Tag Archives: Renee Espiru

“Time Fetches” … and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Posted on by
3

© Original watercolor, colored pencil and acrylic by the multitalented Renee Espiru. Her poem is featured below.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  Wishing you all treats and no tricks … and here’s your first treat of the day, a poetic Halloween celebration courtesy of Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Colin Blundell, Renee Espiru, Kakali Das Gosh, and John Anstie with a link to Joseph Shaw’s audio of John’s poem to music.  Enjoy!  … and do join in tomorrow for a prompt from a special guest poet. All are welcome, no matter where you come from or whether you’re beginning, emerging or pro. The last Wednesday Writing Prompt was “Twas All Hallows Eve, October  25.

Time Fetches

Received English version

Watch yourself as it’ll soon be time
that the tall hawthorn hedge
that bars you from other worlds
becomes thin this season
in it’s cloud ghosted ditch
so folk from the other side
can bleed through to ours
and you’ll see these weird folk
walk outside your door.

Burn a candle in your home
and light lanterns, jack o’lanterns,
candles outdoors to show
the weird folk, spirits and all
the direct way back. We don’t
want them to detour where
they are not welcome. Respect them
and they’ll respect you.

This night light a fire
in your hearth
to protect yourself
or better yourself.

Write on a scrap a paper
a part of your life
that you wish to be rid off,
such as anger, a baneful habit,
misplaced feelings, disease.

Throw it in the flame
so you may lose
that part you’re ashamed of

Yorkshire Dialect version

Watch thee sen as time fetches on
as tall hawthorn hedge that bars
tha from t’other worlds
in its cloud ghosted ditch
gets thin this season so as folk
from other side can fetch them
sens over an bleed through to ours
and tha’ll see these weird folk
take a stride outside thee door.

Blaze a candle in tha home
and set a flicker lanterns, jack o’lanterns,
candles outdoors to show
the weird folk, spirits and all
direct way back to where
they bide from, so as they don’t
detour where they’re not welcome.
Respect them, they’ll respect thee.

This night light a fire
in tha hearth
for to protect thee sen
or better thee sen.

Scribe on a scrap a paper
a part of thee life
tha wish to be rid on
anger, a baneful habit,
misplaced feelings, disease.

Lob it int flame
so tha may lose
that part tha ashamed on.

This Samhain, All Hallows Eve

place on your table a skull,
small animal skeletons
of shrews, mice, rats disgorged by
forest owls. Lay your gravestone
rubbings as welcome placemats.

Down the centre carved pumpkins,
squash, carrots, swede amongst pine nuts,
walnuts and berries, and dark
breads, rye, pumpernickel, dried
yellow, red leaves, open fir cones.

Fill a cornucopia
with abundant fruit, apples, pears,
leeks. Fill each cup with apple cider,
sweet wine, or honey mead.

Light all with fragrant candles,
to flicker over the plenty.

The table is a thankyou,
a blessing on the goodness.

Go outside, collect dead plants,
to twist and turn and mold a man
or woman to bring inside,
and place on the table.

Give thanks to them and your dead
ancestors before you eat.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

.there is a day.

when i listen to cowboy films

on the radio, carve the pumpkin,

breath held in case they scalp him.

every year the same, festival stress

reduced by wanton knowledge

that none of it matters, that I can achieve,

that maybe even I could be worthy, the same

as you.

a surprise party after,

no one came,

no surprise, no one invited,

only you.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

.. then there is halloween..

tomorrow.

not on saturday although that may be

more convenient. all hallows,

the reading of the dead.

names.

dust. just

names .

we made the pumpkin again, it comes easier with practice.

he came to tell me about the new baby and said boo . dinner

burned.

the names of the dead

are read.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

there’s something about a bonfire

that compels you: perhaps it’s the flames
that leap and curl (free engulfing spirits)
or lick gently at the dead waste
calming to eat away at the centre of things
throughout the empty night

perhaps it’s the isolation –
you and Fire alone in the dark night
in which reflecting fires hang forever

perhaps it’s purification –
sterilisation of assembled dross… its reduction
to a usable commodity associated with
the neat feeling of arranging a garden
in the midst of the wilderness

perhaps it’s like death – convenient
tidy cleansing eradicating…
my father knew what he was doing ordering
‘No Mourners’: if they’d been there
it would have been attenuated
hypocritical unholy

fire is none of these things

(1971/72 revised 1982 revised 1992)

