RE: Writing Prompt - 100 Year Old Handbag

On Sunday, July 5, I wrote down a story idea after mulling over the 100 Year Old Handbag prompt... it takes place in Newfoundland in Placentia Bay...go figure. More later...

Writing Prompt - 100 Year Old Handbag

You or a friend are doing renovations in your heritage-style house and discover an old handbag from 100 years ago. You find the following items:

A faded love letter.
A ticket from the theatre.
An old photo with a man and a child on it.
A butterfly broach.
A recipe for shortbread.
A set of rosary beads.
A newspaper article

Pick any two, or more and write/construct whatever part of whatever story pops into your mind.
Go on. I dare you.

From Writing Exercise to...Poetry?

So get this...a couple of the writing exercises I posted here have gotten great ratings on Helium! The only category they seemed to fit was poetry, which is crazy. These things just fell out of my head, pretty much intact. I might have changed a word here or there but that's it. Anyway, I've posted two of them on Helium:
The one about writing rates 15 out of 67 today...
The one about floorboards rates 5 out of 55! This is madness.
You gals need to check Helium out. It's addictive when you submit and get instant feedback.

Writing Exercise #4: Strains of Noro

Strains of bacteria slowly inch their way across surfaces formerly blessed by little hands.
Lovingly, the viral substance lingers in the lines of fingerprints, unique and identifying,
Lazily lounging against the warm, soft touch of a child.
It snuggles into place until it is lurched forward and upward into the inner sanctums of nourishment in the body.
What loving kiss the hand was, the body provides in luxury,
Full of potent nutrients and raucous nooks of space and special energy.
Latching onto barrens of tissue and torrents of blood flow,
Noro makes his vicious way through the underground,
Carving grave tunnels and pushing the host to reject the unwanted elements,
Until both parasite and prey are exhausted.
Warm hands now chilled but clean,
Ordinary organs now cleansed,
Waiting for new luxury to rebuild and satisfy a miraculous cycle.

Writing Exercise #3: Separating Heart From Dark

Closing in on a dark mind I reach for the heart - bleeding oil and soot - drying skin and eyes to numbness that it can no longer feel.
Feelings packed in hidden closets tight and away.
Emptiness holding me in a languid, firm grip.
Fighting for joy, sorrow, anger or grief,
I call my name,
Hoping to stir a wave or ripple within.
Nothing moves, or signals.
Nothing sings or plays.
No one enthuses the virtues or stomps on the flaws of anyone.
There is no flame.
Nothing flickers.
Just the wind sends its own natural wave and whistle,
Grazing by like a friendly neighbour.
No one inside reacts.
No sound or response,
Just frozen body parts still intact,
Much like a dysfunctional family ready to cut tension with a knife,
But frozen and intact, expecting separation to become them,
And unlock the ice separating heart from the darkness that cloaks the body.

Writing Exercise #2: Wrestled With Writing's Rite

With each passing moment, my longing to write falls to its knees.
Needing to find direction and depth, I reach out,
Fingers probing, searching for grip and grit,
For a way to steer fingerprints across clean pages
Smeared with the blood of lead or ink, writer's paint.
No enemy to crisp sheets of emptiness, I find solace,
When my pencil drags wreckage across spans of white,
And valleys of verse,
With lines of text ending in pools of ink.

Writing Exercise #1: Smooth Farm Boards In the Floor

Salt slides in the grooves mending the slices of hardwood.
Over top, varnish drips in vacant spots covering plots of brown knots and railway lines.
No trains come in or out of the station.
Emptiness reigns and hangs low like fog in a wood near the ocean.
Feels like home to a handyman - crisp, yet gritty, clean yet grainy.
Wood swirls riding between strict and parallel lines and find no angles and no way to turn,
Nowhere to hide, no corners in either direction,
Nothing but a lost way, a lack of consciousness whose seams have torn,
A nothingness like no something has even felt.
A finger glides along the edges hooking slivers of brown and gold seeking harsher pain
And iron blood tasting so metallic, turning to brown rust inside steely mousetraps on site.
Sensing blood, mice scurry along the walls' edge, not needing to look,
Just following the lines along well-travelled, walls,
A rodent's habit,
A nocturnal creature,
A creature of habit,
He fears leaving his walls.