Love Poetry: Monday Challenge

When you think of love poetry you think of young men and women spinning yarns of exaggerated verse such as “your face is more beautiful than the rising sun” and “your presence lightens the day and incites birds to mate” …well…you get the drift, right?

But such is the stuff of poetry that makes poets more feared than their fanged brethren: Vampires! Reading corny poetry like that out in public is perhaps the surest way to lose friends fast and die sad and lonely. And yes you are right…I should know!!!

Truth be told, writing love poems is the hardest kind of poetry. Its is so easy to exaggerate your emotions or drop an unnecessary rhyme or a cliche like “she smells like a rose”…shudder! If at all you use cliches then make them deliberate to make a point like Carol in her poem Valentine.

Juliet and Romeo syndrome

My best advise would be to stay clear from the “Juliet and Romeo” syndrome. While Juliet and Romeo was an exemplary play in its time, centuries later it is a bit of a “been there and done that” and might I add, a bit out of date. So try and get out of the “Juliet and Romeo” mold. Instead chose a more realistic 21st century setting and if you can introduce a 21st century problem then you got our ears.

Also try not to take yourself or your love interest too seriously. Avoid trite settings where your love interest is leaving you to die in gumption mourning her loss. Its so *yawningly* played out.

Can you describe your love without using commonplace words such as, “love”, “beautiful”, “lovely”, “heart”, names of flowers and birds, and celestial objects such as the Moon and The Sun?

If so, then go ahead write a love poem and make us truly connect with your emotions. If you do, feel free to link to my post or send me your poem in the comments section with your name and blog so I may give you the deserved credit. Here are a few to inspire you:

Valentine

by Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

A Glimpse

By Walt Whitman

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Spider

Spider

Eight symmetrical legs spin up a silken web,

With the dexterity of a pianist striking his keys,

back and forth and back and forth,

On the black and white keys

Weaving a breathless crescendo of perfect notes

While the audience watch in enthralled silence

until he stops.

And sits back as if to catch a breath,

And a thousand sighs escape their human chests.

Then the pianist leans back in and strikes his final note,

Just as the spider dances back and forth and back and forth,

on its Silver web lassoing its hapless prey with its sticky hooks.

A short struggle rises and then wanes as its hapless prey ceases to flutter

A thousand people rise in standing ovation.

Monday Challenge: Beguiling Poetry

Monday Challenge: Eating Poetry

When it comes to poetry its just not enough to read poetry. Poetry is far more visceral than that. To really enjoy poetry you need to eat, drink and breathe poetry and then maybe…just maybe you can capture its true essence. Nobody explains this better than Mark Strand in his Poem, “Eating Poetry”.

I love this poem by Mark Strand for so many reasons, most profound of which is the dark imagery it renders. The first line hooks you right away with its “Ink runs from the corners of my mouth” opening sentence. You cannot help but want to know of this person who is consuming enough poetry that its starting to bleed from his mouth…ink and all. Right from the opening line surreal images just leap out from his words into your mind. Within a few short sentences you are transported into the dimly lit library where the “poems are gone”. You can now see what has scared the librarian enough to cause her to “stamp her feet and weep”. The man has consumed so much poetry that he turns into a dog, a joyful one at that, “I romp with joy in the bookish dark.”. His joy is in sharp contrast to the sad and petrified librarian who does not understand what is going on perhaps because she has not yet enjoyed the taste of poetry.

For your challenge today, I ask you to take your own deepest emotions about poetry and turn them into something surreal. Don’t just rhyme or verse, paint me a picture throbbing with vivid imagery. Hook me in with your best hypnotic metaphors. Still unsure how to start, write a snippet of a story that is so surreal, it leaves one panting for more. Feel free to publish the poem on your blog and pingback to ubecute or just copy and paste your poem with your name and blog details in the comments section. Let the creative juices flow…

Eating Poetry

By Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.

There is no happiness like mine.

I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.

Her eyes are sad

and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.

The light is dim.

The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,

their blond legs burn like brush.

The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.

When I get on my knees and lick her hand,

she screams.

I am a new man.

I snarl at her and bark.

I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

In case you are curious about what Ubecute has to say about poetry check out this poem written a few years ago.

Holiday Post Card

This is not a Holiday post card

Printed on a glossy 3.5×5 inch paper

But an ice rink resplendent

with pair ice skaters drawing circles around one another

spinning in and out of each other’s embrace

with Swiss watch precision on the cutting

edge of Lickety-split ice skates.

Or perhaps it is an indulgent recipe

For those too unversed to brew.

Look at the cursive words that spell “magic”

That may well have read

“Steep two part faith into

A piping hot mixture of joy and innocence.

Cool for 5. Enjoy while still magical”

Or perhaps it is a promise sublime

A chance for new beginnings,

An omen for good times,

Or something more reassuring

Like the friendly jingle of an ice-cream truck

Pulling into the neighborhood with a vibrant swarm of

Brightly clad children running behind.

A Holiday postcard is a lot things but rarely ever

a green and red greeting

printed on a 0.75mm thick paper

Slipped inside a pearly white womb of an envelope.

With words that spell “Wishing you a Magical Christmas”

That jingle and jangle all the way to your front door.

A Poem: Emotions

broken car vehicle vintage — Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels.com

Emotions

You can pick the last few pieces,

on sale at the neighborhood goodwill store,

Next to the tie-die shirts and clogs;

that nobody has any use for anymore.

I ran my fingers over the frayed material

as if to bid one last good-bye,

You could see they were worn out.

Life has a way of wearing out

delicate material like this. That is…

if you are hackneyed enough to carry

such old styles in your wardrobe in the first place.

My mother passed them on to me,

suitcases and suitcases of emotions.

They run thick in our family.

And I foolishly carried them on with me hoping

to pass them on to my kids.

But kids these days have such little patience for gibberish.

So I emptied the suitcases of emotions

and folded them into a neat pile

to be donated to goodwill

with the rest of the “old and no longer used”.

On choosing a lover

photo-1447688812233-3dbfff862778 If I could chose a lover it would be

Poetry; a lonely heart’s companion.

Words would descend upon me like

vultures on a juicy carcass.

Tearing my soul like an old King’s

ravenous concubine.

Who needs the rehearsed symphony of meter?

We would be giddy on music & rhythm,

playing on words.

Flirting, laughing, holding hands

we would share a cab ride back home.

There, one by one, we will play

all the tunes of life.

Glowing in the florescent light of a

cheap white wine, we will strip

down worldly frivolities.

Bare down to our bones, to our souls.

We would dance the night away

Naked, wordless, soulful.

