No, I Don’t Believe We’ve Met Before

We are bound by ribbon, gently so, but I feel the tug when I wander too far and would be rid of it and your Kerouac nonsense. Hedonism blows great smoke rings but doesn’t pay bills. Everyone’s a forgotten genius, why are you special? We all had a dream crushed under cowskin boots at one time or other, so what? Dreams are plenty, all great things are borne of dreams. So chase a new one. Some heady mix of possible and improbable and metaphysical and unthinkable. Gritted teeth and too much realness disguised as theatre. Society laps up the illusion cause it’s so pretty. Don’t we love the psyche unravelling when it looks pretty? What about the bad, what about the ugly?

And then there are smells, oh, so many smells. Not always peachy girl-sweet Pear’s soap smells, but metallic blood smells, earthy animal smells, rotten fruit smells. What are you going to do about the smells, damn it? The traces left in history’s streets and Victorian by-gonism. The drunken louts, men’s territorial markings. Viennese streets wear it all. Sometimes everything looks the same backwards and forwards. The sumptuous and macabre residing as neighbours in the annals of time and spiral staircases. The photo-negatives of what was, what still is.

And now I’ve wandered too far again and the ribbon has pulled me back. I came from this place, went to that one, found myself other than sought to scrabble out again. Out into the light. The bleaching blinding light.

Give me a shard of glass to cut the cord, so delicate but so finely wrought. Give me a midday sun, a phoenix wing beating thing, burning clean my tea-coloured skin. Give me a newness of moon and long-forgotten ashes, crumbling in the wilding wind.

^{_{© N Nazir 2023}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden, where Shay brings us inspiration with a word list from the works of poet and musician, Janis Ian. Words used: ribbon, Kerouac, smoke, genius, boots, mix, society, soap. The word list is still up for anyone who wishes to take part.

Written also for Poets and Storytellers United, where Magaly inspires us to write a piece based on a book we’re reading, or have read, or love. I always have my nose in any number of books at any one time, so am currently reading a combination of poetry, supernatural horror, mystical and arthouse, by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Ben Okri, Stephen King and Mohsin Hamid, all of whom I recommend.

Written also for The Sunday Muse, image as shown.

A Piece of Prose

The world has been made in perfect design, though it hangs akilter and jostles between eureka and disaster.  A perpetual day and a perpetual night turn and turn.  There is still time and it’s not too late.  Even though my love is a dust whirlwind of longing trying to find its way.  Even though sands shift and the desert night is cold, cold.  Even though we orbs have had it with this realm.  Quiet joy bubbles somewhere, where the journey goes beyond and beyond.

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt (Perpetual, 84 words), and Poets and Storytellers United (Theme: Repeating Oneself).

*Title suggestions welcome. I have no idea what to title my writes sometimes.

*Congratulations, Argentina!!! Well-deserved ❤

*How are you all? 🙂

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)

You Hotfoot it Out of There

My blind spot hides the assassin 
who has crept through gardens to find me.
When I turn around, there is no one 

but he heard my melody in the mountains
and followed the notes 
through thickets and sin

now he lurks outside my house
backflipping down from the roof
waiting to pounce 
but he doesn’t come in.

Puzzled, I watch him from windows
but his shadow has slipped from view
always, always, again and again.

The only sign he was there
is the tremble of violets 
in the space he left.

He’s so clever, my assassin.
I saved myself by making him love me
but I don’t know how long this will last.

Show yourself! I call out into the dusk
Do what you will, take what you want!
I am met with silence.

He knows I know 
what he wants.

So I play the melody he followed
play until he shows himself
then slips back into the shadows

play until my hands ache
play until 
he is gone
with the morning.

^{_{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Shay’s Word Garden where we are given inspiration with Stephen Crane (words used: assassin, blind, gardens, melody, mountain, puzzled, sin, thickets, violets), The Sunday Muse (images as shown), and Poets and Storytellers United (theme: dialogue) where I have gone a little off-prompt.

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.