Solilo-quoi?

_{^{Photo by Michael Block on Pexels.com}}

It’s true what they say
that the heart wants what the heart wants
but if the wind is your master, what then?
It’s a fine messenger
but it will also lay desolate your garden.

What of all the cows that go on being milked 
and thieved?  Whose hide we plunder,
the holy mother
sacrificing herself over and over?

How can I possibly indulge in whimsy 
in carefree revels or poetry
when warlords entrap women
play chess with men’s lives
regress civilisation into barbarianism
whose way forward is a tearing apart?

What can I do but stand with you
mourn with you
march with you 
suffer with you?

And yet
I have water and shoes and art and democracy
I am so very lucky.

I also have a joint that I crashed off my friend Jeannie
and it’s been a long time
so it’ll knock me right out
but today is a day that called for a joint.

All I can say is
I hear you and I feel you.
I honour your story.
You remind me to pray.


^{© N Nazir 2021}

Written for dVerse Thursday Poetry Prompt hosted by Victoria: Write a solilo-quoi? which is like a soliloquy but should include other poetic devices (e.g. rhyming, meter, synesthesia, etc.)

* I don’t really know if this is either of these as it emerged as a tumble of free verse.  I interpreted soliloquy as internal dialogue meets honesty of expression and I just kind of went with that really. It makes sense that soliloquising is something you do alone, like solitude.

* I could not come up with a title so I have taken the form as its title. Feel free to suggest a better one and I’d be happy to change it 🙂

* the friend in question is not really called Jeannie but that is now her poem name.