Ted Kooser’s words

Ted Kooser is one of my favorite contemporary poets. His poems are profound ruminations on life while the subjects of discussion are usually mundane objects like a painting, book, tattoo etc. While his words spread like butter on a warm toast and feel equally natural. Here is one of his many wonderful poems reading which makes you feel like you are floating a few inches above the ground. Enjoy!

Flying at Night

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.

Ted Kooser
Published in “Flying at Night”

Prose Poem: “I don’t like poetry”

sunset

Whoever says, “I don’t like poetry” is a liar. Poetry exists everywhere. It’s in sunrise, nightfall, rain and thunder as much as it is in a mundane book, bed, mantelpiece or window. It’s in a new born babe’s first cry as it is in a flurry of birds shearing through the skies like jets on 4^th of July. Whoever says “I don’t like poetry” has never really listened to the random sounds that make up words that make up languages that make monkeys human. He has never been swept by a mother’s eyes brimming with an ocean of love, nor admired old lover’s holding hands, holding canes crossing the road of life.

But if he truly has never seen nor experienced any of that, he hasn’t yet lived, nor loved. Pity the man who has neither lived nor loved. For if he did, he would never have said, “I don’t like poetry!”

Hope

If you have seen your own house burn to ashes, and your life’s work undone in a matter of hours then you have probably entered the darkest, deepest recesses of your heart. Doves and Peacocks don’t live in these dark corners. Skies are perennially dark. Nights are so cold you think you will not survive to see the day. And yet you do! A tiny flicker of light burning in a hearth several houses down keeps you warm through the night. Sooner or later, the tide turns and a new day bursts. The garden of your heart blossoms with spring once more. Thank God for the flicker of hope that waivers but never dies.

Prose Poem: Lazy Sunday

I love this room with its queen-size bed, decked with blue-green cushions that call my name in colored tones of embroidered silk. This room with its tall windows, and the sun stealing in through gaps between wooden lattices, casting ribbons of bright yellow on my brown hardwood floor. It’s hard to tear out of its delicious embrace every morning at eight. And head out into a day full of meetings like the bumper to bumper jammed 405. How I long for the comforting parlance of this room while at work, buried under piles of deadlines. I count my week backwards to Sunday, when I too can burrow deep like squirrels, moles and gophers do. Today, I shall draw the blinds longer and burrow deeper. Today I enjoy a lazy Sunday!

architecture bed bedroom ceiling — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Lazy Sunday inspired by DailyPost Prompt

Year’s end

Red Doors are closing in on

parched leaves, studding the sidewalks.

We have crossed out yet another season

on our kitty calendar and dressed the meager

backyard in ghoulish rags.

The procession of witches and ghouls

too shall pass and not much else will happen.

Some birds will be washed down with wine and

“thank you’s” and then forgotten.

Gifts shall be found and unwrapped under plastic trees

while a tired old man escapes a make-belief chimney!

We shall cast aside our hopes

and wait with abated breath for next year with

butterflies in our eyes. Nothing much ever happens.

Grandma’s face…

Faces are like complex metaphors

to life,

Happy like a child’s

first solo bicycle ride,

Or grim like Patty the parrot

buried in the backyard,

Treacherous like frozen ice

on your doorstep,

or innocent like a ticklish cackle.

Faces are like dreams

altering reality, and

reality altering dreams.

Playing my life in reverse

I see a fanfare of

faces.

Yours is a face I see over and over.

Your skin so light as if bleached by time

And your silver hair so thin

I can feel The ebb and flow of blood

in your scalp.

In my dream you are always wobbling

toward me unsteady like a ship

wavering side to side.

School’s just out and I am running to you

with outstretched arms eager to run into your

embrace like a hungry seagull.

But then like always

I wake up.

If faces are like metaphors, then

the memory of yours is like a quilt;

warming me

with it’s comforting familiarity.

I pull it over me like a tent

and sleep in its dream-like embrace.

Prose Poetry: Under my Skin

Prose poetry at a glance: A prose poem is any piece of verse written using the normal typography of prose, while maintaining elements of poetry, like rhythm, imagery, metaphors etc. Here is my contribution.

Under my skin:

She has a tendency to get under my skin. I try to shroud myself under the cloak of propriety. But she spots me. Ushers me to the coffee shop and calls out for “A tall Blonde with milk and Dostoevsky”. Then devours a donut and washes it down with Milton. Her words sizzle like ice on embers of coal and I vaporize like a puff of black magic. The book club was just an excuse. She has infected me like a parasite and spread irreversibly through my blood. Then slapping Dostoevsky on the table she says, “Pain is all pervasive. Love is redemption”.

An Imperfect Limerick: Stay

You lick me with your foul breath every morning,

You greet me with such adulatory fawning,

Yet once in a while I wish you would just leave me alone,

Be without your furry tail, dewy nose and your doggie bone,

Oh but “Stay”.

Without you my friend life would be barkless and boring.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/discover-challenges/animal/

7 reasons why poets suck; are you one of them?

Are you a fledgling poet and an extremely “good” one at that but wondering why you are unable to keep the circle of friends you once enjoyed? Do well-meaning friends always have an excuse to avoid your lunch invitation? Are more and more members of your family enacting the Cheshire cat on the dinner table as you roll out your book of poems? Do you constantly hear yourself talking to voicemails or phone lines going dead?

Then it is time to take this quiz. If you have answer “yes” to 3 or more points, chances are you are one of the dreaded poets people love to hate. *Scary music*

You Lie constantly: You have the constant, incurable need to fabricate lofty, soaring descriptions out of every day mundane events. The innocent barbeque at your friend’s backyard becomes a playground for the Greek Gods all complete with Hermes, Zeus and Aphrodite playing tags. Washing your hair resembles the Niagara Falls thundering down your head. Picking the weeds from your handkerchief garden reminds you of the prairies complete with fairies and pixies…Get the drift? Then my friend you suffer from poetic exaggeration. Give yourself a point.

You have no place for the ordinary: The chief protagonists in your poem are in a constant state of euphoria even if all they are doing is passing gas. There is absolutely no such thing as an “ordinary” day. The synonym for boring is ordinary and ordinary does not belong in your poems because poetry is all about life extraordinaire. Correct? Give yourself a point.

