Ruchira's Ramblings

In the spirit of National Poetry Writing Month, I thought of doing a prose-poem for the blog. But before that, a small announcement. I have a song up on an episode of the London Theatre Podcast- episode titled –We Need to Talk –New Writing Showcase Part 1. It’s only 11 minutes long and you can listen to it on Spotify , iTunes , SoundCloud , PlayerFM or Podbean . Let me know what you think. Longings What does a love story look like? What shape is it? What are the ingredients you need to make one, and most important, where can you find them? I feel like there is space in me for a story, if I could only write one. Or does it get written for you? How does this work? Does an island long for a ship? Do the walls of a little room long for rain to break in? Does a river raging in the rain forest feels incomplete for the space by your side? How does this work? When you speak your words, and no one hears them, were you alive? If you spoke at all, and nobody else spoke your lan...

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 20. Conversation Poems.  Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that 'talks.' Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life. ...the idea here is to get away from formally 'poetic' speech and into the way language tends to work out loud." My first try, the prose poem is something that began to form in my head last night when I was struggling with the alphabet prompt.  The second poem I conceived this morning when I was doing my morning paper while thinking about the prompt. I tried to write only the second, but the first one insisted on being written.  Then I wrote the second anyway.  Have a good Sunday everyone.  The Night King is coming.  And Happy Easter.

Napowrimo2019 Day 6 prompt from napowrimo.net: ""Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of the possible. ... a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world. "  I prefer my poems to be more neatly structured, but this is what I have got for today. Also, I have a travelogue published by TravelAndy, which you can check out here .

This was a tough one. From napowrimo.net: " today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow! " They don't ask for much, do they? My external texts: the ballad 'Scarborough Fair' and the poem 'Alone with Everyone' by Charles Bukowski.

My dreams weave in and out of train stations, crossing perilous oceans on un-navigated ships- always an anxious waiting for arrival, never reaching- promises of fabulous cities drifting away in meandering mazes or wrecked vessels, like that omnipresent thirst as cups of tea become as elusive of the alchemist’s secret formula cooked in holy chalices and old faces masking mine warble incoherent delirium that I cannot translate though they always speak languages I know in my dreams. And I wake from dreams where I am a drifting castaway in an island being dug all over by an army of automaton Man Fridays for treasure far more potent than Defoe could have imagined, the treasure forever slipping my grasp, with only a lingering sense of terror that I carry over to my Duolingo lessons. Je suis une femme. La pomme es rouge. There is such comfort in the familiar stability of these words. It is easy to learn a language as a child, for the child’s world is still whole and solid and unta...