NaPoWriMo -19 Day-13 : Belief In Magic

Day 13 Prompt: Write a poem about something mysterious and spooky! Your poem could be about something that is mysterious and spooky in a bad way (like a witch), or mysterious and spooky in a good way (possibly also like a witch? It depends on the witch, I guess!) Or just the everyday, mysterious, spooky quality of being alive.


Magic Spell

I have with me words and language

And I know magic to 

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use them any way I will

I can marinate words in

acerbic sauce of sarcasm

Toss it around my mouth

Stir it with my scalding tongue

And when I spew it forth

I can see the mucky vitriol splatter

sear and scorch the victim

But I don’t relish watching

another writhe in agony

I’d rather soak my words in

Empathy and compassion

Blend in dollops of tenderness and

top it with glazed generosity

And Voila! As I watch their face transform

Eyes sparkling with joy

Cheeks burnished with cheer

I too feel a fuzzy warmth

Seeping through my soul

Gratitude and serenity

saturates my being…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-12 : Dull Vs Significant

Day 12- Prompt : Write a poem about a dull thing that you own, and why (and how) you love it. Alternatively, what would it mean to you to give away or destroy a significant object?

Resolve

Very staid, very steady

Anytime, any day trustworthy

It stands right there in its abiding wholeness

But not a second glance does it claim

But the other one there so bright , so zesty

Simply clamouring for attention

I deliberately turn away

I walk sedately, steeled and set

For doesn’t one know

of life’s regular dictum

Glitzy, cheery is fine

But screaming transience

Something today and until forever

Is just that plain, stolid stance…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-11: Origins

Day 11- Prompt : Write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually? Maybe you are from Vikings and the sea and diet coke and angry gulls in parking lots. Maybe you are from gentle hills and angry mothers and dust disappearing down an unpaved road. And having come from there, where are you now?

Let sleeping Memories lie...

Everything has changed

I had been gone too long

But fool that I was

I thought that

the memories in my heart

would keep the place alive

Everything has changed.. 

the smells, the sights

I deliberately tried to coerce

my sleeping memories alive.

I searched for familiar sights,  

I tried to breathe in familiar smells,

I tried to retrace my steps,

I closed my eyes, conjuring up images of the past.  

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Everything has changed

I saw nothing, smelt nothing, felt nothing.

It was the same place and yet it was no longer.

I had grieved the passage of time,

yearned for lost moments.

I had come back but

found nothing that I thought I was seeking.

Is there a sense of loss?  No, not even that.

Just an emptiness and a numbness.

I have changed. Forever..
Everything has changed

That place in the depths of my heart

no longer exists outside.

I can now stop looking for it

every time I return.

Let sleeping memories lie...

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-10: Regional Phrase ( weather related)

Day 10- Prompt : Write a poem that starts from a regional phrase, particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon. 

There is a phrase in Malayalam related to the Monsoon showers: “Thullikkoru kudam pemari”… which means it is raining in such torrents that a single drop runs to fill up an urn…

Elysian Nuptials

Gigantic droplets  

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brimming into urns

Was that a cloudburst

Cascading in ebullient joy

Splashing  into gurgling puddles

The skies have descended

With splintering charm

The earth has risen in embrace

Melting into the Azure haze           

Soaked, soused and sated…

Thunder rumbled in murky echoes

Slivers of lightning

Shimmered in glory

The fumes of petrichor

Whirled up in swirls…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day- 9: Thing- List!

Day 9 : Prompt: Engage in a kind of cross-cultural exercise,  like recording daily observations, court gossip, poems, aphorisms, and musings, including lists with titles like “Things That Have Lost Their Power,” “Adorable Things,” and “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster.” Today, write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide!

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Trinkets & Trivia!