You are time blind: Time blindness is a major sickness many amateur poets suffer from. You basically only recognize two time zones: Dusk and Dawn. The sun is in an eternal state rising or setting. Ours must be the busiest planet in the Galaxy, with people constantly racing to either go to bed or wake up! Give yourself a point and underline it.
You suffer from the curious case of adjectivitis. This is a very common and unfortunate disease that most poets and writers suffer from. If you are constantly dishing out adjectives like Santa dishing out toys on 25^th of December than you suffer from adjectivitis. It’s Nasty! Do you often catch yourself adding meaningless adjectives such as “bright day”, “dark night”, “hushed whisper”, “tall palm trees”…? Be honest now, you know you have done it…
You are guilty of Necromancy: Are you constantly invoking the Greek Gods to do your dishes, or take the dog for a walk? Some poets think poetry is all about the exotic and the more Greek Gods they invite to their living room and share their cheap $6.00 Chardonnay, the better their poem becomes. No, No, No please let the Gods rest in peace, unless there is a genuine reason to invoke them from their resting heavens! Give yourself a point my friend.

You rhyme on a dime: If you think the idea of creating music in poetry is to rhyme at any cost then my friend you are creating another reason for the rest of the world to hate us. Rhymes make up for great nursery rhymes but don’t rhyme on a dime on somebody else’s time! Give yourself a point.
You are “Killing me softly” with trite sentimentality: If you catch yourself explaining your pain or sorrow with trite words such as “pain”, “sorrow”, “tear drops” and “shattered shards of your heart” then give yourself a point. Good poets stay away from expressing their sentiments in trite language instead they paint a picture. Stop crying “tears of blood” instead give yourself a point, you have earned it!

If you have answered “yes” to at least 3 out of the 7 points then you have committed the Deadly sin of writing boring poetry. You suck as a poet.

But fear not, you are in good company with “yours truly” who has pleaded guilty on all counts. And may the souls of all who died listening to our poetry rest in peace! Amen.

OOPS!: The Laws of Creation

I love Found Poetry. The concept of Found poetry is similar to borrowing your grandma’s old tatters and stitching them into a glorious summer gown. Here is my contribution to the world of found poetry. I wrote this poem a long time ago when I was in school learning Object Oriented Programming. I should add I was not very good Programmer and at best would have made a mediocre Programmer after years of practice. Fortunately enough, I moved to another profession. However, this poem is based on the Principles of Object Oriented Programming and compares them to the Laws of Creation. Let me know if I went too far? If not, feel free to pingback with your own creation.

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a paradigm that presents the concept of objects having attributes and methods that are similar to a human having a distinct personality and behavior.

People are instances of humanity and are fashioned to interact with one another to design and create societies.

Species are like blueprint or prototype from which instances of objects or people are created.

People inherit certain attributes from their specie with certain superficial differences and elementary similarities which help them aggregate.

Aggregation is the process of creating a new object or person from two or more objects or persons.

The central theme of creation is code re-use, where the same DNA can continue to produce more DNA with minor enhancements and unintended relegates.

At the root of existence, lies an object or a person. Once created, an object can easily be passed around the system. By interacting with only a person’s behaviors, the details of the person’s internal implementation can be hidden from the outside world, and from the person.

The object or person must comply to the rules set by the programmer and always fulfill its purpose.

Pluggability and debugging are solutions to be used if particular objects or persons turn out to be problematic or incapable of fulfilling their purpose. You can simply remove the problematic object or person from your application and plug in a different object or person as its replacement. Law, Government and Religion have been instrumental in plugging and debugging problematic source code.

OOPS is the language of creation that we must all commit.

Neha Jain

Room in a blur

You can count the perfect patterns of her expression
in the creased symmetry of her blue-green curtains.
Measure the dimensions of shadows or flashes of smile
that rise and fall on the contours of her face.
You can trace the magic inside the creases of her bed.
Even capture her colored energy in the pale peach taffeta ribbon
lying on her dressing table.
Admittedly, the color of her skin is harder
and more fleeting to taste
like eclairs au chocolat melting in your mouth.
Everything in the room is where it was when she left.
She took nothing with her
but the lily-white brilliance of her eyes.

Daily Post

Naked as the Maple Tree

Courtesy: http://www.naturepicoftheday.com/archive/2008-11-05

It’s almost naked now.
The days have grown shorter and the temperatures cooler.
My world has shrunk to the size of my heated
1000 square feet apartment. Maple leaves have covered
the footpath in a mosaic of yellow,
orange, red and brown.

It saddens me to think how the maple tree must ache for its loss.
To shed the very leaves it nurtured all year and then to do it over
and over again each year?
How hard it must be for the maple to detach so completely that it
has nothing left but it’s own trunk to pine for?

And the leaves that scuttle at its feet like red and brown rabbits.
So far removed from their binding truth, fallen from the
heights; unable to churn the green juice of life. Do they
beckon out to him like children to a father? And in punishing them
thus, does the maple punish itself?

But then I remind myself that come Spring this very Maple shall be full again;
thick with its vibrant foliage. Once more it
shall bleed its rich nectar, and the young leaves will cover the
length of its skeleton; embalming the pain. Life will find a way.

For now, I must liberate myself of your memories;
stand belly-naked from your binding thoughts. So that one day
I too can feel full again.

The hard truth of poetry?

“Ink runs from the corners of my mouth”

Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

The market for poetry is probably smaller than the number of poets in the world. Yet more and more people gladly join the ranks every year, spending their precious time penning a musical verse. To some there is no greater pleasure than the joy of reading and writing an ecstatic poem. There is something so deeply edifying about poetry that it makes up for all the troubles and the poor monetary rewards it offers.

Reading a good poem can be equally rewarding; it is like feeling every little cell in your body vibrate and respond to the import of the words. Emily Dickinson herself described reading a good poem as, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” (Emily Dickinson: An Overview)

But Poetry is less about “What” and more about “How”. Often a good poem is not about what it says but how it says it. Take for example Ted Kooser’s, “Four civil war paintings by Winslow Homer”. It is not the subject matter of the poems but the way that Ted Kooser describes the paintings that makes all the difference. He could very well be actually painting the picture himself in front of your eyes with his masterful brush. For instance in the poem, “Sharpshooter” which is the first of the series of four poems, Ted talks about the shooter “waiting” with his “finger as light as a breath” on the trigger ready to shoot. The poem starts with, “Some part of art is the art of waiting”, clearly making an analogy between the poetry and the art of shooting. The shooter waiting for the perfect aim is in direct comparison to the poet waiting for the inspiration to pen his poem. It is within these precious few moments of waiting; that the poet concludes a journey of creation and the shooter makes a perfect kill.

Is the fulfillment derived from this short albeit soul searching journey that makes most poets go back to the tedious task of writing poetry?

