Recipe for Keeping Good House…#Free Verse Revolution Publication

First make sure the way is clear to the path to your door. Remove all the stones, unless they’re pleasingly oblong, but never on a blue moon night.

Let the weeds grow wild and behead all the pansies (to keep the jinn away). Allow the black cats free roam to encircle your home for they bring messages from those passed over on nights such as this . . .

You can read the rest of this piece by downloading a copy of Free Verse Revolution Issue III: Hestia (hearth & home).

I’m so delighted to have two of my prose pieces featured in it! The other one is entitled The In-between Places. (You’ll find me on pages 173-176).

Thank you so much to Kristiana Reed for giving them a home amongst other great scribes. After receiving more than my fair share of rejections, it’s truly heartwarming to finally receive a few acceptances. They’re like men and buses. Or pens that roll under the bed. Magpies in pairs and all the missing socks finally turning up again. Anyway, I’m pretty stoked. Hope you enjoy reading it 🙂

A Dada Kind of Day

This ramshackle seesaw of dreams I saw spilling out of my journal the other day really quite gave me the heebie jeebies. Is it some sort of dream catcher, this place I record my thought showers?

And then my book tower fell on me as I bent to pick up my pensieve.  Because I’m clumsy and I knocked it. I’m in an in-between house and I should get a bookshelf.  Preferably one with feet so spiders can commune beneath it.  Still, it fell to reveal a spy novel I kept meaning to read and now I’m glued.  


_{^{© N Nazir 2021}}

Shared for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt: Ramshackle, 97 words.

And Then the Sun Broke Through the Clouds…

_{^{Vicky Wendish, Visual Verse September 2021 image}}

You smiled at me and I teetered . . . on the edge of maybe.  I am suspicious of men who don’t blink.

I ponder the meaning of it all, the electric moment.  I ponder whether I should stop pondering the meaning of it all.

Sometimes, there isn’t one.  And words cannot transcribe what instinct always knows. My body is live with conduction. But look…

…you can read the rest of the poem here.

^{© N Nazir 2021}

*With warmest thanks to Visual Verse for publishing my poem! I honestly thought I hadn’t made the cut this month. I was pleasantly surprised this evening ❤

Him (vi)

^{Erasure Poem 16 detail, gel pen on photocopy paper, © N Nazir 2021}

Shared for dVerse Open Link Night, hosted by Bjorn.

As One, We Heave

We can always sense the storm coming.

We flee indoors minutes before.
Our hive mind electric just knows. 
The vibration sings
through the particles that govern us. 

We know exactly when to escape.
We are programmed this way. 
Each of us a tiny marching brain cell. 

You could never understand our language.
It is beyond telepathy. 

We don’t bite. 
We can. 
But often, we don’t. 
Having said that,
you wouldn’t want to meet our Australian cousins.
Now they’re rough,
always spoiling for a fight.
They need no provocation.
Toothed, venomous and mighty.
Avoid at all costs.

In general, though, we’re a nice bunch.

We move as one dark swathe of blanket
along walls, when the heavens pelt outside.

Sometimes, at the pinnacle of summer heat
after a luscious bounty of rain
we grow full-bodied
sprout wings
ready, willing, hunting
with only one thought in our tiny minds
our one big super mind.
Mating. 

Our nuptial flight.
Our amorous swarm.
You must suffer us,
it’s the only way we can spawn.

The queen – for there is always a queen –
is the egg woman. 
We are hatchlings of instinct.
You could say we are made of pure instinct.

You cannot imagine the strength of us.
Don’t bother.
You could not conceive it.

Still, we are a good omen
for those who labour.
For the sweat of hard work
will burn you pure
and bear the fruit you deserve
for the relentless machine
that you are.



^{_{© N Nazir 2021}}

^{_{Google images}}

Written for dVerse Poetry Prompt: Creepies and Crawlies, hosted by Sarah.

You can read another insect-inspired poem I wrote here.