I set an alarm
for a surreal hour
eons paved into a quiet wake
as I watch the pale sun haze
through the frigid oak tree
tarrying on ever-so-lightly
wallowing in the shallows
of her botticelli-leaves
unfurled to a pilgrim’s prayer
I savour the balmy wisp
of summer upon me
the solace of its canopy
in dewy films that sound
their osmotic rouse from skin
until phantoms I cannot see
fatigue through air
with sharp teeth
cracked through a riot of blue
my ears belled
with birds song-bellied
refrains on repeat
feather along filaments
of memory
thus my waking belied
by an eternally ethered July
and its peeling clouds
cleaved on the precipice
of teardrop down
a landscape of
micro tendrils
welting on a soggy toast
how familiar
these strange…

Inevitably the sky here isn’t mine
beneath its blue canopy’s din
tall glasses glimmer in gold wine
as they clink themselves slim
into a slow sun’s diaphanous iris

I sit alone breathing fireflies
between digits precariously held
angling the mist off muses dire
words — scattered million syllables
lit by lulls obtuse between heavens

A toddler has wandered from his lineage
crawled into my papier-mâché arms
a blind spot to his mum’s buttoned gaze
I fold my smile into an alarm
as he totters beyond her fenced tuile

Serrated sirens of a couple rise
cuts the clatter of spoon cymbals
Neither reaches…

We’re always between the lines
betwixt weak ribs
our half-nods and maybe tomorrows
wooing the bulk of hesitations
like coal claws to the ashtray
waiting for answers to
p h o e n i x
out of cinders
oh how we beguile
the melt-moment
of cold
cold ice
on inert palate heaves
half-
dangling
e l l i p t i c a l
doors
we keep not shut
not ajar
to air the gaps that creak
with the euphony of cicadas
as I let the pits inside me seep
your silence
like a moveable gloam
across the ether
till every thick slur
the sable night has swallowed
in its drifting cadaver.

Thank you for reading, lovely readers! If you liked reading this, you may also enjoy:

You descend in blues upon spring’s blind flush
your April breath agleam with fizzles of a soda pop
like stark thrills of lightning deck a nimbus nebulous
heady through a sky’s mouth, stars jading atop

Your April breath agleam with fizzles of a soda pop
my palate of desert fills, lilts to desire’s cloy
heady through a sky’s mouth, stars jading atop
I cleave away in surrender to your season of joy

My palate of desert fills, lilts to desire’s cloy
murmurs of flowers crease a bedsheet at dusk
I cleave away in surrender to your season of joy
syruped in the moon…

POETRY

My mom knows
how to read fronds of clouds
With sleeves rolled to her elbows
she rescues a line of laundry
from the silt of rain’s mouth
She knows
with an untimely sprinkle of salt
a curry can yawn into a bitter curdle
She knows where the silent backyard
hides my wilted childhood journals
She knows
the utility of everything
how a bell pepper is hulled
without spilling its sensual seed bulge
how a saree worn away with rodent holes
can be upcycled into a shimmering bed throw
that she takes great care to weave
with a yarn of sugarplum dreams
She knows
how to breathe glee
into hydrangeas bleached to a dry throat
From a chaste touch to skin
she can…

Thank you so much, Melissa! It's funny you say that cos that was the first line that struck me for this concept :). I can't wait to read what you come up with. May the villanelle god/ddesses be with you :D.

I could have been…
soft-puffed lilac confetti
heart-shaped leaves of a late spring
my fragile blue hems littered in glee
to the flapping will of avian wings

I could have been …
matronly spells of a hilltop sycamore
with maple stars hidden all around
the crooks of my branches in myth and lore
their arrival and leaving unannounced

I could have been a deeply wounded thing
The muffled pain of thorny prongs
the wasted strains of a root’s buried song
a dangled fruit rotted to summer’s disdain
a life smudged dark and deep into yesterday

Instead I’m falling…
falling away from this…

Day 1: Literary Impulse Prompt — Fragmented View

Across an orange sky
a school of birds is leaving
past the last spurts of the sun
and out my pretty window
an eclipse softly hobbles in pain
into the lap of a tree-fringed street
where a lone pup lays licking
ripples of idle time
A group of friends
strays about a park bench
their close-hewn silhouettes
heedless to where home is
Over and about
string-cheese whispers of the eve
fill the air
like a hum of forgotten errands
that rouse my dark-haired face
from beneath a burnt-paper pile of poems
their embers blowing out with the wind
as the grey horizon of night
meets the dainty flicker of streetlights
A…