put on her heavy coat imagining an embrace. Not the same sort of warmth, she thought, and started for the coffee shop. Not expecting anyone else up and about, she crossed through the park, and saw the unexpected boy on the bench. He was crouched, knees to chest in its corner.
“Good morning,” she said, as she was passing.
“Hello, Miss Leah,” the boy replied.
“Do I know you?” Leah asked.
“You remind me of my grandma,” he said.
That struck deep at Leah’s old longing. “Your grandma?”
“Yes,” the boy brightened. “She’s coming to pick me up soon.”
Leah worried aloud, “I hope it’s soon. You’re shivering.” She turned toward the path to the coffee shop. “Say,” she offered. “Here, take my coat and I’ll go get you a hot chocolate.”
The boy sniffled and smiled, and snuggled in her coat as she left. Leah had almost forgotten her own waiting for someone. The coffee shop was just opening. She asked the one other customer, a bearded man in work boots, if she could step ahead of him.
The warm paper cups in her hands made up for the chill of not having her coat; but the boy needed it more. Yet, when she got back to the bench, the boy was gone. Only her coat remained. She set the cups down and quickly put her coat back on. As she slid her hand into her coat pocket, she was surprised to find a picture of herself, as a much older woman.
She sat on the bench, alternately sipping coffee and hot chocolate, small tears curving down the corners of her smile.
By Tom Keenan