I have a little diary of quotes

Of thoughts, feelings and ideas

Not just mine, but others too

The book is in tatters now

The ink has smudged,

The pages are brittle with creases and tears

I have some pebbles, white and color'd

and some bits of tiles and stones

That I picked off from the ground

Carefully stashed in tiny, little pouches

I also have some pictures 
and some zany stickers

I have some trinkets and trivia                            

all saved up from the past

Somedays, I ferret them out

I look at them, touch them

And I see a little girl in ponytails
who had so much laughter in her eyes
and spring in her steps

She has gone into hiding now
Amidst rubble of roles and rules

her lids heavy with worry

And her eyes weary with care

As I gently set them aside again,

The creases on her brow soften

And the crow’s feet crinkle

As a gentle smile

Melts away the laugh lines…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day- 8: Jargon

Day 8 : Prompt: Think about the argot of a particular job or profession, and see how you can incorporate it into a metaphor that governs or drives your poem. This rather astonishing list of professional slang terms might help you get into the mood. Or, if you work a white-collar job, perhaps you can take inspiration from one of the business jargon phrases that seem to predominate in corporate environments (leveraging diverse synergies, anyone?)


The Linguistic Facilitator

I attempt to chronicle the prototype

Of ideal linguistic transference of erudition

Encompassing all the essential facets,

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The rudimentary configuration of word making
enrichment of vocabulary and insight into etymology

The contextual and allegorical elucidation

Comprising the semantics and the syntax too

The phonemes, phonics and Phonetics cannot be overlooked  

The pedantics of language acquisition

The entire expanse of rhetorical  devices,

The pattern of word recognition,

 interpretation and analysis

The comprehensive and the allegorical references

The concrete, the abstract and

the subliminal allusions too.

It is indeed an onerous undertaking

And  the humongous heuristic endeavour

Is going to deplete me of my intellectual resources…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day- 7: Gifts

Day 7- Prompt: Write a poem of gifts and joy. What would you give yourself, if you could have anything? What would you give someone else?


My Gift List

I want huge packs of contentment and serenity

I want ladles of acceptance and maturity

I want generous dollops of wit

garnished with tangy brilliance

I want lumps of humour, topped with cheer

I want chunks of grace laced with generosity    

I want scoops of confidence whisked with alacrity

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I want slices of smartness tossed with courage

I want grated tolerance and diced patience

I want loads of health, iced with humility

And yes don’t forget, I need a surplus of

forgiveness and compassion

May be I have all of these

In moderate amounts now,

but I could do with more, much more

and then I can go around

sharing it with those everyone else too…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-6: Possibilities

Day 6: Prompt: Write a poem of the possible. Focus not on what has happened, or what will happen, but on what might happen if the conditions are right. Write a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.

Beware! Be Aware! 

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If I spelt out my every thought

If I chuckled at every mischief

If I guffawed in brazen glee

If I sniggered my every disdain

If I indulged my every tantrum

If I quivered at my every fear

If I vent my every spite

If I blushed at every snub

If I bristled at every avarice

If I apologized for every folly

If I succumbed to every pity

If I shed every tear of my sorrow

If I showed all my love

I would have been me and yet not ME

For it is with so much care and caution

that I have nurtured the ME

that you and I get to see

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-5: Villanelle

Day 5 - Prompt: Write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow! 

The classic villanelle has five three-line stanzas followed by a final, four-line stanza. The first and third lines of the first stanza alternately repeat as the last lines of the following three-line stanzas, before being used as the last two lines of the final quatrain. 

I have attempted the villanelle form and I have also incorporated lines- 2 lines actually from two different poems: "No time to stand and stare" from the poem "Leisure"  by  W. H. Davies, and "And that has made all the difference" from the poem "The road not taken" by Robert Frost. 

Decision! 

No time to stand and stare

No time to linger, no time to ponder

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And that has made all the difference!

Oh! To dawdle, to just amble by

But no, it has come to this

No time to stand and stare...

The sighing leaves, they beckon

I pause and listen to tales unspoken             

And that has made all the difference!

Oh! To just let go of moments that flit by

To forget that one has just

No time to stand and stare...

I turned to look behind me
There was no path of return
And that has made all the difference!

