Author: Reena Saxena

he collected keys
the locks for which
had long been closed,
never again to be opened
and he jingle-jangled
when he approached
as if to signal
the secrets
to which he was party
and to hint
at those stories
only he would ever know.

Inspired by Eugenia’s Weekly Prompt – Harmony & Reena’s Exploration Challenge #213

There once was this awkward-looking fellow,
Who said, “Help, I’m stuck in this awful yellow!”
But it coordinated with his shirt,
And even though the sight of him hurt,
One could hear harmony in his bellow.

Words

i exhaled it all out of my suffocating lungs
i needed some space to loosen the pain
i took on the comfort of my gentle words
but i couldn’t tame them not this time

so i use the harshest expressions in a very jarring way
to pierce through every single cell your body has
so that blood will slowly trickle out each of your vein
maybe then you’ll know how much ache it was

i could think of all the bad and the worst
i could summon all that is hated and that is condemned
all the things i need just to get it through the cut
i probably want some solid-fluid air than them

i so ceased, i stopped being gentle and kind
even with the words i try to rhyme and count

for once i tell you, i’d be better when i’m good

For Reena’s Exploration Challenge…

Oh! how grand it is to write

A poem,

Jabberwocky, you say?

Mix, confuse, re-use,

Words,

Easy-peasy,

Create sense out of non-sense,

Oh! how grand it is to write jabberwocky,

Had the jitters thinking,

What to write,

Strands of hair flew hither- thither,

Glasses lay askew,

Laugh lines halt trying to image something funny,

Oh! Create sense out of non-sense!

Oh! how grand it is to write jabberwocky,

The thinking cap churns ideas,

Do I write about a man who always cried for help?

Do I write about a lady who missed her every step?

Do I write about a monkey who ran without any plan?

Do I write about a cat who chased pigeons just because he can?

Oh! Creating sense out of non-sense!

Oh! how grand it is to write jabberwocky,

The thinking cap tried ,tried and now tired,

The pen tumbles without…

Reena has given us this PROMPT #213

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #213

The nightmare came again. Yellow goo swallowing me into a diseased COVID haze. I dare not lay back, lest the yellow muck of phlegm and mucus my body is suffocating me in, in its feeble attempt to wash these toxins from my ailing cells, drowns me instead.

Shaking my fist at the irony of man in his attempt to salvage life, to make it last longer, to be healthier; has inadvertently created an illness that converts, changes, metamorphosis’ into something even man’s feeble drugs can not touch.

The body aches for release from this torment. I shall not give in, I shall not let COVID win. I sleep.