My apologies to all those who shared poems in response to the last Wednesday Writing Prompt. I didn’t realize today was Tuesday and time to post your wonderful work for all to see. The reason – not excuse, as they say – is I am totally in airhead mode with this relocation. So, here we go … still Tuesday by me but I know for some of you it’s already a new day …
The last prompt, Wednesday, March 21, after the injera, the way, the niter kibby: tell us about a take away from your travels or vacation garnered us these lovelies. Thank you to Kakali Das Gosh, Pleasant Street, Paul Brookes, Sonja Benskin Mesher, and Reena Presad. Enjoy!
Our Takeaway
always on a Friday. A menu
taken out of the kitchen drawer,
unfolded. Dad scribbles what everyone
wants. I choose egg fried rice.
Using phone on the phone table
in hallway Dad rings order through.
Sister and I chorus:
“Can I come when you go, Dad?”
After days of school meals,
meat and two veg. at home,
takeaway is exotic. In the car
usual casual joke “egg flied lice.”
Inhale fragrance of garlic,
soy and foreign voices far above
as we join the queue, Dad collects
a thin white plastic bag that bulges
with sharp edged foil cartons
on kitchen side carefully
extracts each box, bends back lips
releases plumes of spicy heat
to put on already warmed plates,
carried through to front room.
Empty cartons are placed back in white bag
rushed out to a bin so smell does not linger.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)
I A Glede
dark wraith,
elegant, rangy,
float russet and goldflash,
above winter’s woodland,
street cleaner,
snatch roadkill from gutters,
pavements, lobbed pizzas, chips,
knickers, jackets, teddy bears,
odd shoes, toy giraffes
rest with my feathered young,
decorate my nest.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)
Servant
For a time I do bother
to polish the surfaces,
hoover, wash and iron.
If only for myself,
but then myself is not enough.
Dust piles, crumpled clothes dirty.
I fall asleep among dirty sheets,
empty crisp packets,
half eaten cold pizzas,
stink of mice piss.
Awake to freshly laundered sheets,
clean carpets, clothes washed, ironed.
Surfaces polished smell of Lavender.
How could this happen?
Again I fall asleep while tv on,
amongst discarded chocolate papers,
left over cake on plates,
half drunk cans of lager.
Awake to tv off, rubbish binned,
plates washed, dried put away,
Citrus not stale beer and rotting smell.
I’m intrigued. Curious.
It takes no effort to be a slob, again.
Spill crisps down sides of chairs,
dribble tea into carpet, crumbs.
Energy drinks ready I stay awake.
Energy sup is the biz. Make
Me hyper so I see these two tiny
Folk, man and woman, like regular
Nanites sorting my crap.
Like my old man never were
this one hoovers up crumbs,
packs his black bin bag with cans,
busies, polishes, scrubs to his bones.
His old woman like mam, I guess,
dusts, scours a whirlwind devil.
Part of me says they do as they must,
the other sees what they lack.
Next night I leave them a gift
of nothing to tidy, to put away.
They seem contented as I watch
surrogate mam and dad leave for good.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)
I’m Man Enough
18 in 1980 week afore starting uni,
lads night out and your dressed
in Burton’s bright yellow like a canary,
socks, shoes, shirt, jacket, because it’s cool.
Lads boast they down 11/12 pints
of John Smiths bitter a night,
shag a lass then do same next night.
You’ve never done neither.
Follow lads round like fresh meat,
loud and brash, they talk of shagging
bints, fast cars, live bands you’ve
never seen coddled by your mam and dad.
Four pints in and your eyelids droop,
bitter makes you fall asleep, lasses
in short skirts with intentions nuzzle
up but loud music means you can’t listen
to what they’re saying and wouldn’t know
what to say. Lads jostle you. “We’re off
to neet club. A tha cumming?”. I shout
an apology. “Got to be in by 11.”
They get off. I leave the pub, buy
a pizza and pissed walk home uphill
chomping on greasy slices, cardboard
box too big, one side of road to another.
© 2018, Paul Brookes (The Wombwell Rainbow)
# I’d depart this land #
His visage is still vivid in this misty evening
Those eyes
Those pink hands
Those lips
Those jowls
Those days in Kashmir
still call me in this lonely evening
That crystal lake
That stream
Those golden apples
Those flower boats
Those diamond peaks
Are playing in my weepy eyes
His words
His kisses
His smile
His last touch
Perhaps still have retained a token of our fancy
In the last cherry tree of that garden
I’d depart -I’d depart this land
To searh for those flying hairs
Those heavenly fingers
Embracing me
in that florid houseboat…
© 2018, Kakali Das Ghosh
. it is a holiday .
they say, and close the stores.
it is complicated, to do with floor space and employees rights.
we had chocolate eggs, worked hard, let our arms loose.
warmer now, the sun shone, people came, visited,
smiled, fondled the wool, spoke of age and weaving.
he said there were many looms in his day.
he is eighty eight, he told me many times.
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher (sonja-benskin-mesher.net; Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings; sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk)
. permanent traveller .
having had a few days off, no not from honest work,
yet writing, rests the mind, i find that everyday
things, mote well on my behalf.
i heard the cock crow early,
looked for swallow flight, seeing none,
cleaned, tidied, then came to write.
it has been a pleasant morning.
© 2018, Sonja Benskin Mesher (sonja-benskin-mesher.net; Sonja Benskin Mesher, RCA paintings; sonja-benskin-mesher.co.uk)
You Do The Math
(what I wrote while traveling
back to the town we met in and fell
in love, and back again)
dancing tall in my living room
to George and Elton
(does it really happen
if no-one sees it
like that tree in the forest)
he says sometimes I never go out
(could tell him stories about 1985
when I lived ten years in 12 months)
and I dance and dance
my head full of 1990
(wonderwall,hammer,hit me baby)
one more time–let’s dance as one
I’ll lead this time–you follow
if you still have that notion
that 1+1=1
and 2+1=no end of joy
perhaps we will find
a new kind of happy-
ness, wrapped in understanding
and lessons learned
(old flames, new rites of passage)
let’s not forget, and dance to now
(rhianna, poison, blended with
the Beatles, Eagles, and 21
pilots, shaken and stirred)
once I thought it was most crucial
to fly without a net
but I believe
the trick
is
to not let go
© 2018, Pleasant Street (are you thrilled)
AESTIVATION
The road is an arid breath
wheezing through barren boughs
I unpacked you on the green bed
My hair flying wild
Bees humming about silken valleys
We left together to explore the trail
of a dust-swept summer
Drunk bees still buzzed in hordes
till a flycatcher caught up with us
Your summer, a mirage
A shimmering wall of sorrow
Dry-eyed, I listened to its howl
They lamented in Nizwa and Sohar
yet you held your sorrow in
waiting for Khareef
The Hajar mountains twisted to get
a glimpse of tourists
fooled by bursts of paper blooms
Parched, we returned
A white eye of a flycatcher followed us
The wall wept then at my infecundity
But in my rucksac, carefully preserved roots lived
To soak in tap water at leisure
and bring forth a trail of sprouting greens
I smelt then
the base notes of a buried south-westerly monsoon
feeling buds of earthy love
from this land of hidden green
burst open beneath dry skin
© Reena Prasad (Butterflies of Time – A Canvas of Poetry)
originally published in GloMag May 2016
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