Poetry like all forms of writing requires a certain element of pride and stubbornness. Pride because as a writer you want to believe that what you have to say matters and that nobody else in this world has said exactly what you are going to say in precisely the same way. It also requires a certain level of stubbornness. Stubbornness because you need to continue writing, no matter how little recognition or approbation you may receive. It requires an almost die-hard resilience to want to wake up early or stay up late to dip the nib of your brain in the ink of poetry.

Take for instance Emily Dickinson; one of the most celebrated American poets of all times only published about less than a dozen poems during her lifetime. And yet she composed nearly 1800 poems. Likewise Henry David Thoreau, Allen Edgar Poe and many others did not receive much acclaim and recognition until after their death. Not receiving acclaim did not prevent them from being true to their work. And what if they did get credit for their work? Would it truly have made any difference to their work? Poetry even today is not a well-paid art. It is one of those forms of arts that must be undertaken simply as a labor of love.

The thing about poetry is that there is no “right” way to writing poetry, although there are some rather easy to follow “wrong” ways. Poetry much like all other arts has its techniques that you can follow or chose to ignore and still write extremely good or bad poems. And although practitioners claim it is an art that can be learned, the end result can only depend upon one’s inherent talent and the time one is able to invest.

Poetry is all about honesty. The best poems may not be autobiographical or the absolute truth, or even convey a novel idea, but they almost always convey the subject matter in the most beautiful, musical and honest fashion. Emily Dickinson, once said,

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”

Soul of the World

Tea leaves settled at the bottom of a crystal glass
portending uncertain future with certainty.
To believe or not to believe
was never the question.
For is it not against the grain of faith to question?

Symbols of pilgrimage strewn like dried bougainvillea
in my garden. An oracle worth of signs on every junction.
Some that we missed, some that led us back home,
and some that are calling our names with their plump siren lips.
Mirror; is the soul of the world.
Why else would it bring the best in us all?
Your sexiest smile, the twinkle in your eye, the boyish grin
that gets people to let their guards down.
Even the old freckled librarian who deals with books all day
but never finds time to read them,
Or the driver who drives his yellow taxi all over town
and then takes his 1990 Chevy back home,
Or the old balding meat seller who carves the finest slices of turkey
and then goes home to his mother’s basement
for mashed potatoes and green beans,
They all find time to practice their finest smiles in front of the
souls hanging over their medicine cabinets.

Faith is a glass of warm milk
that never lets you sleep empty stomach.
It’s the promise that never fails;
the regal lager yet to be uncorked.

No monocled palmist settled into a chair for $10 a reading on Venice beach
can foretell a future more glowing than the one that brews in your heart.
You know tomorrow is the day you have waited for since yesterday.
Yet once more, the tea leaves have settled
into a mosaic of promise to a world made up of smoke and mirrors.

Tasseomancy — Courtesy: http://www.lunasgrimoire.com/tasseography-tea-leaf-reading/

An ode to my sister

Two circles traced in the sand by a wistful finger,
Half burned candle forever stuck inside grandma’s candle holder,
A pair of reading glasses resting on your dog-eared copy of Wuthering Heights,
A balmy conversation shared over a hearty meal of vegetable kofta and rice,
Something’s are just meant to go together; like a thread through the needle’s eye.

You and me only a few years apart. “Why did I follow” you ask?
How else would I lay claim on all your childhood toys, even your one-eyed
plastic doll the one whose eye you filled out with a black felt pen.
We were four braided pig tails, four blinking eyes, two impish heads lying side by side staring at the ceiling, wondering how we could cover it with the star studded sky.

Do you remember those endless nights rehearsing your Shakespearean school play? “To be or not to be”, was never a question you asked again. You always knew what you wanted, even when you said “I have no clue”, and how often you said it too? The sturdy doll house you built for me out of cardboard and keen imagination. No scissors and glue can build a childhood haunt that sturdy. I still owe you a “thank you”.

You saved the few shillings we got for pocket money in some piggy bank hidden far out of sight. Yet you always had enough to buy us a treat after school; an ice-cream for you and candies for me. And on the way back home you would share stories you read in class. And oh the stories you would conjure, I soared like a bird in each one.

We crawled on our knees raiding Tutenkhamen’s grave in our mere wall-papered bedroom, and sailed the lost city of Atlantis in our bath tub using spoons for oars. The street lamp outside our room shone brighter than full moon through the wooden slats of our window shutters,
throwing silver ribbons of light that always guided us safely back to home. We were savages who plundered books for adventure. Imagination is an endless playground for the young.

Adventure we found like all who grow up to live their life. We were two circles traced in the sand; delicate and precious. Like sugar cookies cut out of the same dough. Something’s are just meant to go together, dear sister, so I followed you into life like a thread through a needle’s eye.

Antelope Run

Given below is a poem I wrote to break the writer’s block. I forced myself to write for 5 minutes and then spent 7 minutes updating it. Ready, Set, go

An eclectic collection of wild synergism
touted on blackened walls for cigar smoking gallery-goers.
Giant heads of antelope Gods that were once awake to mortal earth.
Now a priceless collection of the dead bearing grave witness to herds
of timeless gazelles flocked around a thinning lake under a Ponderosa pine.

These Artful even-toed antelopes outrunning a riled tiger; a mortal chase of the hunter and the hunted. Anything is game. Dust rises, dirt settles, a daily
test of brawn’s against keen feet. The winner wins life, the bloodied succumbs.
Smell of thorny trees and raw flesh drags its pungent feet across the forest in heat. Whilst the king of the jungle stretches for a sleepy reprieve tired of the macabre dance. The grass is too thin and dry to cloak life. The herds of antelopes have long since dispersed like the smell of prey in the wind. From a distance a sharp hunter fires his aim; eye of the tiger. Obliterating
traces of “how”, “when”, “what” and “if”. This is nature at its wildest, the winner wins life and the loser take its place on the wall; a prized possession.

Inspired by Daily Post

Lamposts

Courtesy: http://jeffreyhing.deviantart.com/art/LACMA-lamp-posts-298380841

My mind swims with thoughts of sweet escape;
as days fuse into seasons and seasons glow like
lampposts of life. Each year these lampposts get closer,
glowing with an eerie halo of winter mist. Spring and summer
have waltzed out and fall creeps behind the curtain with tired feet.

I have stopped reading the world in rolled up newspapers,
or counting time with a cuckoo’s tick-tock, tick-tock. Even this bitter
coffee can’t do enough to wake me out my reveries. My heart is like
bees that would forever hang on to the morning, sucking the nectar of youth.
Aah youth that has escaped, like a cloud of hot steam hovering over the whining kettle.

