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Charles Vorpal Apr 2021
Puchong
Uncle's home
Condo
Brother's home
S.P.
Birthplace/Parents' home
Places where I have lived long

"Nǐ fēn dào zhèyàng zuò me? Yěshì nǐ de jiā ma."
It's also your home, I am told.
Really? Tell me more, o mind reader.
What other feelings I should feel
Please police my thoughts , while you're at it.

Nay, no, nein, bukan.
None of these places are my home
There are merely residences
Which owners let me have a roof above me
The locations where my flesh prison seek shelter.

Yes, I confess, sometimes I do slipped up
And referred to them as "my home"
But what you do not see or hear
Is me mentally correcting myself immediately
This is not some subconscious wish;
But a mere force of habit that I seek to break

Ah, one day, I will have my own place.
A house, or a pet-friendly apartment.
But no matter what, or where,
It will house only my body
For my heart will not be there
Just as it is no longer any of the places above.
Jana Q Apr 2021
The toothbrush starts, “Enameled crooked crescents fence
a cavern filled by slimy growths and walls that tense.”

The towel ruffles, “Four protrusions rife with joints;
the fifth a rounded stump with sev’ral gentle points.”

“Agreed. The knobs and knuckles wear a supple coat;”
the loofah huffs, “it’s gritty, slick, and prone to bloat.”

The eyebrow brush retorts, “It’s two retracting domes
that cause a row of strands to flutter when one roams.”

“While ‘domes’ is right, I venture ‘jiggle’ as more apt -
along with perky, tapered tips.” the brassiere flapped.

The ****** giggle, “‘Bouncy’ could suffice as well,
but don’t forget the dampened folds and prickly swell.”

“Absurd!” exclaims the hairbrush, “More like brittle twine;
Entangled, oily knots that never quite align.”

“Not twine, but thistles bushing out in sweeping arcs,”
the razor sighs, “from paper that too clearly marks.”

A glassy voice laments, “Not one of them’s correct -
how easy this would be, if you could all reflect.”
Humor is so not my forte, but this was for the Day 3 prompt in SingPoWriMo, so I gave it a shot. It's about bathroom objects trying to describe their user. Critique is welcome!

Are the indirect descriptions easy/hard to understand?
Does the ‘twist’ at the ending work? Or just fall flat?
How long did it take you to realize what the poem is trying to do?
archana May 2020
A rolling ocean, a plea of pain, watch me
In shades of purples, browns and indigo,
Within shades of azure, slate and arctic,
I grasp within the walls if inseparable grief,
A capsule of destruction
Clutched, sculpted and caressed

Ashes have come to me in colours
And you came to me in memories
Faded ones where I could dream of
Beach waters that kissed my toes
And roads in December, deep in snow.
Skies of blue, mulberry-

A scarlet coloured scar, crimson rivers and bricks
Contorted with pain, ****** with metals like
Bronze and gold to shine, smile, dazzled with a
Little of cherry wine.

Burnt parchments and withered ivory,
Years of snow later, chiffon laced mistake
that tasted like poison I stowed under
My tongue, whispers of dearth powders that
Screamed of betrayal and hurt,
All the people who loved me
With silver pepper and creamy salt,

I walk away from them and scream into a
Void, a word that spells like love
Something flies out like miserable-looking
butterflies and I watch the people who
Love me burn, all the while whispering
Just please, never return.
voodoo May 2020
white surfaces flash in fluorescent lighting –

this is no opus, heaving on cold bathroom tiles,

blood and grain against porcelain,

convulsing creature in all its grotesque obloquy:

bleary and snotting. four-walled, windowless, antiseptic vivarium;

life crawls outside. it thrives, it devours, it fortifies.

inside, here, it repulses. ****** effluvium of all kinds.

sharp shrieks of skin across glossed floor, tears soak

before the cliff of the jaw. nothing stays.

wiping drool off the sterile sink and sweat off my knotted back.

snarls choking into sobs, sobs gasping for air.

this is no opus; blackening from corners,

the repugnant vignette held between fingernails –

for the contagious odium of the resigned abhorrent

bleeds and drips and stains.

neglect and rejection strewn like pearls,

pearls, worth nothing, feeling everything.

a fly buzzes in the stark fluorescent light,

and blackness climbs in. blackness consumes.
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