[Source]
Four stars
for the Chelsea boots
in brown; five
from Wood,
for their soft leather
and inner cushion,
for how easy they fit
his wide feet
and how they arrive
in time for spring
and the promise
of new beginnings.
One star
from Miles, for how
they fall apart; split
at the heel
after seven months of use;
for how
they’ll harm your feet,
and fall apart
as though sawn in two.
From Joshua, just three stars –
because they arrive damaged.
—
For the Day 29 Prompt at NaPoWriMo, to write a review; culled from a few reviews left on the Amazon page for the shoes above.
—
In the unknown
you clutch vestigial memories
of night journeys and of trains
and being surprised by
grey granite segueing
into lush greenery
but once you cross
the Bridge across the
Firth of Forth
Hope awakens
‘Cos you’re Home.
—
On train journeys, coming home and the Forth Road Bridge for the prompt for Day 28 at NaPoWriMo, a truly gorgeous sight on a (rare?) sunny November day as I found many years ago…
Pause,
On the corner of Kings’ and
23rd North West and smile,
let your face crumble like
a cookie dipped in spring milk.
Tell her the musky scent
of her perfume reminds you
of spring wafting in on the wind
heady, yet subtle, hardly felt.
Moan
about the weather, of
snow pelting down like hail
of sunshine shoved into a corner
by clouds and then nightfall
When you find she’s
clutching Chaucer to her chest
and McEwan in her bag,
read her a line from Komunyakaa:
‘I took seven roads to get here
and almost died three times’*.
But if her fingers linger
or tap dance on her phone
disappear-
because sometimes the nostalgia
of an unsoiled memory
is worth more than the pain
of paradise lost.
—
* Borrowed from one of my favourite Komunyakaa poems, ‘Providence’; from the Pleasure Dome anthology.
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.
—
It’s like I’m standing in the rain
and you offer me a raincoat
But I would rather stand there
and get wet than take the handout
[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.
When truth like a troubled troubadour
Arrives, we find that we’ve been had,
The facades we have pined for, a house;
But of cards.
—
Loosely related to the prompt for Day 23 – Card…
[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.
A Geek's Life 