Your kiss
peppered on the wind
breathtaking
when you give in
. . . so give in.
© N Nazir 2023
Written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt (Breathtaking, 14 words), and The Sunday Muse (image as shown).
Tag: The Sunday Muse
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.
When the Night Gives Up Her Secrets
I’d never been to a séance before, and it didn’t seem appropriate this close to Christmas.
Though spacious and tastefully furnished, the room had reminded me of a vault, all sombre dark wood surround and shadowy eaves.
The thing is, I didn’t know whether to tell Janey about the tall pale man who had been standing behind her the whole time. They’d only done it for a bit of fun after all, she and her cronies, to figure out why things kept mysteriously vanishing, keys ending up in the fridge and such-like. But there he had been looking down at her, she, giggling and oblivious, as it seemed had been everyone else.
And when, shuddering, I left, gulping in the night air, I could hear the strains of a lone violin playing somewhere in the house.
© N Nazir 2022
Written for Shay’s Word Garden, where we are given inspiration with Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Words used: Christmas, violin. Shay also shares her favourite poem by him called Junkman’s Obligato, which is an absolute joy to read, I highly recommend it. You can find it over at her page.
Written also for GirlieOnTheEdge Six Sentence Story Linkup, where the prompt word is Vault. (Unfortunately, I was too late to link my post but I thought I’d share it anyway).
Written also for The Sunday Muse, image as shown.
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)
Sunra Rainz 