# Writing > General Writing >  Challenge: Describe One of Your Parents in 100 Words.

## Chinaski

I reckon it would be good if people could post challenges to get us writing - just short challenges, cos we're obviously lazy scum, or we'd be writing anyway.

So, my challenge (well, I nicked th idea off another site to be honest) is:

'Describe one of your Parents in exactly 100 words.' 

It can be now or a childhood memory, or it can be totally made up- hey! You're a writer, right?

Her's my, rather bleak, starter for ten:


There with an ice pop when I dropped my cone, running back from the van when the big kids laughed. 

Wearing a cool, short green leather jacket. Long, jet black, straight hair, shining like the Northern Soul records she played loud in the living room. Ready to go out, smelling of Double-Mint Wrigleys and Chanel No. 5. White lipstick smile. 

All thats gone now. Dulled by years of crap magazines, day time television and drugs for made up maladies; maladies made real by a longing for some sort of feeling.

She doesn't listen to soul anymore. Quite apt.


(JUST TO AVOID CONFUSION - CHINASKI HAS REVERTED TO BANDINI!)

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## Regit

My dear mother is a writer
She writes sob love stories every day
She gets no housework done
And (sorry mom  :Biggrin: )very very low pay

My dear father is a business lawyer
He argues with me all the time
But he earns a lot of money
And his cooking is sublime

My dear father gets home from work
And sits on the big sofa
My dear mother brings him a glass of brandy
And me a coca cola

My dear father frowns
And my dear mother frowns
When they see my girlfriend and I
Having breakfast in our gowns  :Biggrin: 

PS. Sorry mom, really, your stories are great!

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## Chinaski

I liked that - and congratulations on that deft change of tone! I want to hear more of these.

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## Regit

Thanks. Sorry, I didn't realise it was supposed to be about just ONE parent until I already posted it.

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## Chinaski

hey one, two, three - write about as many parents as you wish - very evocative!

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## Xamonas Chegwe

One of my parents is a broken half-vase.
One of my parents is a lost thing; alone.
One of my parents is the left side of an equation;
An answerless question.
One of my parents is an incomplete haircut.
One of my parents is a one-man-band
With only a cymbal.
One of my parents is a leafless tree;
A treeless wood; a riverless valley; a waterless river.
One of my parents is a road with one end.
One of my parents is only a par, or an ent.
One of my parents is not enough.
They only come in pairs.

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## Pensive

My mother is lovely
But my mother is very conservative
My mother is a fairy
But my mother is against my father's relative

My mother is extremely good
But she spoils my fun
My mother is sometimes rude
But she knows how to grin

I love my mother
And if she will say
I don't admire her
And I will cry

And if she say
I don't love her
I am sure
And I will die

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## blp

Chinaski, if it's writing challenges you want, you might like to take up the gauntlet presented by this thread from the poetry section. I warn you, it has a curious power to make you feel like you're going crazy, which may be why it didn't go very far. 

Fortuitiously, this thread contains a poem by me that ended up being about my dad and I've also recently posted 'Poem for Mom' as a thread on its own - and I think that may be as much Freudian rooting around as I'm prepared to do for the moment.

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## blp

> One of my parents is a broken half-vase.
> One of my parents is a lost thing; alone.
> One of my parents is the left side of an equation;
> An answerless question.
> One of my parents is an incomplete haircut.
> One of my parents is a one-man-band
> With only a cymbal.
> One of my parents is a leafless tree;
> A treeless wood; a riverless valley; a waterless river.
> ...


One of your best, I'd say, Xamonas. You might want to reconsider the logic of the last line - not so much 'they only' as 'they ideally' or 'they ought to', I'd have thought.

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## Chinaski

Excellent poem - reminded me a little of 'The Sick Equation' by Brian Patten - it explores similar themes. Can you post your mother lovin' poem on here?

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## Xamonas Chegwe

> One of your best, I'd say, Xamonas. You might want to reconsider the logic of the last line - not so much 'they only' as 'they ideally' or 'they ought to', I'd have thought.


I was talking about My parents, not parents in general. Thanks for your kind comments.

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## rachel

That poem is one of the most beautiful examples of Once upon a time that I have ever had the honor to read.
It is beautiful like its author.

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## Pensive

Xamonas, this is a really wonderful poem!

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## blp

> Can you post your mother lovin' poem on here?


Sorry - do you mean me? That poem's a very recent post in the personal poetry section. And it doesn't quite fit the parameters of this thread, mainly the 100 word limit.

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## shinigami

My mother dear is a doctor,
So she has people to care.
My father is a businessman,
and i'm the burden they bear.

I hate my father foremostly,
because he's a stinkin rat,
he slapped me when I call him "dad",
and insists I am a prat.

my mother dear she's better,
but only by an inch,
If I were not to be born,
She said life would be a cinch.

