Your love

The big wheel by Marc Chagall

You spin grandiose turmeric-indigo dreams
encompassing the eiffel and the eye

you paint the skies vivid lettuce green
cabbage clouds melt in the summer heat

you weave whimsical seasons of love
rescuing my heart from the cycles of highs and lows

Over the town by Marc Chagall

you sweep me off my high-heeled shoes
carrying me over the hills and the dingle

you build a magnificent castle of passion
leaving behind mundane grey and red dwellings

you make love soar, defy gravity
kite-like we float, not as two, but as one.

Written for David’s W3 for POW Melissa’s ekphrastic prompt based on the above two paintings. Also for Eugi’s moonwashed weekly prompt and Kerfe’s random word generator.

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Grumbling gale

Pic courtesy Wallpaper Flare

The carping wind moaned on and on
badgering the beetle brown old bungalow
rattling its ratty-tatty rear bay windows
it whooshed then wailed then whined
scaring the decaying soffit into submission
danced like dervish amongst the debris
then losing steam, skulked
in a corner of the crumbling cellar.

Written for dVerse poetics. Today’s host, Sarah wants us to have fun with animal verbs.

Turmoil

Pic courtesy Alamy

Turbid thoughts taint decisions
undermining clarity and cogent concepts
moot matters mar the mindscape
ululating notions create commotion
leaving the brain too befuddled to
tie all the unravelled loose ends.

Written for David’s W3 to yours truly’s prompt to write an acrostic poem on the following.

1. Discipline

2. Enthusiasm

3.  Meditation

4. Tumult

5. Trouble

Her lot

On a typical misty morning
when the hush is broken
by the birds leaving their nests
the elderly woman in
an inexpensive apparel
takes her daily route
the prickly cactus, the malicious ants
no deterrent
buckets balanced on her frail shoulders
she is on her same daily run
no complain, no regret
she knows not life outside her village
accepting with equanimity
the lot handed to her.

Written for Sadje’s wdys and Kerfe’s random word generator.

The humble roti* (NaPoWriMo)

Pic courtesy Hindustan Times

I

The smell of a roti off the hot girdle is earthy;
neither sweet nor salty
yet the speckled and puffed up phulka, with just a smear of ghee
is humble and grand at the same time
readily becoming a base to dal, gosht or aloo gobhi
none of which would taste as good without it
whether paratha, poori, roomali roti or tandoori roti
its ubiquitous presence cannot be denied
quit roti –  says everyone –
banish it from your diet
but I don’t have gluten allergy – I protest
carbs and gluten are not cool these days – I am reminded
as I look dolefully at the roti on my plate
it winks at me, asking – can you live without me?

II

I remember as a child watching my mother
knead the dough
handing me a sticky ball and it was my playdough to be fashioned in any shape
while she instilled in me a respect for the golden grains
for it is the food of the rich as well as the poor
drenched in ghee or with a sprinkle of salt
this satiater of hunger cannot be robbed of its importance
by fancy, ever so new-fangled diets.

For today’s challenge write your own two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal. At some point in the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person. Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue.

*roti – Indian flatbread cooked on a griddle.

Phulka – puffed up roti (synonym of roti)

Paratha – shallow fried stuffed roti

Poori – deep fried, puffed roti

Roomali roti – a very thin soft roti eaten with kebabs

Tandoori roti – roti made in clay oven.

Dal – lentil or any other legume curry

Gosht – mutton curry

Aloo gobhi – potato and cauliflower dry preparation with spices.

Fame lands me in a pickle (NaPoWriMo)

Fame lands me in a pickle
on a surface slippery
with slime
once I slip
still try a second time
the one-eyed crow
smirks ironically
can see no farmer’s corn
in disdain it flies past
I choke on the pickle and gag!

For today’s prompt we are asked to find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one we have never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where we want. Take out some words. Make our own poem out of it.

I chose the following poem.

Fame is a fickle food

Upon a shifting plate

Whose table once a

Guest but not

The second time is set

Whose crumbs the crows inspect

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the

Farmer’s corn

Men eat of it and die

Memories (NaPoWriMo)

Pic courtesy SoundCloud

Pebbles of memories perturb my placid life
some like bullets tear my heart asunder
some pass by with nary a ripple
the fragrance of fuchsia flips a familiar switch
banished phases from the past parade in my present
I taste the tangerine tartness of love
the mellifluous melody of memories sweet

pulled out of the hypnotic hole of hopelessness
I am at Barcelona and can hear Maira say,
“Si solo fuera cierto*, dear Tippy”
the younger me would have responded, “saun rabb di**”!
she was so lit she put the sun to shame
and her smile is still emblazoned on this wrecked heart

Tripping on reminiscences
I trace her name with shaky fingers
as I watch her favourite nimbostratus clouds
I want to wipe away all her traces
but the moon she had pocketed that last meeting
saunters by every day, wearing her fragrance
I die every night only to be resurrected by the sun.

For today’s prompt:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.

2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.

3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.

4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).

5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.

6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.

7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.

8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.

9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.

10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).

11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”

12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.

13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”

14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.

15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.

16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.

17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.

18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.

19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).

20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

I don’t know how many points I have included, once I started, I let it take its own course.

*Si solo fuera cierto is Spanish and means if only it was true.

**saun rabb di is Punjabi and means I swear by God.

Foraging (NaPoWriMo)

As thoughts unspool
they fall in a tangled heap
ideas float like jumbled strands
my mind’s fingers flail and fail
in trying to spin an engaging yarn
fleet footed word flee hurriedly
I am left fumbling.

The prompt (optional, as always) for the first day of Na/GloPoWriMo is to write a poem based on a book cover. Take a look through Public Domain Review’s article on “The Art of Book Covers.” With any luck, one or more of these will catch your fancy, and open your mind to some poetic insights.

A pillow talks

Pic courtesy Hush Blankets

I am the frightener of your monsters
the listener of your rants and outbursts
the keeper of all your secrets
the soaker of your silently falling tears
the generator of festooned dreams
the slayer of occasional nightmares

You are the master of mercurial moods
a purveyor of puerile pranks
a dictator of directionless diktats
a lounger lazing languidly
a hugger, a dreamer, a procastinator

But there can be no denying
whether I am dressed in crisp cottons or silky softness
I am the best bedmate you can ever have!

Written for David’s W3 where David is the POW himself. He has asked us to write a poem from the perspective of an inanimate household object, using personification.