So seize I shall every moment

Toss away every care

Scrap the notion that there is

No time to stand and stare

And that has made all the difference!

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-4: Sonnet

Day 4 : Prompt : Write a sad poem,one that, achieves sadness through simplicity. Playing with the sonnet form may help – its very compactness can compel you to be straightforward, using plain, small words. 

I have managed to write a poem in 14 lines, but I have not adhered to any rhyme scheme. 

Adieu 

She lay serene, Decked in bridal finery

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Eyes closed in mortal sleep

Yesterday she is and today she was

The soggy air mingled with the

Fragrance of wasted blossoms

One by one they walked in

Smudged eyes on lost faces

Silent whispers and pungent sighs

Hollow sounds of solace

Bouncing across nowhere

One by one they walked away

With languorous steps

Leaving him and his daughters

Lone in their burden of grief…

NaPoWriMo -19 Day-3: Action across time

Day 3 : Prompt : Write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!)

Beyond Reach

I wish I could close my eyes

And then when I open them

I find myself out there at a distant point in the future

a place that is more comfortable, more serene

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from where I am today

But I don’t see that happening

To reach there, I need to pass through the today

And today right now, feels difficult to trudge through

Every leaden moment lugging itself wearily

Wasn’t that  another yesterday when I longed to be at

this  point  in the present – a place better than where I was

only this had seemed so far away  then

I look around and I now notice that I am in that place

That had been the future of my past

So I guess if I just hold on

I shall get to be in the future of my present

A place more comfortable, more serene

than where I am now

Let me close my eyes… and wait…

NaPoWriMo Day 2: Questions

Day 2 : Prompt: to write a poem that  resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.

Trapped

Why does it happen again and

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Then yet again?

Don’t know what to think

Fear claws through the soul

Singeing the heart

There is no rhyme or reason

Why is there no explanation?

The doubts, the pain keeps returning

There is no logic, No rationale

The questions keep rising

Their eerie echoes haunting

Searing through the heart

But Whom does one ask?

Who has the answers?

Groping in the darkness

Through never ending alleys

Along Life’s labyrinth

Running in circles, Hitting against walls

Seeking reprieve, seeking solace

Where should one go?

Where does one look?

NaPoWriMo Day 1: An Instruction Manual to do…

Prompt Day 1 :Write a poem that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something. 

It can be like a recipe:

Dust - Powder- Sprinkle!

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When the mind is agitated

When the thoughts and words

clamour to spew forth

Pause, ponder , muse upon

Select, Pick and choose

Review, revise , revisit

Weigh, measure, dole

Stir, toss, blend

Blow off the steam

Let the froth settle

Now  extend, offer, serve

Gently, carefully, tenderly

Na/GloPoWriMo 19- Early Bird Prompt

Na/GloPoWriMo 2019, otherwise known as “that month in which you write a poem a day for 30 days.”

I am as usual late to the party, but I intend to try and catch up in my own sweet time...I begin with the early Bird prompt, where the challenge is to  write a poetic self-portrait, in which one has to portray oneself in the guise of a historical or mythical figure.

I am not sure if "The Velveteen rabbit" qualifies to to be a historical/ mythical figure but I wish to assume the guise of The Velveteen Rabbit. I have read the book as a child and keep going to it again and again... each time the story unravels more  magically , more poignantly. It speaks to me at several levels and there is certain stability, a sense of balance, a sense of assurance that it gives me...

Real is not what I am made of-  

I had to become real- said the Skin Horse

I did not understand, because inside, deep inside I felt real…

It hurts to become real- said the skin horse- and he must know

pic courtesy: the internet.

The Boy calls me real- and so real I am- only the others don’t know it yet…

It’s been a rough ride, to become real

It doesn’t do to be fragile or brittle

It doesn’t do to have sharp edges

The sheen of my coat has waned, the seams are showing,

My spots have faded, My vision is blurred,

Yet my heart is full, for I know how it feels to be loved

Nothing else matters

And now I can be on my own, because once I am real

I am real forever…