Though haply may I commend,
They were never married.
Coz my father's got another,
With whom he signed the deed.

~0~

Would've wrote more.. but.. 100 word limit... haha...

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## Xamonas Chegwe

Rachel and Pensive - thank you.

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## Joleena

Hi there!
read all your works here and it is interesting how people get along with their ideas and there's always the question: is it real?  :Smile:  

I gave it a try aswell - please mark mistakes, for I'm a foreigner.
Thanks!
J.

*You*

It is you, who wants me to finish my studies. Also you that tells me what is right, 'cause you know much better than I do.
Stones are to be taken out of ones way - you love sentences like these.

Im always listening to my mind, more than to my heart, cause you taught me so.
You are proud for what I do and that I am getting done with chemistry,
But should my life be just for you?

Family means a lot to me, including especially you
Thus emotions tell me:
Some Stones are not for take away.

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## Bandini

Nice one Shig - daring bit of rhyming there - Mareeed and deed! I'm really enjoying reading these. Yours got me thinking Joleena.

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## Bandini

here's me other parent:

Early morning. Him standing by the kettle, thumb on the red switch, waiting impatiently for his fourth cup of coffee. Smell of nicotine and Nescafe in my face. Moaning about a door left open or a light left on since he lost his job.A tobacco tin thrown at a door, brown tobacco lost in the brown floor. A minor tragedy. Years later the coffee swapped for tins of Special Brew and cheap red wine, most of the time. But no more despising his rancid coffee nicotine breath. He's sad that he lost it all. He isn't my real dad.

Oh, I am 'Chinaski' by the way - I reverted back to me old forum name and avatar - it's a long story!

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## Xamonas Chegwe

That's really nicely put Joleena - I could point out a couple of minor grammar slips, but it doesn't really need changing - the slips add a touch of foreignness which is charming.

And we're all foreigners, somewhere.

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## Bandini

I agree - I really liked this:




> Stones are to be taken out of ones way - you love sentences like these.

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## amuse

he is yielding and
gray at the edges
but refuses to let go
of the youngest leaves.
dislikes family
conflicts, but
has tossed
me into the wind
to effect an
impossible peace.
his heart
is strong but
the bark is fraying -
perhaps he has
forgotten his
own strength
while leaning on
this birch whom
he adores
by this bank
on a slow
river. the
flowers bloom
and sometimes
birds nest and
strew petals
around his
feet he'd always
liked gardens
i hope he's happy
sometimes it
seems his roots
cry out for
more light
he doesn't know
the forest's dimness
is not shade.


*not quite 100 but close

**blp, what a very interesting thread you mentioned!

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## Bandini

Hey - lets not quibble over a word or two. I really liked that.

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## Jarndyce

> Rachel and Pensive - thank you.


Having seen this before the post referenced, I thought this was a description of your mother in 100 words or fewer, and thought, "Oh my god, that's brilliant."

Of course, it's not. But I'm going to pretend it is. By the way, nice work on the poem, too.

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## Bandini

> Sorry - do you mean me? That poem's a very recent post in the personal poetry section. And it doesn't quite fit the parameters of this thread, mainly the 100 word limit.


Stick it on any way. we can bend the rules a little can't we?

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## blp

> **blp, what a very interesting thread you mentioned!


Join in! Join in!

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## optimisticnad

My father is a Roman Emperor
Who kills all those who are a threat to Him.
Putting your son into the river wont 
fool Him. And we are nothing but His slaves 
We toil and we sweat so that He may sit
Smile, sleep, Smile, play, Smile, feast on souls, and Smile. 


But like all those before Him and all those
After, 
Please believe me when I tell you Daddy, 
Your highness, 
Your 
end 
will
>>>>>come
>>>>>>>>>>>>too.
Did You know Ceasar was killed by those he 
trusted most?

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## blp

> Stick it on any way. we can bend the rules a little can't we?


What the hell...

*Poem for Mom*

People who arent any good at drawing
and dont care
who drop litter and chew gum with their
mouths open
who arent any good at drawing
but like sex
like people
like flesh
you dont like them
you dont want me to like them either

A person is a body
That includes you
You need to be told you have a body too
It hangs on me
hotly and hevily
You need to be told you have a body too

But it disappears in the bigness of cathedral air
it disappears in history
in the warp and weft of a tapestry
in the drawing rooms of rich relatives
the Jewishness freezes and falls off. Half of you gone

Well, Im off
Im going to leave you here
stewing over your immortality project
its not for me

Im busy

I have to fall in love with someone rotten
make some valueless things
and describe them ungrammatically
read some pornography
poison some cats

You have an existential problem
I have to get this wax out of my ear

You have this theory that suffering is endemic
but my *** feels really sweet in these pants