Point Dume

You would have to know the hills
well enough to spot this dirt path
that meanders for miles across the
hills, like a dog aimlessly chasing sea
gulls in mid flight.

Even the cool breeze is drunk on sea
salt, and wears the guise of a flower
girl today who runs with her arms
stretched wide trying to catch life
with both her hands.

These hills that stand tall and erudite, these
too have known to heel obediently like the
tired, thirsty dog that heels and then leaps into
the water for a swim; they too bow down and
taper into this rocky path that meets the deep
blue.

Here everything is forever Zen. The golden
shore studded with piles of rocks like a
crowned queen languishing in her reprieve
while the waves adorn her feet with green
anklets of sea weed.

Overhead fly a poem of birds in practiced
symphony, offering a silent praise to this
prairie of priceless perfection.

Praise

Inside the sitting room of my memory

play the retired ghosts of past years.

School’s out. The summer heat shimmers

so bright, even coolers and fans cannot

bring down the day’s fever. In the garden

a chameleon changes colors faster than a

thirteen year old changes her mind.

The trees weary of the heat droop

over; dropping gold coins that curl up

when dry, flocking into heaps of fallen pride

waiting to be swept away the next morning.

In the sitting room my father irons a week’s

worth of his white collar job into perfectly

creased shirts and pants. I lean over into the

floor painting carnivals of landscapes, rich pastels

bleeding into the white marble floor.

Inside the kitchen my mother tosses red chilies

into pots of simmering curry hot as day. And my sister

straightens her curls with dreamy fingers, musing up her

life in teenage novels.

How sad that we should never offer praise to the simpler moments

of life, at least not until decades later when the sitting room with its

resident memories has gone up in gold and silver smoke

billowing into the cool, black night…

Inspired by DailyPost

Life is…

empty when full
and full when empty.
Like the chaotic symphony
of the colorless cocoon
(no larger than a thimble)
unwinding into a mile long
silken yarn.

Waiting to be woven & inked
with jacquard pots of red & gold
into a scarf that bears artistic witness
to snowy wastelands of icicled mulberry trees.
Underneath which sits a fair maiden shy of her
own reflection in the bubbling brook, spinning delicate
sighs for her lover. And around her Chinese letters
rise up in air like prayer.

Later the same scarf tied around my neck
will get caught in the brooch of your breast
pocket and endure a tiny tear
as you pull away from
my embrace.

Leaving me to wonder how many miles
of unwinding, weaving and dyeing do I have to do,
before my life is fully empty of you?

How to create a Master piece

I wanted to paint life in its rich palette of pastels;
corn yellow, caterpillar green, pomegranate red,
a blessed hue of honeycomb gold, aster blue and
random dabs of rainbow.

Determined to create a masterpiece of sorts. I drew up
a country hut with a chimney blowing smoke, a cockatoo cooing
good morning, cattle grazing and birds chirping; hello, hello.
The scenery was idyllic but the passers-by gave it one look and
said it was “too contrived“.

So I drew up farmers and carts, children skittering in the yard,
a garden and a well used windy path. But the Farmers and the children
in the painting looked at me quixotically and said, “Where are we all to live?
In this tiny, little hut?“

So I turned the hut into a mansion, and drew up courtyard fountains,
Rose gardens, stately lounging chairs and a path of white marble.
But they thought it was “too flamboyant, peasants don’t live in mansions!“

So I drew up Skyscrapers, Westminster bridge, Trafalgar square,
Charing Cross station, hawkers selling hot dogs, bus stands buzzing traffic,
and lots of people rushing in and out like blood flowing through an artery. But the busy city people gave it a dull look and said it was “too unromantic, too common place“.

So I drew my final painting; an endless expanse of arched blue skies
and flowing green fields punctuated only with wild flowers. Soon birds and butterflies flew in, followed by rabbits and deer’s for company.

I then stepped inside my own painting and with a sigh of resolve decided to seal my peace. At the threshold of the painting I drew a thick red brick wall and sealed the world out.

Later I heard from the birds and the bees they hung my red brick wall next to Cezanne and Pissarro. Staring at it for hours, they say, “So Impressionistic …So Monet!”

Falling in love

Maybe one day I shall become a poet,
and write a book. Each page will be
enjambed with my tongue.
I shall publish it on recycled paper
and leave plenty of space in the margin
for your notes.

When you chose to relax
with a glass of wine, open my
book & like a dolphin dive in.
Leaving splashes of my words on
your couch.

Do not swim just sink into my poem
and let the music fill the pores of your soul.
For here my reader, my lover you will be
safe forever…

On Chosing a Profession

I suppose I could be
A lawyer, Car salesman, Politician,
Then again I could just be a poet,
Lying glibly like a water through a spout.

Opening the morning newspaper,
Predetorially eyeing for bushels of words,
greedily borrowing from obituaries,
scandals and star sightings.

Rolling alphabets into a poignant poem
like a ball of barbed wire.
Watch Out!
It cuts.

I would take a pregnant walk,
around graffiti stained neighborhoods
and conjure up the Garden of Eden,
Resurrect the Empire State building
our of random rubble,
Dream up kingly processions
out of burial coaches,
Fathom the Battle of Waterloo out of
a mere domestic brawl,
Or manifest the riches of Tutenkhamen
into your upscale New York Apartment.

For it would all be permissible,
with a little poetic license.
Funny what a pen can do?
Who needs truth when lies
give you wings!

But then again don’t politicians
make more money lying?

Weekly Photo Challenge: In Between

‘In Between’ …
Is the difference between the ‘living’ and the truly ‘alive’,
It’s the boundless expanse of human emotions stretching between the two ears,
It’s the time spent sowing a seed to the reaping of corn coyly veiled in silken hair,
It’s the seconds passed between a glance to the sudden recollection of days gone by like an old love song,
It’s the fortitude in waiting for the downpour of rain nuzzling the sharp bark of an angry summer,
It’s the victorious heartbeats hoisting a white flag after a long battle in purple skies,
It’s the black & white words on a love letter and the long sigh that escapes a pair of Fuchsia lips,
It’s children screaming and dancing wildly celebrating the end of school after a grueling semester,
It’s the distant view of the marines on the flickering TV screen aiming their guns ready for battle,
to the newspapers celebrating their safe return home.
It’s the loud argument two people have punctuated by their silent agreement to part,
It’s the orange ball of sun leaking its color on the Red Rock country in Sedona,
to half a dozen American Haiku’s penned in memory,
It’s the lessons learned from a thousand mistakes highlighted and circled in mind,
It’s the angle of the arc drawn by a pendulum as it ticks from left to right and the tiny world it orbits within that arc. ‘In Between’ is the space above an open palm that holds everything and nothing.

