First Writing Prompt for November — Our 100-Word Contest Returns

Here are two possible writing prompts.  There is one special requirement for November entries.  We’re going back to one of our tried and true favorites.  Your entry must be exactly 100 words long.  It can be poetry or prose, anything goes, but it must be EXACTLY 100 words in length.

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I was in love with the word “aloha”
even though I heard it over and over
I let the syllables ring in my ears
and I believed the king with outstretched hand
was welcoming everyone who wanted to live here
And I ignored the spear in his left hand
believing instead my fellow humans
and their love for these islands in the world
which allow us to rest from the currents
and moods of that vast ocean from which we all came
But George Helm’s body is back in that ocean
I want to believe in the greatness of his spirit
that he still feels the meaning of that word
which is getting so hard to say

From “Poem for George Helm, Aloha Week 1980,” by Eric Chock, Bamboo Ridge, The Hawai’i Writers’ Quarterly, No. 9, December 1980 – February 1981, New Moon

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Because of stories we’ve been told we sit in boxes in the air, eating food that’s boxed or bagged, watching dotted ghosts flicker on in yet another box.  We are convinced these things are real, and so they are.

Hawai’i has more stories than these; she has older stories that persist and shape in subtle ways the way we are and what we do.

You may particularly see the effect of story when you look at love, that complicated madness that governs the patterns of generation.  Why does he/she look so good to you?  Is it the god of intellect or muscle, of air or fire or water, do you like the night best, or balance, or jealousy, or the heavy gods of order?  Does your father want you to get rich?  Why?  What can change your mind?

From the Introduction to “He Punahele,” by Martha Webb, Bamboo Ridge:  The Hawai’i Writers’ Quarterly, No. 10, March – May 1981, First Quarter

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Everybody has 100 words in them that need to get out.  Let’s write : )