© 2017, Colin Blundell  (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

Autumnal (2)

” Rainbow hues turning
chill air low sun (but) warm hearts
beauteous day-long dawn

pink light (on) timeless trees
yield a golden fleece and warmth
(for) aching Mother Earth

sleeping beauties wake
from enduring frozen night
in Spring refreshing ”

© 2017, John Anstie (My Poetry Library)

Set to music by Joseph Shaw

#Addiction on Halloween #

It was the time of coming winter after fall
And she came from a ball
It was a Halloween evening
She loved and groped that Eve harmonizing
It was the time for feast
She loved the spirit though came from the east
It was the time for fun
She wore gleaming costumes with a bun
It was the time to unfold new spirit
The air blowing felt different autumn waved and heart enlightened bright
It was the eve when the pall between worlds was sleazy
And to rhyme melodies of worlds was so easy
It was the time to taste candy
She relished its flavour with a brandy
It was the time to sense eerieness lurking around the corner
And the eastern country girl addicted to all unknown being just a learner .

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh

Goblins, Witches & Ghouls

Every year at Halloween
excitement filled the air
and children waited
on bated breath

to be goblins, witches,
hoboes and clowns
be become something
of a magical flare

where two streets over
lived a witch to bate them
her house decorated
with pumpkins and ghouls

but who could resist the
table laid before them
with all manner of sweet things
to cause you to drool

© 2017 Renee Espriu  (Renee Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, AR, Haiku & Haiga)

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

“Shriveled Rose Petal” and other responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Posted on by
5

So many takes on growing old: gifts, beauty and downsides. These are responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, October 11, Once Upon a Time When They Were Old. Welcome to Billy Antonio, here for the first time and thanks to Billy, Ginny Brannan, Renee Espiru, Iulia Gherghei , Colin Blundell, Gary W. Bowers, Kakahli Gosh, Lady Nimue, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Paul Brookes for so beautifully rising to the occasion and so generously sharing their work. Find some smiles here, a giggle or two, a sigh, a tear … and a load of talent and wisdom.

shriveled rose petal
the intricate veins
on mother’s hands

© 2017, Billy Antonio

Billy Antonio

BILLY ANTONIO is a poet, writer, and public school teacher. He is the author of the mini-chapbook In a Country with Two Seasons (a haiku collection) published by Poems-For-All. His short story, The Kite, has been broadcast on 4EB-FM, 98.1 in Brisbane, Australia. Some of his fiction and poetry have been published in Tincture Journal, Red River Review, Poetry Quarterly, Akitsu Quarterly, Anak Sastra, The Cicada’s Cry, Frameless Sky, The Mainichi, Scifaikuest, Star*Line, The Asahi Shimbun, Sonic Boom, among others. His poetry has won international recognition. He lives in the Philippines with his wife, Rowena, and his two daughters, Felicity and Asiel Sophie.

Old age

prisoner of my bad temper
in search of my light past
when I used to laugh my tears out
everything was a reason for laughter
jokes on everyone
I was the soul of the party
the champagne was sparkling into my eyes
now the joke is on me
I’ve suddenly realized that
laughter had abandon the ship
I enjoy only the sound of a quiet evening
alone…
Now it’s a time in my life when my engines
run slowly
In fact I have energy just to watch others pass by
to watch leaves turning green
to really breathe the air and sense the fragrance of a fresh born flower
Now I run the movie of my life backwards
I’m stunt how always in a hurry I used to be
obsessed to be free, nobody to interfere in my way
Now when I am tired, and maybe smarter
for sure older
I stopped by the river side, stare at my reflection in the fluid mirror
And silently shared a tear

© 2017, Iulia Gherghei  (Sky Under Construction)

wither so ever

the sun is an e-z bake oven
the years are the crepers of flesh
these witches cast spells from their coven
and incubate me in a creche

their eye of newt makes me a baby
dependent and feeble and blind
to crawl via walker and maybe
refetusize curly-q-spined

old age ain’t for sissies said bette
i grow old said prufrock by eliot
the challenge for us who are ready
to set jaw and fire-in-the-belly it

when entropy renders defective
when age compromises reliance
and culture says Old’s Ineffective
that when we all most need DEFIANCE

so HERE WE ARE, Jamie, STILL PUNCHING
still proving we have what it takes
and on through the gravel-strides crunching
concocting NEW Models and Makes.