Inspired by Weekly Photo Challenge: Containers

Picture of woman holding the sun courtesy of

A Shadow

Ever since birth this dark billowy figure
follows me. Shape shifting; thick and stout,
or narrow and long, depending upon where the sun
rests on the celestial compass. Reticent yet resolute;
watching my every move. Like the spy that
never gives up even after the war is waged
or like the shepherd who never stops
cooing its sheep with the ‘broken leg’.

This dark side that we all must endure,
like a cross forever on our backs. Watchful,
of its hungry power that like a predator waits to
pounce. A single remiss moment and the darkness
overtakes. Climbing around, entrenching its wily hands
within, like an ivy on a splintering wall. Taking over what
it sees, until what is seen is no longer what was.
This burden I must carry, like Eve’s promise
to never eat the forbidden fruit. Melancholy I endure,
like the shadow that lurks behind my back.

Art of reading a Poem

Above Picture Courtesy of : http://www.azavea.com/blogs/labs/2013/03/geotrellis-0-8-has-arrived/the_lost_city_of-_atlantis/

Art of reading a Poem

A good poem is like the glistening hollow,
of a sea shell inviting you with its “whoosh whoosh”.
But be warned and tread with caution.
Reading a poem is not for everyone.
If you are ready, sit with a glass of wine
under the yellow spell of your lamp and open
your book of poems. Like a ballerina plunge,
leaving behind splashes of words, on the couch.

Sink,
never swim, letting the music fill the pores
of your lungs. Never once coming out
to catch a breath. Not until you have reached
the ocean bed. For here within the eddying depths
beyond the grasp of structure and style
lies the lost city of Atlantis.

Void

Your pearly skin shimmered under the dim
lights of your parlor when I last saw you.
The world heavy with the weight of your beauty
and the foggy twilight stretching lazily over the city.
Your laughter shaking out a rabble of butterflies
folded like a prayer on their colorful blossoms.
Your long hair braided like a thousand moonless
nights twisted together endlessly into a dream less sleep.
Your rosy shoulders yet untouched by the weight of the world and
responsibilities. And above all the mole on your neck
dark red with the blood of your lovers and mine. You my
heartless tormentor, you danced, talked and sang and above
all you stole. Then ever so casually with the lightness of air
you walked away leaving behind a void the size of a giant valley in my heart.

Inspired by Weekly Photo challenge

Frozen

Mouth full of air waiting to blow
a candle. Lips curled up into an “o” as if to whistle
a soft tune. Foot on the gas pedal waiting to ignite
the Chevy truck into motion. Boeing 747 hovering inches
above the ground ready to land. A Pianist about to hit the piano keys
for his first concerto. The wind about to blow off a flurry of leaves hanging
to their trees. Universe paused around us as if frozen in motion waiting for you to utter, “Yes I will”.

Limerick a day keeps the Doctor away

Limerick a day keeps the Doctor away, how about four?

i. Clickety clock
Someone’s at the door; knock, knock
Who’s there?
Lovely Ms Montclair
He opened the door, suited booted and missing a sock

ii. There once was an old Man
Descendant of a royal clan
Poor as a pauper
Wise as a priest
Lived in a mini van and ate out of a tin can

iii. There was a young man named Moe
Bought a house and grew a Mustachio
In order to woo his lady love,
She flew away; a rich man’s dove
Now he waits for his bungalow to pass escrow

iv. Hocus Pocus
Lovely red lotus
Flower of the Wild
Face of a child
Sacred offering in temples and pagodas

Work of Art

Happiness

Just before the celestial change of guard
the sun and moon fleetingly share
a bed in the clandestine skies,
I walk alone on the beach.

A pair of dolphins burst out from the sea
doing cart wheels like two happy six year old’s
and swim parallel to the shore
their big clown smiles drawn permanently on their faces.

I too cannot help but slip out of my adult proprieties
and find myself running and somersaulting in the sand
While the waves wash the shore and my inhibitions along.
Happiness is at once so intuitive and unassuming.

Stay a while with me

When I am dead my dearest,
Stay a while with me,
Dress me up as a bride,
Break open a champagne,
Throw a Big farewell party,
For I lived a long and fine life.

When I am dead my dearest,
Stay a while with me,
I will watch over you from the moon,
Where all the other angel brides be,
I will be the wind in the woods and whistle you a fine tune,
You can smell me in the Jasmine,
Or the wet moss beneath your feet,
You will find me humming in the rose buds with the golden bees,
Or giddily swimming with the fish in the pond near the cherry tree.

When I am dead my dearest,
Stay a while with me,
Plant a kiss on my lips,
Cradle me softly with your love, before you put me back to sleep,
Dim the lights my darling and sing me a soft lullaby,
When I am dead my dearest,
Do stay a while with me.

Won’t you stay a while with me?

Spring

For years have I have been jailed,
Inside these walls of decorum & propriety,
Like an obedient wife,
Caught in the duality of desires & duties
Until the transgressing thoughts flew through,
The keyhole of these iron gates,
Breaking the darkness with their brilliant colors of the rainbow,
I jumped on the backs of one of these thoughts,
And flew out of my captivity,
Disrobing my cocoon like a butterfly,
Flying out into the eternal Spring of Creativity.

Weekly Photo challenge

Weekly Photos: Orange

A Sumptuous Breakfast

I fry the setting sun in a saucepan,
Constantly waddling the edges,
So it won’t burn,
Then let it slip gracefully onto my plate,
And fork the gooey center,
Until it bursts;
The Brilliant sun melting into the blue Horizon,
Forever gone.

Until Tomorrow.

Picture Imperfect

(Picture courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_Day_in_Times_Square)

If you look closer, you can see the shadows
In these pictures, reveal the tell-tale clues,
Of the darkness slowly lurking, into their then sunny lives,
Years before they finally waived goodbye,
At London’s Charing Cross Station.

This picture shot on a sunnier day
On the Hungerford bridge,
Of the happy couple framed in marble,
Lips forever sealed with a kiss.

And soon after, this long angle view
Outside the New England Chapel,
Rendering the newly wedded
A misleading sense of power and size.

Unlike the lies feigned
In the world of Romantic poetry,
Unhappiness, not love makes the world go round,
For human brain is not wired to stay happy for long,
And short term memory is infamously short.

Here is the blow-up taken atop the Tuscan Bell tower,
An interesting view of the ancient city
And their lives below,
The lofty dreams, plans and promises
Soon to become diminutive,
Under the deafening wheels of time.

