Halsted M. Bernard

My writer’s block-busting exer­cise becomes a block in itself when I want to write stan­dard “hey this is what’s in my head” entries. So here goes with one of those, long over­due.
For the past few weeks, no small amount of my spare brain-cycles have been spent focus­ing on the ques­tion of what I do …

I apol­o­gize for the lack of posts this week. On Mon­day I had a king-sized headache, and on Tues­day I took pho­tographs instead.
Back to our regularly-scheduled bust­ing of writer’s block! This prose poem is cour­tesy of my spam folder.
“Too busy to go back to school?” she huffed, dan­gling the high­ball glass between thumb and …

“Hello? O, hi, Cheryl. No, I’m not busy, just work­ing on the kids’ bed­room at the moment. You know, the same old thing, cat walked through and wrecked the whole left edge. I don’t know what I’m sup­posed to do with what I’m given, Cheryl. I just don’t know. You know Stan, always promis­ing …

Some­thing I am learn­ing from this exer­cise: the prompts often launch me in a com­pletely dif­fer­ent direc­tion. I won­der what that’s about.
I am read­ing a book called “How to Be an Adult in Rela­tion­ships: The Five Keys to Mind­ful Lov­ing” by David Richo, and this pas­sage struck me today:
Child­hood forces influ­ence present choices, for the …

Despite all the won­der­ful prompts, this poem did not orig­i­nate from one; it has been rolling around in my head all day, and must be let out.
gar­nish
me with
more than
green

side to side
start with
white plate
blue eyes
flut­ter
lashes
long and
cau­tious
where do
I find you
fresh and
warm
crisp or
wilted
fin­gers grasp
for past
shred­ded
hearts
dressed with
time
[Less than 100 words, but that’s where it wanted to end. Want to …

This one from abecedar­ius sur­prised me, sim­ply: “beards.”
I woke up with one clear thought: pain. My face hurt; my lips were being pulled back from my teeth in a jack o’ lantern sneer. Open­ing one eye, I reached up to my lips and felt tiny hands.
“Hey, ass­hole,” some­one very far away said. “Where’s the …

Today’s block­buster prompt is from Davmoo: “Please write 100 words on …your favorite child­hood mem­ory.”
The wood stove in our liv­ing room was sur­rounded by pieces of slate. Old radi­a­tors kept the cor­ners of the other rooms warm, but the wood stove, the old gen­eral, boomed forth waves of heat well into win­ter nights. Cats curled …