A sticker on my medicine bottle says
for external use only
I could still see it as I threw it at the TV
Absent-mindedly putting a 
Splash of orange juice in my coffee

Tonight for dinner Im having boeuf en croissant
and coffee with wine in it

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## optimisticnad

i like the turn at the end...but I must say its fairly predictable. But excellent definition/view of...is it teens (?) : 'I have to fall in love with someone rotten' 'read pornography'

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## Bandini

I thought it was great, and I think people confuse honest expression with being predictable sometimes, and I prefer honest to pretentious. If I'm honest, I thought yours was a bit 'psuedy' Optimisticnad. But then 'different people/ different 'pinions/some like apples/some like onions

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## Riesa

and some like me, like oniony apples. for I like every one of the poems in this thread.
especially amuses.

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## Joleena

Thanks for calling my mistakes "charming" *grin* 

I think I'm sort of Riesanian, cause I like all the work done here as well  :Smile: 
Can't you post some more "challenges" - would like to show my new and improved _charm_ everywhere around *getting red* joke...  :Wink:

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## Bandini

Oh yeah - it's all good; but if I had to be critical...! Why don't you post a challenge Joleena?

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## Bandini

.............................................

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## optimisticnad

Bandini: psuedy???

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## optimisticnad

I like Joleena's question: is it real? 
We should have a seperate thread just for that! It's not just is it real in the sense is that how so and so is like etc. but...reality???? Makes me think of a cross between Matrix and Baudelaire!

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## Bandini

Pseudy - moi? Apologies 'pseudy' - ok it's not a real word - but you get my gist. Pretentious? No that's too strong. Apples and Onions matey, apples and onions!

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## optimisticnad

Pretentious???  :Bawling:  
Sorry, I seem to have walked in on 'insult the person' above you thread...lol.

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## optimisticnad

going back to Joleena's question about is it real: 

'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.' Harold Pinter.

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## Xamonas Chegwe

> going back to Joleena's question about is it real: 
> 
> 'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.' Harold Pinter.


He might not have seen a distinction between real and not real, but I bet he managed to slip a long pause in between them.  :Biggrin:

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## kilted exile

Okay, this will probably give you all an example of why I dont write more often.....

PARENTS

Argue, shout, scream
Invade every dream

Walked out on the mother
Made me hate my brother

Uncaring, Unfeeling
Belittling, Decieving

Misinterprate, misunderstand
Really is a better man

Always working, never there
But however, pretends to care

Questions, Questions every day
How I wish she'd go away

Not her fault
She just dont understand
Just respond the best I can
See I'm not that kind of man

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## Bandini

I think we should re-name this 'The Phillip Larkin Memorial Thread'!

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## blp

> i like the turn at the end...but I must say its fairly predictable. But excellent definition/view of...is it teens (?) : 'I have to fall in love with someone rotten' 'read pornography'


Well...I'm 37. They say you never stop dealing with this stuff. 

I take your point about the predictability and I liked your piece, but I can't resist titting your tat: dad as dictator? Not a hard one to predict either. 

If only for the sake of being a little less predictable, I guess I might as well throw my dad poem from the Sanskrit poet's game thread into the mix: 
 
This argument can be described 
as a Japanese town
one in which the simple geometries 
of the old wood houses 
open to the outside with 
nary a discernible division
but in their fragility 
and inherent insubstantiality
that is conceptual
a refusal of simple opposition
they are being opposed
and losing 
to the flat impersonality 
of history without progress
Glazed grey bricks and
concrete obliterating 
rather than communicating
with a dead language.
Dad, you don't play fair.
Your language does kill
Demolishing ambiguity
Demolishing the past
Demolishing language
So that you seem to be
Leading Sanskrit's dialectic Ama-gi

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## blp

> I think we should re-name this 'The Phillip Larkin Memorial Thread'!


Or maybe the Larkin and Plath Memorial Thread

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## optimisticnad

ok, mine iws fairly predictable too. I should have made the mother the dictator or something like that. but thanks.
and yes Xam, long long pauses indeed. [pause]. lol.

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## optimisticnad

[QUOTE=blp]Well...I'm 37. They say you never stop dealing with this stuff. 


what?! we never stop reading pornography?? lol. Then I won't even bother trying to give it up...lol.

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## amuse

you guys are so sweet, thanks for the earlier comments.

oy, i started to work on the sanskrit thread - as if it were this one - and remembered well into the piece that i was supposed to be working on poetry not prose! so that may take a while. i like the prose piece though, it's a children's story. will share it soon.

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## Bandini

It doesn't have to be poetry - mine were meant to be prose! Just 100 words prose or poetry. Or in between.

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## blp

> you guys are so sweet, thanks for the earlier comments.
> 
> oy, i started to work on the sanskrit thread - as if it were this one - and remembered well into the piece that i was supposed to be working on poetry not prose! so that may take a while. i like the prose piece though, it's a children's story. will share it soon.


