Perspective

^{_{© Gregory Colbert}}

“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.”
– Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

How can I viably write about war
when it will only end in why
and what for and glum inertia 
for the striving third world 
children who’ll never know
what childhood means.

Somewhere
in the privileged first world
a sentimental Romeo plays the piano.
His only problem –
how to make inroads
with the citrus-perfumed
temptation waltzing his way. 

He wonders if
she’ll leave with him 
at midnight.

He is crestfallen
when she leaves
with his friend.

Ah well.  
First world problems.

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt: Viable, 82 words, Shay’s Word Garden, where we are given inspiration with singer/songwriter Tom Waits (words used: sentimental, Romeo, piano, temptation, waltzing, midnight, crestfallen), The Sunday Muse (images as shown), Poets and Storytellers United theme: war and peace, and Ragtag Daily Prompt: Citrus

How the Days Mushroom #Wordless Wednesday

_{^{Umbrella Weather, ink on watercolour paper, Sketchbooks 2021, © N Nazir 2021}}

Sometimes You Choose Deliberate Optimism

_{^{Lisa Fonssagrives standing on the Eiffel Tower, taken by Erwin Blumenfeld}}

A gesture.  Goes on stretching and stretching.  The brick has a charm in the world of ideas.  Careening into the future.  The jazz of lip syncing during the early stages.  Of romantic design.  Is it raining, ohhhh.  Listen, let’s rendezvous.  Clouds will come and go, days will ebb and flow.  Yes, dogs may dream in black and white.  But technicolour abounds everywhere.  Get over it with your minimalism.  Sometimes, there is maximalism.  Open your viewfinder.  Use a wide-angle lens.  The landscape is a curve veering into the abyss.  Minutiae collects together to form a larva of brilliant existence.  I pop bubbles in your face with sarcasm.  Hey!  Check out this effing view!  It doesn’t take a brainiac to know what hardcore beauty looks like.  It is.  Ek stasis.  

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden where we are given inspiration with Creem magazine (words used: brainiac, brick, charm, hardcore, jazz, romantic, stages, veering), The Sunday Muse (image as shown), Poets and Storytellers United (slightly off-prompt), Ragtag Daily Prompt: Design

A Dusk of Reasoning, a Curtailing and a Quickening #publication

_{^{© Omar Musa for Visual Verse}}

The night is swollen and ever-present. Curling into my shoulders. East wind stirs my whiskers. I, padding, into a stillness of welcome, summon knowing. The babies of night unfurled stir twice, thrice, then hitch a ride on a hump-back dream into yonderland.

Where I too am headed. My quiet laughter turns into willing. My prowl, alertness of darkness. Eyes keen in the night, my brother goes hence. I feel his hunt in my knees, in the down of my belly.

Dare I cross the waters? I . . .

. . . would be delighted if you went here to read the rest of the poem.

^{_{© N Nazir 2022}}

*Shared for dVerse Open Link Night, hosted by Bjorn.

*I’m so pleased to be published in Visual Verse this month. I only realised when a fellow blogger pointed it out to me. Pretty delighted as they rejected me four months in a row earlier this year! I hope you enjoy the piece 🙂

*And my chosen Throwback Thursday for today is a classic Neneh Cherry track: Manchild, from her debut album, Raw Like Sushi, 1989. I still find it bewitchingly beautiful. She performed at Glastonbury Festival in 2019 (which I watched from the comfort of my living room) and sounded just as good as ever – and didn’t look much different either! Some people are kind of ageless.

She started off playing in punk bands in the early 80s, before becoming a solo singer-songwriter and rapper soon after. If you’ve never heard of Neneh, you will likely have heard her music before, such as Seven Seconds featuring Youssou N’dour, which was a major hit in 1994. Being both British and Swedish, she is based between London and Stockholm and although she doesn’t release music any more, she is still a major part of British pop history.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do. Do you have a favourite Neneh Cherry song? Feel free to share it in the comments below. Or if you have another throwback you’d like to share, please be my guest! 🙂

Vert, Violet #Wordless Wednesday

_{^{Terrain, gel pen & watercolour on craft paper, Sketchbooks 2022, © N Nazir 2022}}