A Heaving Petticoats Poem

It’s true, I said, I’m musically promiscuous
but I thought you were too?  

Surely we belong together?
What a gorgeous catastrophe,

you replied, how we flamenco like this 
but never meet, not really.

Then let’s rewrite the script, I urged
let’s go one cerulean afternoon

to the cottonwoods 
where the bees wallow

and make like a samba in the zinnias.  
No one need ever know!  Besides

I wore my peignoir for you
and the moment is already cyanic.

You give me some kind of all-overishness
damn you! you declared, but got up

gruntled, took my hand
and led me there.

^{_{© N Nazir 2023}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden where Shay brings us inspiration with award-winning poet Alicia Suskin Ostriker, with the word list taken from her poetry collection The Crack in Everything (words used: gorgeous, catastrophe, flamenco, cerulean, cottonwoods, bees, samba, zinnias).

Written also for Sammi Scribbles Writing Prompt: Script, 100 words.

*This is really a belated Throwback Thursday 🙂 But has also been my earworm this week.

We Deliquesce

Momentous, when you falter
and give in.  Proximity.
You’re not so rigid 
after all, unmasked.  

I hold infinitude here
circling and circling.  Take it, 
my offering.  Let’s go
chase some good trouble.

^{_{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt: momentous, 32 words, and The Sunday Muse, image as shown.

Stream of Consciousness (A Blitz Poem)

this romantic season
this fever of reasons
reasons to be cheerful
reasons to be careful
careful, don’t get caught in the tundra
careful, or you’ll get sucked under
under the wave you’ll go
under the falling snow
snow drift lays like sheets
snow, when we two meet
meet by the bridge of longing
meet by the sultry moon
moon over me, I
moon over you too
too many wishes
too little time
time wobbling into dusk
time, of the essence
essence of rosemary
essence of orange blossom
blossom into a love boat’s shoring
blossom into a milky morning
morning brings a nattering
morning brings sighs and things
things, not what they seem
things are a makeshift dream
dreams are phantoms
dreams are lanterns
lanterns guide your way
lanterns of faerie ballet
ballet into the future
ballet into your reverie
reverie of summer gone
reverie of summer to come
come what may, the mice will play
come what may, the cat’s away
away with you, blues
away with you, into the blue
blue shoes on a blue day
blue notes you whisper in my ear
earmark this moment 
earmark this wish
wish it was easy
wish it was now
now will come soon
now is opportune
opportune
soon

^{_{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden where we are given inspiration with Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman (words used: romantic, fever, tundra, sultry, wobbling, milky, nattering, makeshift, phantom), We’Ave Written Weekly where the Poet of the Week, Murisopsis, invites us to write a Blitz Poem, The Sunday Muse (image as shown) and Poets and Storytellers United (Theme: Ordinary)

Triptych

The thing about happy baby pose is
it can be a little too relaxing.
So when you’re in a room
full of strangers
relaxing this way
and it’s too cold 
to open the windows
pretty soon
you’re not relaxed at all
but in desperate need
of fresh air.


*

I dreamt of city lions
on the crumbling rooftops
of derelict housing in the inner city.
Silent and prowling and beautiful they were
the vocabulary of their manes
a perfectly silvery grey.
How could they be phantoms
when they had shadows?
Shining in the sun,
the shadow-casting sun.
One of them locked eyes with me
as I cruised past
on the bus.


*


Eggshells tinkling
as I punch out 
into the new world.  
I outgrew this one,
became other.  
I heard the hiss of life’s parade
all around me
and knew it was time.
Hey, World!  
How come you’re hibernating
when I’m ready to intrude
on your soul?
We can shindig gently
indoors
and it needn’t be loud
nor too wild.

^{_{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden where we are given inspiration with Jim Morrison (words used: strangers, windows, lions, vocabulary, phantoms, eggshell, hiss, parade, soul) and Poets and Storytellers United where the theme is the power of 3.

Skins

It was somehow
in the way you
murmured
in my ear

the song you played
a-thrumming

the sibilance 
between
pauses
of significance.

Torture me again,
why don’t you.

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt: Sibilance, 28 words, and The Sunday Muse, image as shown.