© 2017, Gary W. Bowers  (One With Clay)

A Magical Dance

See the youth that resides within me
mirrored dark curls framing a woman’s
face who now breathes easier

not often the case when questions curled
like a hazy halo of smokey confusion
within my days and nights

watch me convey knowledge soul filled
now a sign of experiential vibrant color
a glowing gold not in the guise
of youth’s vanity

see my spirit soar within mirrored eyes
clear as mountain spring waters
seeing deep as ocean valleys
thunderous as waterfalls

filling crystal clear rivers running swift
choreographed with a magical dance
of a sprite or fairy or two

© 2017, Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, AR, Haiku & Haiga)

#Desire for Endless Love#

Why so alluring this argil is !
Why so mysterious this forest is !
Clasping dusk in a swan’s wings
Groping the falling darkish with shedded coniferous leaves
In the twilight of life when each spirit waits for someone
Eyes brim with tears
Birds retire to their nests flying over the blue ocean
Defraying moistures in their slender feathers
Flute of a shepherd boy sway my old heart
The night comes through stairs of mist
Through my watery old eyes
Agony switches apiece
But today in this watery moonlit night someone is at my door
Someone has reposed his eyes in my old eyes
In this assembly of life
O my unknown love
Please never renounce my crooked hands
Life crinkles body shrinks

But Love is endless – eternal
Please love me dear till
My last breath
Saying I’m pretty in your eyes
with my grey hair
Dry lips and vague vision
Kissing me upon my doom and cheeks
With Crisscross streaks …

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh

..my world of leaves..

is this the final drop, slowly. not the white

wind blown kind that raises spirits. this

is due to a colder day, early morning five

below.

maybe this or a lack of adrenaline caused

it, the coming together of years which

slowly pass.

shadows of birds. dust motes in air.

marmalade toast.

is this the final drop?

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

it’s been such an easy life

on the outside (he says) counting the hours
that have fled all too quickly
a ripple in time
way beyond into the future

I’ve been awaiting something (he says)
for which I had to sit
in a comfortable anteroom
listening to the sounds of music
and laughter from inside the great hall

on the inside (he says) I’m still wondering
what I’m going to be when I grow up –
how I will frequent the literary pubs
& sit writing poetry at beer-stained tables
being a constant mystery
to the anxious youth at an adjacent table –
myself when young

I stride through all the Magic Cities;
I conduct my own symphonies of sound
and enter the soul of these two new cats

© 2017, Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

The Older Me

The older me knows my worth,
The value of my ideas and words,
She tells the stories with pride
That the younger me wants to hide;

The older me knows what’s lost
Was perhaps meant only as thoughts
But the more it lingered in the heart,
The younger me cried when time came to part.

The older me can not read this post
But she listens well and sings a lot
She dances on the whims of her own
Something that young me could not.

The older me is no more beautiful
Or any less than who I am right now
But she has a heart younger,mind pure
Than I can ever aspire to hold.

© Lady Nimue (Prats Corner: Pages of my mind: collecting words, experiences and memories …)

Unknowns

Who will I be when I grow old…
will I sit and babble nonsense rhyme
old poems and remnants left behind—
when those final years take hold.

Will past and present merge as one,
as mind relinquishes control;
or stay alert, my thoughts left whole
while body starts to come undone.

No gypsy fortune-tellers, we—
what lies before us, undefined
should favor nod as we decline
perhaps we’ll keep our sanity

Yes, all things acquiesce to time…
we only hope the years are kind.

© 2017, Ginny Brannan

Love Undying

He comes to visit each day,
reminding us as he enters that he’ll
be taking her home as soon as she’s
better, as soon as she’s stronger;
his dear sweet wife.

He lives for this woman, now mute
regressed in her memory–
holding tightly to a baby doll
perhaps for comfort, or perhaps
lost in vision of childhood
long past.

He gently wheels her through the halls
as though on some grand tour–
then he sits on the sofa in the hall
and lovingly clasps her pale parchment hand.
Talking softly, he asks

“Do you know what day today is?
It’s New Years eve day”

……”Can you hear me?”