A copyrighted property of UBeCute

Short lives of Wives

The illusionist packs two tricks,
Carefully placing the ‘i’ before ‘e’, except after ‘c’,
Countless rhymes estranged from its poem,
Encoding a simple meaning into warped confusion.

Crafting a wide angle shot of a marble temple,
Where the fates of the six wives of Henry VIII,
Turned into ornate statues,
Stand on guard outside the grand palace.

The insolence of the high power blades of time,
that make and break human spirit at a cellular level,
Pay a callous homage to these brilliant shadows,
Nicknamed by history; divorced, beheaded, died, divorced,
beheaded, survived.

Waiting for the Verdict

“Waiting for the Verdict” was painted by Abraham Solomon in 1857 and instantly gained popularity in the Victorian era. A close look at the painting should explain why. The painting is a poignant portrayal of human pain and anguish where a common man awaits the verdict of his trial with his family. The future of his family depends upon his acquittal. The painting is so beautiful and genuine in its portrayal of this close knit family that eagerly awaits the “not guilty” sentence for the anguished man. When I first saw this painting, unfortunately I had little idea how famous it was. But the painting was so well received in its own day that the painter was forced to paint replicas of it.

I made a very faint attempt at capturing the scene heavy with human anguish with a poem of my own. I hope you like it and that Abraham Solomon will forgive me for my gauche attempt.

i. The Man
Outside the courtroom hangs a life,
Tied loosely to a mortal tongue,
The Judge’s “Guilty” verdict cuts the tether by knife,
“Not Guilty” sets him free with children and wife.

ii. Wife
Brows furrowed, gaze askance,
Five mouths to feed, a husband to lose
Face; the ashy color of worry, immobile in a deep trance,
So many lives hang by this man, whose life hangs to a mortal tongue

iii. Mother
A heart painted with contrasting colors,
Besotted love for the grand children, pain for the son,
Smile askew on her sunken pallor,
Heart tied to the son, whose life hangs to a mortal tongue

iv. Sister
A worried sister waits for the Messenger,
Who will bring the final Verdict,
Out to the family in the antechamber,
Sister prays silently for a brother, whose life hangs to a mortal tongue

v. Antechamber
The chamber colored in shades of brown,
Dark with human distress and self-berating,
The Chamber’s ceiling window painted like a church’s pulpit,
Under which sits the wretched man frozen in oil paint, forever waiting…

Tomorrow

A wintry day in school,
Learning by wrote, conformance is rule,
Everyone seems to catch on in class,
But I, who yet again forgets homework, detention alas!

At lunch I play alone,
A snow cannonball aimed for my head,
Missed by a few inches,
This whole school thing is way overblown,

Mom is in hospital,
A problem gynecological,
Should be back in a week?
She is so far, we can’t see her, nor speak.

Dad makes egg omelet yet again,
Outside snow falls thick,
Dear God, bring mommy back, Amen,
My sister breaks her tooth.

Next morning I feign sickness,
Dad is too clever to fool,
He packs us lunch and sends us off to school,
Wrapped up in woolens, snow shoes, and beanie hats.

Andrea is my only friend,
I walk with my head down; won’t confide nor vent,
It’s been longer than a week, why won’t she come back?
I take my itchy beanie hat, and stomp all over it.

Back at home Dad looks happy and bemused,
My teacher called to complain,
But he has better News,
Mom is coming back home tomorrow!

Why is it…?

Embed from Getty Images

Why have we studied the cosmic skies for Ages?
Yet we know so little?
Why do we try to clone man and play God?
Yet we have no cure for common cold?
Why is that we worry about Extra Terrestrials?
Yet we don’t know our next door neighbor?
Why is that the universe is constantly expanding?
Yet our hearts fail to follow?
Why is it that science claims to have all answers?
Yet it has none for how man was made?
Why is it that we study the seasons, the weather and tides?
Yet we cannot control our own mind?
Why is it that each year we think we grow wiser?
Yet life raises more questions than it answers?
Why is that we question, wonder and expostulate?
When all we have is bunch of curious questions without answers.

I sold my little sister

I sold my little sister,
When I was seven and she a wailing two
She kept us up with cries all night,
Her tangled hair and clumsy walk,
Her yellow dress, and squeaky shoes.

My mother made me watch over her,
I rather go out and play,
So one day at the neighbor’s farm,
I sold my burden for a puppy white as day,

But by evening my morning cheer was gone,
My little puppy too heavy to carry, too little to play,
Tiny hands curled into sweaty fists,
As I wondered, “What would they do, what would they say?”

Was it too late to change my mind?
“But a sale is a sale, no returns”
Chided the neighbor with the toothy smile”,
With head sunk down into my toes,
I walked the puppy back to home.

With teary eyes I rang the doorbell,
And looked into my Mother’s frowned forehead,
She greeted me with gushing kisses and warm embrace,
“Where have you been all day, my child?”

At the hearth a fire kindled,
And my little sister played beside,
Giggles and laughter floated the room,
and a tiny tear escaped my eyes,

Decades have passed since that day,
Now Tatjana has kids older than two,
But I can’t stop thanking the kind neighbor,
Who stopped by to return my sister soon after I made the sale.

And many more decades shall pass,
Before I forget the day when I almost sold my sister,
I was seven and she a wailing two.

The Witch

History is testimony to the atrocities that have been meted out unjustly to the poor and weak in society. Women have unfortunately gotten the worst of the deal. While it is important to look forward and be proud of the accomplishment women have achieved thus far, it is equally important to look back and pay heed to history. For history repeats itself. Unfortunately, women have been burnt under the guise of religion, ritual and faith around the world in distant and recent past.

This poem is written in 3 parts and is loosely based on the Witch trials that took place in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and 1693, famously known as the Salem Witch trials. I decided to add Prequel and a Sequel to my exisiting poem called “The Witch”, since I thought it was imperative to end my poem on a positive note and show, that no matter how monstrous an act may be, it cannot shatter the hope and faith of the innocent.

i. The Girl

In the green valley betwixt the far mountains,
There once lived a little girl,
Sheba of the pastures, meadows and fountains,
Apple of her father’s eyes; peerless pearl

She had magic in her hands,
Her childhood companions; animals and birds,
She could cure the blight of any cursed land,
Blithely hopping in the wilderness on her fleeting sojourns.

Her father taught her to catch a game,
To make a clean kill, causing no fear nor pain,
To shoot a perfect arrow, or a wild animal to tame,
She would be the greatest witch; this was preordained.

