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

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! 🙂

Is that the Queen’s English?

^{_{© Cornell Capa 1972}}

Your move. King? No, queen. Wait – there is no queen. Knight, it is. What were you saying? Something about ecstasy? No, I was talking about the expectation of absurdity. Oh? Like when society expects one thing but your soul demands another. It’s the nonsense of things being various. Like gingerbread in summer? Or ice cream in winter? You could say that. What I mean is, no one writes letters any more. The soul wants letters. Instead we are saturated with the toxic thoughts of the masses on platforms that suck out our souls. Mmmmmm, interesting. I suppose people have an overwhelming need to share. Your move. I need a moment…. there. Do you think we ever really know who we are? And that’s why we talk? In order to discover? I think we’re always on the verge of becoming. Yes, but do we ever? Perhaps not. Not if we’re still here. I’m glad to be here. Even though everything seems broken. I know what you mean. There is still beauty in the world. There will always be beauty. The luminous beauty of maths, for instance. Or the ping of understanding between hearts when they open. Yes. A good joke is also beauty. Wouldn’t you say? It depends on the filter of your lens that day. Mmmmmm. Anyway, it’s your move…

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

_{^{© Cornell Capa}}

Written for The Sunday Muse (images as shown), Shay’s Word Garden, where we are given inspiration with the poetry of Amy Lowell, Poets and Storytellers United, and Ragtag Daily Prompt: Luminous

Some Kind of Love Story # publication

^{_{Erasure Poem #7, ink & gel pen on paper, Sketchbooks 2021, © N Nazir 2021
Text source: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, p.40-41}}

His beautiful silver
smoke rings.

Her devious
charm.

A long outrageous
conversation
about love
amidst
candlelight.

She and he
in Siamese
stupor.

He needed
courage.

The silence

allowed

something

wonderful.

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

I’m delighted to have this erasure poem published in the latest issue of Unlost Journal, a wonderful online journal that regularly publishes found poetry and art. This is issue #29 entitled “How Daily My Life” where you can view my submission and read all other entries (poem published under Nina Nazir). Hope you like!!

Shared for dVerse Open Link Night, hosted by Linda.

Statuesque in Liberty

I changed again in the night
a flight to a mayan dreamscape
not mine, but 
a spidery vortex of others.

I flitted this way and that
as is my wont,
tweaked a scene here
pulled a string there
for dream lords are not so different
from time lords.

We all but stop the nightmares creeping in
though of course
there’s always a realm for boogeymen.

Finally
I enter a fantasy
at the other end of Yonderland
and watch as an opera of rainsong
falls in thundering symphony 
from the petticoats 
of the newly escaped 
Eurydice.

_{^{© N Nazir 2022}}

Written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing prompt: Opera, 95 words, The Sunday Muse (image as shown), Poets and Storytellers United (Prompt: to write from the point of view of a TV character), and Ragtag Daily Prompt: Flight