……“Do you know who I am?”

and I wonder…

When I am old and lost in my thoughts
will someone come to see me each day,
gently take me by the hand–
and quietly remind me who I am?

© 2017, Ginny Brannan

Born Old

coddled in wool blanket drifts
Sun sears baby eyes through bright windows,
hospital paths cleared tall walls
of snow either side. I howled

a gust down shop aisles, on street
to the dentists. Crowds frowned.
Summer bike rides in country lanes
Spring divorced winter.

Summer was another dialect. Coarser,
to play was to laik, sweets were spice.
Wide games in a silver wood, ventured
into cold huts. Fun with sausages and custard.

Hull hunkered in Christian winter, relieved by Summer gamelan and hope for a vocation
to last manual work and taking the pillock.
It didn’t. Winter of closing pits.

Bristol summered in performance
Classes on interview technique, teach
Teenagers how to think into a job.
beyond unemployment benefit office screens

Spout words over dripped lager louts,
Back in summered day buzz of words clapped,
then winter cancered into debt
and prodigal return. No fatted calf

only steroid fatted bald mam and chores
in garden until I met my future wife
for a bet in breaks between admin.
Summered teach adults write and history.

A winter that lasted twelve years headset
yoked ears bent to abuse from wronged
Customers and peddled official lines.
Summer came with an unwanted death,

A years enjoyment of travel and delight.
Summer comes in to autumn with cash gone.
Life a priority. Bills must be paid. Work
only part time, buzz when I help customers.

© 2017, Paul Brookes

Know Old

You know you’re human when

you put your leg in the wrong
way in your boxer shorts.

you pick up your wife’s toothbrush,
not yours and use her toothpaste,
not yours, oblivious to both.

when it’s hot you put on too much
clothing, when it’s cold, too little.

wear underpants with holes
in the crutch through wear not design.

laugh at books and signs full
of epigrammatic phrases about
growing old, living with someone,
the habits of cats and dogs.

© 2017, Paul Brookes

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

“the moses manifest” … and other poems in response the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Posted on by
1

The variety of responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” September 27 are a pleasure to read. Thanks to Renee Espiru, Sonja Benskin Meshery, Gary Bowers and Paul Brookes for coming out to play and sharing their fine work.

Join us tomorrow for the next Wednesday Writing Prompt. All are welcome to take part no matter the status of career. Beginners and experienced are welcome to come, be inspired, share their poems and get to know other poets.

A Life Betrayed

She lives the only life
she has ever known
inside someone else’s home

she wonders how she came to this
miles of fields and distance
a breeze touching her
now frail being

did someone leave her here
without her knowing and
will she wake one day
to find she’s dreaming

for she loved him so in her way
but was he a mirage or
just a ruse she wrote of
in her own knowing

before her body did betray
and stole her life
and youth

© 2017, Renee Espriu (Renee Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, AR, Haiku & Haiga)

..the flight to egypt..

Edwin Longsden Long RA was an English genre, history, and portrait painter.

**

there are many pictures at this house, two dimensional and more. how can I love one

child above another?

I had only one, so that was easy, then questioned if I loved the late arrival more, I said no just different.

so I talk out loud instead of writing .

a new prose. I talk of formative years, the safe place.

russell coates museum. have you been there? it was free on thursdays a haven from the rain,

the

pain.

indoor fish pond, quiet on the stairs, to the edwin long gallery. the flight to egypt. looking

back now, I never thought of it religious. immense it covered the wall.

I use the past tense, yet it is still in place.

on googling I see the topic is biblical, I remember the procession, the faces, the space as

if his meaning was hidden to me.

now by choice it is.

do I make such pictures? no.

weird stuff as if installed in a museum.

crying.

