Parallel Realities

_{^{Untitled (Vipava, Slovenia) © N. Nazir 2018}}

A stoned firecracker rests in electric inertia.
Best avoid its orbit
lest it pop and whizz out of the blue.
You may never quite bumble the same.

Winter knows patience like no other.
As a tomcat whistles in the pseudo-holy silence,
so pseudo it’s authentic,
the kenopsia of a bank holiday,
a woman steals a smoke out of a window,
starlorn, wondering if the forecast
will again be coffin-shaped,
in the craxis of the southern hemisphere,
in the ocean’s temper
where so many dare to bridge
but never cross,
in places where women turn fury into razor intelligence,
gut blues into daily cunning
to cradle a quiet dream or two
dreaming, as a way to survive.

For what is torment but a place with closed doors
and no keys, no password? 
Where is the heartspur then?
Nowhere to rest your eyes
not even a patch of sky.

Cats.
They know how to –
but would never care to tell you.

_{^{© N. Nazir 2021}}

_{^{Untitled (Vipava, Slovenia) © N. Nazir 2018}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden, with prompt words inspired by the lyrics of Laura Nyro (who I didn’t know until now). Words used: stoned, firecracker, winter, patience, tomcat, whistle, holy, forecast, coffin, cradle, cats.

Written also for dVerse Tuesday Poetics, hosted by Linda. The challenge being to pick some words from the ten Linda has selected from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and use these in your poem. I used the four below:

Starlorn: a sense of loneliness looking up at the night sky, feeling like a castaway in the middle of the ocean, whose currents are steadily carrying off all other castaways.

Kenopsia: the atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.

Craxis: the unease of knowing how quickly your circumstances could change on you – that no matter how carefully you shape your life into what you want it to be, the whole thing could be overturned in an instant.

Heartspur: an unexpected surge of emotion in response to a seemingly innocuous trigger- the distinctive squeal of a rusty fence, a key change in an old pop song, the hint of a certain perfume- which feels all the more intense because you can’t quite pin it down.