The Poetry Marathon

Prompt 12

(Write about a gathering with others.)

The harvest was ripe and gold

What a gathering behold

The sky was gay, and colors merry

A romantic pink, a scarlet cherry

All gathered to celebrate

Sweat of toil but fickle fate

Had something else in store

Shrieks of pain, cries of gore

Rain had showered them with grain

Bullets fired shooting pain

Groups of innocents huddled in fear

To jump in wells or swallow a tear

Children sobbed and clung to breasts

Mother’s stricken, men were prest

But Dyer had kept on firing

His selfish heart, ne’er tiring

Like a bloodbath to pour

Silence resounding ever more

Rivers of shame, of ghastly pain

Would not claim such unjust gain

Blooming blood of innocents slain

Booming guns, horrific refrain

No matter what time, what the place

This hardened brutal truth I face

’twas nothing but a glaring preface

Of a bloody

heartless

massacre

***The refrence here is to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13th April, 1919

I am digging deeper

Digging for lost words

My head feels empty

Imagination’s dry

My fancy flew

In a clouded sky

In sighing a deep sigh

I pray

An epiphany to burst by

But inside me

An empty ocean swirls

Bubbling and foaming

To escape this listless girl

Buried in a timeless abyss

Swimming in a mindless bliss

Prompt 10

(Personify an animal. Switch its trait.)

Life somehow drags on

The colours have all gone

The wind strings music grim

The rain would not kiss him

A flower’s simply a flower

Not a dame in fading hour

Moonbeams don’t wish him ‘night

Ripples not a silvery white

Sometimes, too a drop of milk

Clad in inky shameless silk

Stars before were sapphire

Of twinkling flickering desire

Amber eyes, turn pasty lime

Fluttering to the watery chime

The hourglass, the ticking time

I am a peacock past its prime.

Prompt 9

(Look in your cupboards and find a food that brings up a childhood memory, and the memory is your prompt.)

Pulling open my drawers

The smell of maggi tickles my nose

How it would drip on my face

Splattering my nose, licking my plate

So soft and stringy and long

Sweet tomatoes freshly chopped

With a burning onion taste

My clothes would yellow

Onions slick and golden

Simmering with oily jeera

Sizzling to spicy perfection

Plopping the noodles

In bubbling whistling water

Untangling and twirling

Wisps of flavour curling

Calling, whetting my tongue

Slurped and burped in days young

Prompt 8 (Write a Gigan)

My shooting bamboo

With pale green leaves

It was once greener than grass

And smelled sweet like dewy grass

My long stemmed bamboo

I see now such brown leaves

Coffee coloured, whisked with tea

A rich leafy arm may unfurl

Reaching my window pane to curl

But lately I see it drooping

My shooting bamboo

I see now such brown leaves

The fine veins, starker and paler

Coffee stained in watercolor

The brown and green intertwine

A spring of youth in aging wine

Prompt 7

(The 10th non-selfie photo in my mobile is of a Rosemary)

I haven’t a sunflower for cheer

Or the warmth of a shared beer

I have but a lonesome tear

 Smiles of a memory dear

I have not a drop

Of acceptance

Nor the pleasure

Of your sight

I have only a Rosemary

At night

Lavendar pigmented

Prompt 7

(A letter to myself from someone)

I see you took your own path

Don’t be startled!

Yes, I am from the grave

You have grown up and time has flown

You’ve got spirit, I never did own

Yet, my old weak weary bone

Wishes time would stop, I had a clone

You listened not to fears,

Not bowed before lies

Fought your way through tears

Broken all foolish ties

Son, I’m proud. You weren’t like me

But a wounded fly, fluttering free

Prompt 5

(I used the following words: hardback, sunflower, knitting, cheddar cheese, space, wine glass)

With a hardback I sit in my lawn

With every story, I’m newly born

A sunflower is tickling my feet

My knitting left for a yellowed sheet

My heart melts gooyey like chedder cheese

Every book makes me plead, “One more please!”

When disturbed or sad, I need some space

My poetry book’s a saving grace

The sweet and bitter of a wine glass

Drinking my joy, ’tis a happy lass!

Prompt 4

A hundred years from now

I’ll be nothing but ash and dust

Ages gone and ages new

Time has gone and go it must

The wrinkles will not snatch away the laughs

Nor the tears wipe away the past

But time as a cycle will keep ticking on

When the sun is set and hope is gone

A hundred years from now

A hundred years before

Will not change the present hour

It’s an unopened door

And if I ever ask for more

Lest the present be a chore

A home is isn’t in decor

But the memories I made before

Which squeezing through time

Or jumping through age

Is ne’er worth a dime

Like a gilded cage

I got ‘nother chance today

I got a fresh new page.

Prompt 3

I see a flower all bathed red

Screams which into silence have bled

Such sorrow, such disaster who could have led!

When a flower with fate is set to wed

There can be pleas all around

Of a humbly beating heart

But none meddles with season

When you flower to depart

Yet when it bloomed

It had joy radiating around

It might be doomed

But had bliss bursting abound

When something so tender, could sway unafraid

I shall not fear any perils ahead

To sprout a life when there is none

Out of a reddening dawn will rise a sun!