poem

#MondayMeme #MondayBlogs

/ Marcia Meara / 17 Comments

This is IT! The week I plan to catch up with my blogs, my emails, and most of all, my writing! Yes!! Final building inspection is done on all hurricane repairs, after a mere 4-1/2 months. It’s all over but the shoutin’–at the insurance company, that is. (I’m afraid I had no choice but to do a mass delete of hundreds of emails, but it couldn’t be helped.) I’ll do a real update later in the week if all goes well, but to get back into the swing of things, it’s Monday, and that means a new #MondayMeme, dealing with books, reading, or writing. And here it is! ENJOY!!

 

Excerpt Week | Seeking Solace

/ Callum McLaughlin / 13 Comments

Marcia has encouraged us all to share excerpts from our works and seeing as she recently posted a wonderful 5 star review of my poetry collection, Seeking Solace, it seemed entirely appropriate to share one of the poems she mentioned as a favourite, entitled ‘Rise’.

—

RISE

Rise dear phoenix from the ashes
spread your wings and fly.
Wouldn’t they just love it
if you simply lay and die?

Little one, I’ll dry your tears
and bruises they shall heal.
For though they see the scars they make
they know not what we feel.

Be the light among the dark
and guide the lost ones home
to show we fight for what is right
and our hearts are ours to own.

So stand upon the rubble proud
for you are still alive.
It is not about the wounds we bear
but that we do still strive.

—

Seeking Solace is the most recent of my publications and features sixty poems on a range of subjects. You can find it on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Goodreads.

Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to reading everyone else’s excerpts.

Poetry Month: Resistance

/ Caitlin Stern / 2 Comments

April is National Poetry month. I’m doing Writer’s Digest’s Poem a Day contest. I’m sharing a few of my favorites. This is from Day 1, a poem about resistance.

National Poetry rose

Negated

There’s a

no

in my heart but not

on my lips

You asked for something I wasn’t

willing to give but you didn’t

wait for my answer

You assumed it had to be

yes

My smile is a double agent

a carefully constructed lie

I drag my feet and hope you change

your mind

If you don’t

there will come a revolution

Poetry: Dictionary

/ Caitlin Stern / 4 Comments

Sometimes it’s fun to make a poem into a certain shape–so long as you don’t pick a shape that’s too complicated.

All those words together... it's kind of magic. Image from WikiMedia by alex756.

All those words together… it’s kind of magic.
Image from WikiMedia by alex756.

Dictionary

The tree grows

It grows, the tree

Each leaf, each branch

is cluttered with lots of little words

that

fall

softly

to blanket the ground

Love is Pain

/ Callum McLaughlin / 6 Comments

In the hush of babbling brooks
She whispers.
In the call of graceful gulls
She whispers.
In the song of whistling winds
She whispers.

Her slight and humble voice
It falls on deafened ears.
And yet she dwells in sorrow –
Generous stupor.
A Mother’s selfless blindness
To faults of sons and daughters.

—

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and wish you success and happiness for 2015. Apologies for the apparent randomness of this poem – I’d been enjoying the beauty of the scenery at this time of year recently and this emerged as a response. Given Marcia’s earlier call for us to share what we’ve been working on, I thought I’d post it all the same.

Thanks for reading,
Callum

It’s Time I Introduced Myself

/ Callum McLaughlin / 10 Comments

Having followed this blog for a while now, I know what a great community it is, but for reasons I won’t even attempt to make an excuse for, I haven’t actually posted here yet. So, I thought where better to start than with something of an introduction to my writing, since a mutual love of the written word is what unites us all.

Fiction was my first love but poetry has really captured my attention recently (so much so I plan to release my first collection of poems early next year). I’ve been playing around with haikus in particular recently and just put together this short piece that seems quite appropriate for the season, which I’ve simply entitled Winter.

—

Crystalline in beauty,
one in a dance of many –
Welcome gentle snowflake

—

As for my fiction work, I’ve published two books thus far, both of which are thrillers. My debut, The Vessel, is a dystopian tale of a woman’s struggle to expose the truth behind a corrupt government in a desolate world. My newest release, False Awakening, tells of a teenager’s quest to recover her memories and readjust to life after waking in hospital with no recollection of what put her there. Below is a brief visual snippet from each that will hopefully set the tone and give you an idea of the feeling in each story.

False Awakening

False Awakening

The Vessel

The Vessel

If you’re interested, you can find more on my blog, Amazon UK page, Amazon US page, Twitter or Goodreads account. I always love to connect with more readers and writers so by all means come and say hello.

All that’s left for me to say is thank you for having me; thank you for taking the time to read this post, and I hope to see you all around much more in the future.

All the best,
Callum