© 2017, Sonja Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

The Specificity of the Ordinary by Colin Blundell

in Iris Murdoch

the characters for the most part
get themselves into such a muddle
usually intent on mirroring
the messes & muddles of others
closely observed by scheming clowns
with special peculiar insights

how will they get out of the muddle?
a question which keeps you entranced
turning the pages rapidly
never really wanting an unravelling

no linearity just sets of closed circles
of rather bizarre impossibility

occasionally a character will experience
a bright moment of illumination
or clarity which I have come to call
the specificity of the ordinary:
the cat on the terrace dust particles
lizard on a sunny bank
bare gritty floorboards leaves in the wind
ivy climbing on a rock as it might be
to refer it all to myself measuring
the impact of the ordinary

if only the characters had listened
to their author’s commentary
more carefully they might all have been
able to rescue themselves

© 2017, Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

the moses manifest

he grips the tablets in his charge, this
courier of commandmenta, and takes umbrage or looks
askance at some person or
persons on
his left. on his head
are zigguratish lumps,
horns, that should have been
unsculptable rays of
light. julius the pope, the vicar
of christ, has left
his mortal remains entombed
here, and moses to guard
them. the likeness
of julius was to be
the capstone of the tomb
but it was never
done. the militant pope
had need of his hireling
visionary elsewhere,
as plasterer and muralist
for a now-renowned chapel.
the tomb was finished in 1545,
decades after julius’s promotion
to resident of Heaven.

© 2017, Gary W. Bowers (One with Clay, Image & Text)

 

The Hay Wain (1821), by John Constable (UK), (1776-1837)

Haywain

Her milkman Grandad often takes
her, his horse, cart and churns on his rounds
gifts her a small pony trap and horse.

Older she hangs a copy of “The Haywain”
above a dark brown oak dining table
with its curved back oak chairs

lit by white light French windows
on to a grey concrete slabbed patio.

She knows the smell of worked horse,
creak of cart and water’s rhythm,
much like milk slap and hooves on cobbles.

© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Photograph by Paul Brookes

My Dali

A teenager, I was a poster
Christ crucified in a sky
above a cove
and dried blue tac
on my bedroom wall
lets Christ
lets me
fall at one edge.

I was a swan reflecting elephants
the need for it to be other
my fingers mirrored rocks.

I was a spoon on crutches,
anything but me.
​
© 2017, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Golconde (1953), by Rene Magritte (Belgium), (1898-1967)

These Shapes

are not symbols.
Do not attach meaning.

Bowler hats and gentlemen
may fall on the page

in this frame. The words
do not mean the thing.

Magritte is a mark only.
All that attaches to it

is irrelevant. It does not help.
A birdcage is not a rib cage.

© 2017, ​Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

The Blood Serape and other ekphrastic poems by Paul Brookes

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY

“among small things yesterday” and other poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt

Posted on by
Reply

Here is the collection of responses to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt, he’s a tumble weed, September 13. I’m quite pleased with the efforts of Renee Espiru, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, Iulia Gherghi, Collin Blundell, and Kakali Das Gosh. Bravo, poets! Enjoy the reading, visit their blogs, and strike-up a friendships with other poets.

The next Wednesday Writing Prompt will post tomorrow.  All are welcome to come out and play, no matter where in the world you live or where you are in your career, emerging or established.

Rainbow Lace Muses

dreams are like the sweet smell
of ambrosia
not like
the bitter of coffee
before her

she sits by the restaurant window

staring at nothing

and seeing everything

perhaps she sees her life
without children
running about
demanding
time

time she doesn’t have and
does not have to give
for life should chord

space and quiet

life should be filled

with writing muses
laced with rainbows

filled with artist
paper

& tools for both
housed in a place

beneath
trees

sprinkled with star dust

a place with fields of
wild flowers so
she can commune

with nature
with her
soul

she is lost in her thoughts
as the restaurant
comes to life
around her

with the laughter of

children

playing

she is reminded that life
hinges on choices
of ambivalence

like her food
turning cold
it is only
new

within the essence
of the moment

© 2017, Renee Espriu  (Just Turtle Flight and Inspiration, Imagination & Creativity with Wings, Haibun, ART & Haiku)

Reminds

herself to use her legs when pulling out weeds so she don’t get pain in her back

aggravated by weight of cat litter bags she puts in her tartan shopping trolley

when she meets her friend Flora in town
to share a tuna salad homemade

by Sully the African refugee in the local cafe.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Bairns Are Old Codgers

Before I get taken to play at my soft playcentre,
my one year granddaughter toddles with her zimmer frame.

Later we will take her to the memory cafe
where she’ll remember her past lives.

“Hard”, of before dawn and midnight hours:
A welder in the Clyde shipyard, 1942.

