Skeleton Architecture

Magnus the Mighty Magnus the mighty stands, spear and shield in his hands, surveying all of Largs. Not since 1263 did mighty Vikings see our chip shops and our bars. But Magnus stays his lust. Stand still and strong he must, withstanding every gust, lest he should turn to rust. Magnus of Largs © Cara L McKee 23/3/16 Have you had enough of this poem format yet?  I've used it before in Know by Now and The Tall One . I think I have found the way I like it to be now, and it might be time for me to move on. My sonnets need more work I think. Anyway, The Prompt (click on the pic below to go to the link) this week was 'Mighty', and I've been listening to The History of English Podcast constantly, and Kevin has been talking about Vikings in Britain and the Danelaw (so many Vikings - even the Normans were Vikings!). I'm lucky enough to live in Largs, which was the last place in mainland Britain to have been attacked by Viking raiders (of course, there...

Today I'm trying to write love poetry, which does not come easy to me - I'm more of a doom and gloom merchant (please see my poem ' Edge of Doom ' for proof - that's the closest I've come to a love poem to date!). So I've revamped a couple of existing poems, including changing a Villanelle about adultery into a love poem (I'm hoping that works), and written this one this morning. This is another poem using the pattern inspired by Muse's Butterflies and Hurricanes , like my poem Know by Now . It was our 12th wedding anniversary yesterday, so I'm feeling terribly guilty that this poem wasn't inspired by my husband (who is taller than me, and has lifted me up), but by another friend who's really really tall, and by a good dollop of imagination. I suspect that friend might read it too, so I shan't name names, and I hope both he and my lovely husband will forgive me! The Tall One I tiptoe to reach you, behind you th...

I've been working on a couple of structures of poems lately. The sonnet (as in my poem ' Confusion '), and another structure inspired by Muse's song Butterflies and Hurricanes (I would so love to sing that song in a choir). I mentioned in yesterday's post  that I was using this structure to write a magickal poem which I haven't really finished faffing with, so I'm not sharing that. However, this morning I woke up with a different song in my head - Munich by the Editors: and I've taken that as a jumping off point for another poem using the same (kind of) structure. My kids helped me work it out this morning, so let me know what you think.  I'm joining up with the Prose for Thought linky with this post (click on the picture below to find out more), and also The Prompt (see picture also). The Prompt for this week is 'respect'.  For the last few months I've been troubled by a really chuffing painful shoulder. I thought it migh...

If you follow me on Instagram , you'll probably know that at the moment I #amediting. I wrote a first draft of a story that had been tickling away at me for a while back in November for National Novel Writing Month . It's a modern retelling of a traditional Scottish fairy tale which has fascinated me since I came across it. I'm going to call it the Rose book. Once I'd tidied up that first draft I put it away for a while.  I was intending on working on another book. A high fantasy tale which is really rather huge, and which I'd finished the first draft of a while ago, but had then realised it had a massive problem, requiring lots of changes (more on that here ). I'm going to call that the Chaptershill book. I started rethinking things for the Chaptershill book over Christmas and realised that changing little things about the way the society ran had some small impacts, which, like the butterfly effect, ended up having drastic impacts on the plot, a...

This week I'm taking part in the Mum Turned Mom Prompt linky, and the subject is: Confusion. At first I was wondering about where the word confusion had come from? Was it some kind of coming together of disparate things? Then I was thinking of the King Crimson song Epitaph  (although I'd misremembered the lyric as 'confusion will be my alibi'), but then I thought of the people I have known who have suffered with Alzheimers, and something I heard a man say while he was watching his friend who is increasingly affected by Parkinsons (which is not dementia at all). The things that happen to our bodies are most unkind. This is a sonnet because I need practice at sonnets. I don't feel the volta quite works, but I wanted to get the turmoil across. Hope you like it. Confusion Signals spark, but something's unconnected, the word will not appear inside his mind. She says it for him; is again affected, her smile is tight and yet she remains kin...