Excellent. I'm really curious to seeing the children's story that resulted from the last suggestion on that thread.

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## amuse

near the marina
powder swirls before
settling on sea
foam to be carried
'round the world.
the boardwalk was
empty last night
i though of her
in a cheap
halfway house
3000 miles
away
her caked face
falling into the
sea she always
wore too much
make-up her
jaw was too wide
her voice too
shrill
i am
afraid we are
more alike than
i know
i wonder will
the overperfumed
dust from her face
ever wash
onto my legs
as i sit by
the shore

and if her makeup
is washed off in the
sea would i recognize
her body if it came
home to me?


*no idea re: the #, will be interesting to count now!
 :Blush:  crap, it's way over.

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## blp

Excellent, amuse. Not sure you need the word 'ever', but the rest is effectively cold and squeamish-making. This thread is becoming a gallery of grotesques.

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## Pensive

amuse, this is brilliant!

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## formality hater

for it took me time to realize my world in the hands of two 
sharing,caring or loving hearts
well, some of this is true
she is a two-way person,
here and then, nowhere
when she is needed, she is out in a dark
in some of her troubles and worries
i need her, and maybe she knows
but she reckons that i dont care for her
enchanted maybe my mind,
but there is a way you can fit in
as there it lies in the core of my heart
a bud of love to bloom 



please read it

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## Scheherazade

Long tamed lion lies down, sunken in the white plains, battling silently with what has been growing inside him like the silence to come. Once filled with roars of laughter and command, his breath is a moaning whisper urging on stubbornly.

The lion tamer watches on, wavering between desperation and hope, defiance and resignation, disbelief and reality, clinging to the already withered paw, wishing never to let go of something that has already left.

Once, life was a journey to enjoy together through desperation and disappointment; as long as they had each other. 

Now, it seems like each other is the one thing they cannot have.

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## blp

poets.org sends out a poem a day if you ask them to, and this is the one I got on Sunday:



Example and Admonition
by Dick Barnes


My fathers admonition: when given
a choice, choose the path that
leads uphill, always,

so up we went, but all led down soon after:
our destination Deep Creek, where water had gathered
by taking every downhill opportunity.

We thought of that when the higher path turned down,
but no one mentioned it then, nor ever, in fact, til now.
Two lessons: and though sometimes I feel clever,

and have read the Chou I book all about that water,
Ive not forsaken either one. If there be something in a man
that flows uphill, he has to go with it

whatever sweat or humiliation may attend his going.
Done patiently, this is called "matching heaven with heaven."
Otherwise, just strife.

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## white camellia

Chou I book? Isn't it the ancient Chinese classic(also called _book of changes_) about cosmology and philosophy mysteriously written by a King in Chou Dynasty? 
and this poem reminds me of an old Chinese aphorism: ren wang gao chu zou, shui wang di chu liu(people go uphill while waters flow down to low lands).

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## blp

I think you're right about the book and I like the whole as a wry comment on just how lacking in ancient Chinese wisdom the speaker's father is. I can relate.

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## white camellia

Ahh, indeed, i just realized his lack in understanding it. The saying just emphasizes one's being aspirant, also reflects how people perceive Nature and then relate it to the way of life(there's an ancient belief: human ultimately conquers the force of Nature)

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## amuse

deleted "ever" but prefer it better with. just for the "hmm..." factor (and time seems lengthened with it), not the rhythm/sound. but thx for the suggestion, it was good to check it out.

thx blp, Pensive and Riesa

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## zannie

My father died 
Buried answers to my questions
I thought how selfish
In dusty ashes
Lay in decay my love
wasted and dead
I cried when he died
Saddened hed
Never see my success
Hed never imagine Id marry
Hed never imagine Id do greater things
And so for two years he haunted me
With deceit in my dreams
Like the intangible wind
He left me empty
All over again
At his funeral we
Chanted an Orbituary of lies
Silenced the truth
To give him a humanly funeral
A heros funeral
But I know my father
Was not a hero

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## zannie

i loved blp's poem...anyway who cares about Predictability,is this not about expression...one's reality...

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## thevintagepiper

Dads so incredible, Ill say, and more than that, hes mine
His is a godly, loving, certain, unchanging set of mind. 
I can trust him now and love him and accept what ever he say
Because he is my head and my protector, my guardian each day.
Hes preparing me for one who will take me from his wing
And trains me to then serve that one and learn of all the things
I can do to honor him right now; a blessing, not a curse.
Some say hes strict, but me? I say theres none so good on earth. 



My dad's amazing. Honestly, I can't tell you how much I love and respect him. He puts so much into my schooling (compiling/writing my history/Bible programs), future, pleasure, and everything. I don't get along that well with my mom but we're working on that one!

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