Homesickness

If we part our ways, I will always keep looking for you wherever I go.
I wonder if you think about me as much as I think about you.
Often feeling empty, a deep void that can’t let me sleep.
I cannot deny that your absence made me feel lost yet not for the first time.

While walking in the streets, I feel I keep hallucinating,
The fair and precise resemblance of your face,
Short hairs covering half eye and every scar that you kept secret,
All comes into life, so to remind me, this is not you.

I wouldn’t want to runaway from my thoughts alone,
If only you could leave me entirely, if only I would let you go.
It is painful, but it tastes like freshly brewing nostalgia with every sunset,
A homesickness that is beyond repair.

~Navaparna

Day 6 of Na/GloPoWriMo 2023.

Prompt 6 source: https://www.napowrimo.net/poets-start-your-engines/
Today’s (optional) prompt is again drawn from our archives, and builds off our daily resource. Take a look around Poetry International for a poem in a language you don’t know. For example, I grabbed this one in Finnish by Olli Heikkonen. Now, read the poem to yourself, thinking about the sound and shape of the words, and the degree to which they remind you of words in your own language. Use those correspondences as the basis for a new poem.

For today’s prompt I have no idea what my poem seems like. It is just so totally different than that of the prompt’s directed poem, but for my today’s muse I have chosen- Demain, dès l’aube by Victor Hugo. I was deeply attached with this poem after I read the translation, it has left me emotional for an hour now. I have realised, both the poems does have some kind of similarity, not in the structure but perhaps the deep rooted attachment, silent emotions, some unrecovered loss and the strong memory that leads to nostalgia.

Demain, dès l’aube

Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l’or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j’arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

Picture credit- Pinterest

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Ataraxia

Mellow sound of water splash
dropping on my cup of tea
the evening has fallen
down to the earth’s brim.
The sun is being swallowed partly,
the moon rising above ground slowly.
Waves of ocean current reverberating,
the cold breeze is mindlessly blowing.
Lost-
lost is the cold breeze, the ocean current,
the water droplets falling in the cup of tea,
the sun setting in twilight,
the moon rising at night,
they lost the taste of-
fun and excitement,
fear and redemption,
passion and pleasure.
they are just driven by the force
for fulfilling a direction and a purpose.
they are not perfect
maintaining a day’s routine,
but they can’t quit their jobs overnight,
or complain about a rough day.
In the end, mustn’t they settle peacefully?
they deserve a cup of tea served in the table,
and a good wage in the end of the month,
and a certificate of appreciation for CV?
Don’t you think they deserve a little credibility too?

To experience peace after a tough day is essential. Have it.

~Navaparna

Day 4 of Na/GloPoWriMo 2023.

Off prompt today. Tried creating a comparison of our life and the non-living things of nature that simultaneously works like we humans do, everyday, same routine but at least we experience some helpful ways to protect our peace of mind and it is necessary to keep ourselves fit for survival as well. Ataraxia, the goal.

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Fire and Ice (recreated version)

Not everyone says the world will end in fire
Perhaps not even in ice.
I haven’t tasted any of my desires yet
I cannot be bias, it will not look nice.
But if it never perishes at all, not even once.
I would never know how much love,
Does it need for destructing fire or ice
Then probably both could be compared in terms of greatness
If it happens, insufficiency would solely prevail, in infinite.

~Navaparna

Day 3 of Na/GloPoWriMo 2023.

Prompt 3 source: https://www.napowrimo.net/poets-start-your-engines/
Here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always). Find a shortish poem that you like, and rewrite each line, replacing each word (or as many words as you can) with words that mean the opposite. For example, you might turn “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” to “I won’t contrast you with a winter’s night.” Your first draft of this kind of “opposite” poem will likely need a little polishing, but this is a fun way to respond to a poem you like, while also learning how that poem’s rhetorical strategies really work. (It’s sort of like taking a radio apart and putting it back together, but for poetry).

For today’s prompt, I have chosen Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice. I have tried something very new and I hope you all will like it! I remember reading this Robert Frost’s poem back in class 10. Oh how I enjoyed reading poems that rhyme and are easy to understand during the schooldays unlike the English Literature that I have to study for my degree. Ahhh too much struggle understanding old complicated English with no literal sense lol. Robert Frost’s poems are simple to understand because they are mostly based upon daily activities and life. Anyway I love reading and composing poems so give it a read:))

Here is the Poem:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

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Small Talk with Mr. Oyster

How are you Mr. Oyster?
– Enjoying my days hiding in this shell!

Why do you live in salt?
– Salt is my lovely habitat!

Do you often meet beloved seaweed?
– Well I swim through her hair can you believe!

Is quahog your dearest friend?
– Oh yes, we both get eaten by these monstrous humans!

~Navaparna

Day 2 of Na/GloPoWriMo 2023.

Prompt 2 source: https://www.napowrimo.net/day-two-10/
And now for today’s (optional) prompt! The Romanian-born poet Paul Celan once wrote a series of surrealist questions and answers. Here are a couple of examples:

                What is forgetting?

                                An unripe apple stabbed by a spear.

                What is a tear?

                                A scale awaiting a weight.

Now for each question, write a one-line answer. Try to make the answer an image, and don’t worry about strict logic. These are surrealist answers, after all!

After you’ve written out your series of questions and answers, place all the answers, without the questions, on a new page. See if you can make a poem of just the answers. You may find that what you have is very beautifully mysterious, and somehow has its own logic.

Quite a challenging prompt for today. I literally didn’t wanna skip but my head is empty! I present a short conversation with Mr. Oyster and his sea life! I promise to come up with better concept and expressions :))

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