But little did she foresee, that her father whom she adored,
Would be lost to her while killing a wild boar,
For the beasts feral power did he mistakenly underscore,
And thus came she to live orphaned in the meadows evermore.

ii. The Witch

There once lived a woman, alone on the mountain top,
So infamous, that no child strayed past in play or in jest,
lest she may drop, the child in her burning black pot,
The pot that brewed magic potions and evil in her breast.

So wicked was she, to Satan did she pray,
And cast her dark spells on the village,
Condemning the people to die of plague,
Countless souls did she and Satan pillage,

Until one night, tired of her afflictions, the villagers did hunt,
with pitchforks and torches, her hut did they burn,
But the sly woman fled, rather than confront,
Her home razed and the meadows burned for her never to return.

“O’ Magistrate, ’tis sad they should hate, what they do not understand,
And slander the innocent, beat the weak,
No magic potions, no evil spells did I brew, upon this blessed land,
All I hoped was to undo, the pain of the poor and hurt of the meek,

These wild herbs, some prayers and my two hands,
is all I used to cure,
yet they slander me, banish me from my meadow lands?
‘Tis as well the birds warned me, & I fled alone and obscure”

The magistrate believed her doleful story,
yet to the gallows did he her send,
For what else could he have done? On him the masses would have turned,
With knives and pitchforks, tempestuously burned!

Why do they hate that which they fear?
To hate than to reason, to kill than to save; is hardly a glitch,
To the gallows did she leave, with a prayer and a tear,
While the crowds in unison sang, “Burn the Wicked Witch”

iii. Spring Equinox

The Bewildered village elders saw,
On the third day from the day the witch was burned,
Unexplained happenings, around the time of the spring equinox,
Even as the plague gnawed the lives of men & women spurned.

While the witch breathed no more,
Her name spread across the village and woods like wildfire,
A song echoed the hamlet, sung by the blind troubadour,
The louder he sang, the lesser the plague harangued the shire.

“The witch still lives, in the woods and daisies,
The mountains and the meadows echo her songs,
You can chose to hide the truth,
But truth rings louder than any church gongs”

And the hapless Magistrate saw,
His little girl emulate the ways of the witch,
She prayed to mother earth, and her powers from nature did draw,
And hundreds of witches came out of their shadows the old church to ditch,

Never again shall mother earth be defiled, or a woman burned,
The clergy men saw with disdain, a revolution churn,
Rumors spread, that believers have seen the Father and daughter return,
To the green valley, around this time of the Spring equinox.

Cinderella: A snobbish rant on a favorite fairytale

Believe me, I am not against the idea of fairy tales. There is nothing better than a heart warming fairy tale read over bed time with a glass of warm milk and chocolate cookies. However, as times change so should the depiction of popular characters in fairy tales and Children’s stories. Children have a strongly receptive mind and childhood is the best time to bolster their mind with powerful thoughts.

I feel some of our fairy tales like “Cinderella” need to be updated to mirror the modern times. “Wishing” for things does not make dreams come true. While fairy tale stories are great to read and watch, life is about planning and hard work. Waiting for a “hero” figure does not help. Being a woman, I cannot help but be completely in awe of other women who manage to achieve so much every day! These women wear so many hats (that of a mother, wife, daughter and a career woman) and march on tirelessly… Woman today have come such a long way from the hapless Cinderella who indeed had no option than to wait for a Prince Charming to come and rescue her from her evil Step Mother and Step Sisters. Why wait for poor Prince charming to fight off the evil trio, he probably has his own daemons to fight. We have to take the reins of our life in our own hands, and march on. Here is a new glimpse to the Cinderella story. Hope you like it?

Cinderella

Who was Cendrillon?
A beautiful girl with two step-sisters and a step-mom?
The girl who lost her glass slipper only to have the prince slip it on,
And sweep her off her feet, amidst celebration and aplomb?

Was she a princess, or just a girl next door?
Was she a soul perfect and pure?
Known as Cinderella, Cenerentola, Aschenputtel, another name that girls adore,
Or just a childish fable that somehow times did endure?

People need a reason to believe,
Cinderella; not a person but a belief so deep,
That good will win over evil; a hope so primeval,
That Life should have a meaning; as you sow, so shall you reap.

Elders have a way to instill; morals that they shall themselves not follow,
A way to nurture young to do good, not by choice but fear,
Stories of hardship and ensuing grandeur; promises empty & hollow,
Cinderella; more than a bedside story, she is the carrot that a mare endear

If I had a daughter, I would teach her to fight,
Stand up for herself, and for those who won’t,
Waiting for a fairy godmother, or a prince to rescue, is a sad plight,
The days of Cinderella are old school, I shall teach mine to test their own might!

Inspired by Daily Post

The Witch

This poem is inspired by the series of Witch trials that took place in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and 1693, famously known as the Salem Witch trials.

The Witch

So wicked was she, to Satan did she pray,
And cast her dark spells on the village,
Condemning the people to die of plague,
Countless souls did she and Satan pillage,

These wild herbs, some prayers and my two hands,
is all I used to cure,
yet they slander me, banish me from my meadow lands?
‘Tis as well the birds warned me, & I fled alone and obscure”

The magistrate believed her doleful story,
yet to the gallows did he her send,
For what else could he have done? On him the masses would have turned,
With knives and pitchforks, tempestuously burned,

Nature

It’s way past midnight,
All decent men safe in their homes,
The hour is rife for drunken brawls and fistfights,
In the alleyways only trouble and evil roam.

I walk the cobbled roads, tired but conceited,
No goal in mind; lost and sleepless,
My brazen knife in my breast pocket, still unsheathed,
I wander the dark, alone and heedless.

When my startled ears, pick a voice so sweet,
More alluring than a nightingale song,
My legs comply, while my brain warns of wile deceit,
Is this a calypso, or a hapless maiden lovelorn?

The ghetto streets I walk, tunnel magically into a Babylonian garden,
She turns around more beautiful than life, this ethereal maiden,
And gently lets her black hair down, off fly a thousand raven,
Carved with perfection, looking at her is divine, it’s salvation!

Who are you? What magic, what witchery? Pray tell me?
She opens her mouth to speak, I am entranced,
Her lips are blossoms, and her eyes a shimmering blue sea,
“I am sun, moon and stars.” And around her a hundred peacocks dance.

“I made you and all of this mankind.
This land that you walk, the wine you drink, the air you breathe,
Is mine. Yet you forget me; your soul? How foolish. How unkind!
You destroy, defile me? I am Nature. Your mother divine!”