“Stinks that,” she says of the steel shavings, and Swarfega.
“Heavy”, of the hammer…

A kitchen servant in a big house.
“Hurts”, of calloused pestle and mortared deferment…

I’m all giddy at tumble down
slides, scramble nets and ballpools.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

Sausage

roll flaky pastry diagnostics.
Watch your stop motion self

on cafe CCTV dance on chessboard
squares black and white faux marbled

floor. Reflection in glass as check your hair over fresh baguettes or bottled citrus.

“Don’t You Want Me, Baby” pumped
over speakers amid oven beeps and bleeps.

Blow on Sausage roll for barefoot baby
strapped in pram for the ride of its life.

© 2017, Paul Brookes   (The Wombwell Rainbow, Inspiration, History, Imagination)

..among the small things yesterday..

was a larger thing, not world news, happily,
not somethinhg to chew over.

amongst the colours, the gifts, the tiny cup,
cracked, collectable, among the people
at the friday club is friendship, a bigger
thing.

quarry cafe.

although many of us like smaller items,
we have grown to know that close friends
are a quite very big, important thing in a
life. small life.

© 2017, Sonia Benskin Mesher  (Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA and Sonja’s Drawings)

One pub too many

In my high school years
I was addicted to one pub
Every day around six p.m.
I would take the dog out
The dog was the pretext of course
The pub was across the park, nearby the lake
His owner was like a brother to me
His entire family was my family for awhile
Their harmony, their happiness
Were my refuge
I was safe there in that glass pub
Soon enough I became a student
New places to explore
The pub on the top of the National Theatre
The pub of the University of Architecture, this one was more a club
For playing cards, all sort of games
The pub of the Literature University
Placed underground, with black oiled walls
We divided fairly our time between those three
I would start my day with a coffee in the Literature’ pub
Puff my cigarette while studying faces
The smoke would burn my eyes
But in that quasi darkness no one would notice
Lucky strike, no filters or some Romanian stuff, equally strong
I would always forget my lighter
So asking for a light would start a friendship
Next, at noon
Me and my friends would visit the Architecture’s pub
There the students were taller
Handsomer, intriguing
Here we would take our lunch
Being a far more light full place
And in the evenings, when some money grew in our pockets
We would join the roof crowd
On the top of The National Theatre
Where crème de la crème would meet
One or two pints of beer would grant the effort
When broke or during the exams
The nearby pub will greet us at 3 a.m. in the morning
What else but a beer to fixate your knowledge
Or to provide a blissful sleep
I wasn’t picky
Whatever would come first
Very soon the school was over
Life stuck its teeth on us
Devoured by our duties and responsibilities
We can afford only fast food restaurants now
Just before movie starts
The animation movie, 3D
With its special glasses that cover an
Underground slumber

© 2017, Iulia Gherghei (Sky Under Construction)

when we look at another person

forgetting for the moment that they
might be looking at us in the same way –
all those behavioural manifestations –
do we not impute to them
a kind of completion settled composure
compounded of what we take to be
definite things – arrangements of thought
intellectual substructure of identity & feeling?

take anybody you imagine you know
however they might be in themselves
do you not see a certain settledness
of body & mind spirit & dalliance
towards the world? look how they move
with dignity or resolve or shuffle their feet
with an uncertainty they might overcome
suddenly with intention direction & purpose

and how do they see you
mirror of themselves hearing about them
arranging a Bruckner symphony
for a hundred recorder-players?
like the man in the roadside café
I’d never met before
and am never likely to meet again
told me he’d just done

it’s all a matter of gaze
and the content thereof

© 2017, Colin Blundell (Colin Blundell, All and Everything)

#O!The Cafe Owner#

O !the rural cafe owner
Let me enjoy the blinding heavenly light
The accompanied whistling winds
I-a tumbleweed has ushered
your cafe
To pleasure an eternal liquor ,beer or wine of love
Let me escape from the crustfallen life
A chain of of diurnal routine
Let me recline at the front porch of your tavern
Enjoying a dirge quiescence
Let me exempt from the bricks and mortar ,chimney bellflower and clamorous clarion
O ! the rural cafe owner
Let me fly away from the anguish intolerable
May it be just for few moments
But I would sip the red wine of the loveable apple
Forever …….

© 2017, Kakali Das Ghosh

ABOUT THE POET BY DAY