For Mag 267 You and I are sweeping up the shards of something blithely broken, something shattered into a thousand jagged things, by this weight, this unshifting burden of this we, we nearly were. There is leaving, and then this, Leaving, headed west, chasing closure, across the valley, beyond which there is no returning.
[ Source] You feel the fever the morning after the strangers leave, engorged by their suckling of your life sap. The gift they leave is the delirium. Dry skin, heavy head and the shivers; the sense of warped time and a bubble of discomfort They rob the future of the joy of present presence- one dies every minute but for those who escape there is only the burning burden of relief. For World Malaria Day… And the one child every minute stolen from our future by the disease.
Shall I compare you to a harmattan day? You are far more refreshing, than palm wine. Strong winds do bear the Sahara’s clay But in your shade, is rest divine. For the NaPoWriMo Day 24 prompt - to write a parody of a famous poem; in this case Shakespeare’s sonnet number 18. Catching up..
[ Source] If words were everything We would be halfway To the moon and back, A streak of light, white-bright Against the night sky Driving darkness far away Into the distance Of a forgotten age. If promises were The elixir of life We would nymph-like never age, Never yield to the chiseling Hand of time, etching its Designs into our very bones. Word by word they have built up Grandiose things, carcasses that Loom large, Colossus-like over us; Selling us bamboo dust for sandal wood, Trading Hope for the control A snake charmer’s pungi wields. ...
[ Source] --- Rabbits nonchalantly nibbling at grass, whiff of daffodil scent, beer-bellied men, bare chested; women, pale armed seeking sun. Spring’s sprung and like moths to flame we bask in its warmth. --- For the Day 22 prompt at NaPoWriMo; and Earth Day.
For Prompt #21 at NaPoWriMo - Erasure, and an inexplicably unsettling Ted Talk by the International Justice Mission’s Gary Haugen, even though this probably doesn’t count as an erasure poem. – I’m not much of a crier- In Rwanda tears just aren’t much help Compassion - cum passio - mean(s) to suffer with Up close to human suffering. Your first introduction Might have been We Are The World. A mom from Zambia, three kids, Widow, coals on the cooking fire Completely cold, watch Peter suffer, grow cold. ...
A bloke can do no worse Than believe his own hype Unless it is to hope That a grand Messianic gesture Might turn the ebbing tide of Love, Where a simple one would do. For everything there is a time And a season for everything under the Sun But what virtue does Hope have unless She stir in dire times?
Parting is all we know of hell* Heaven the delightful linger of the touch of love’s spell. --- For the Day 19 prompt at NaPoWriMo; not quite a formal landay but this will have to do :) *Paraphrased from Emily Dickinson’s My life closed twice before its close (96)
With these two feet I begin This journey, of probing and inquiry A thousand miles stretched taut Like a string. Losing itself in the Distance between here and there A road untraversed separating This beginning - hallowed ground And that distant pleasure dome. One cannot escape the lure Of mystery dived head first into, The call of the unknown, enthralling, Siren-like, borne on the wind like Pollen from a flower to its receptacles; A birth,new beginning from wanton waste. ...
If you came in late Naiman’s banned from Hearthstone- Attempted to judge this lady in Ten tailored jogging pants. Fold up the paper map You should get lost This May you can get A lot of writing done – This has been cobbled together from tweets by @BillSimmons, @DailyDot, @DamiOyedele, @Esquire, @NYTimes and @BLoreWriters in response to the Day 17 NaPoWriMo prompt to write a “social media”-style poem, quoting from friends’ texts, tweets, FB status updates, twitter accounts, and blogposts, and the back of the cereal box on your breakfast table.