Et lille digt på dansk, om ikke at kunne sove.

 Søvnløs

Svæver som en flagermus
med hud mellem fingrene,
min mave en skrigeunge,
vil have sikkerhed
og varm mælk.

Hænger med hovedet ned af,
tankerne strømmer ind
som blod,
jeg er svimmel,
svimmel.

Og falder
…. i søvn

Dhaka 2015

A muse on possessions, with thanks for comments from fellow writers at Writers Abroad!

.

After the fire

A tough week for the world, and hard to take some of the explanations that are so easily offered when things go so wrong.

Too simple

Espousing simple answers
what a mess you make,
good and evil unrelated,
no room for grey.

Claim to know your enemy,
claim as yours all truth,
no ear for irony’s laughter,
just tooth for tooth.

.
Dhaka 2015

The boys have gone back to school in Denmark and our home in Dhaka seems empty and far too quiet.

Empty

Drifting through rooms of unmade beds,
blankets pushed aside,
single socks hiding.
Ball still rolling towards a corner.
Echoes behind closed doors
I expectantly open.
Sense the closing of exits as I enter.

No one there, though cat,
with her six senses and seven lives
follows expectantly,
seeking, like me.
Meowing a question,
sniffing the warm, head-shaped indentation in a pillow.

I wake,
and you’re already gone.

Dhaka 2015

After new year

you’re gone.

What used to be peace

is just quiet.

Dhaka 2015

This week’s poem inspired by a moment in the hectic Gulshan traffic and an oportunisitic rickshaw walla.

Turning right

Vibrating moment where vans,
cars, buses pause – poised on the cusp,
leg muscles tense for the big pedal push,
beggars step back before the forward rush,
policeman draws breath, raises whistle to lips,

crow caws in sudden calm
rickshaw walla tramps down
and we sail illegal, exuberant through the eye of the storm.

 
Dhaka 2014

I’m happy and a little proud to note the second anniversary of Rilla’s Poems, with the continuation of weekly poems, small but regular innovations in presentation and an ever growing number of visitors.

Thank you to my regular readers and those others who pop in from the wondrous world of cyberspace.

Awake for light’s break,
drifting fog, cawing crows,
turning point’s golden glow.

Dhaka
21 December 2014

Having failed to write a fresh poem this week – despite considerable adventures and excitement I have decided to share one I found earlier…

Innocence

This poem that I found, sitting damp on the ground,
shall I love her and give her a home?
Give her gifts of sweet chimes, clothes of adverbs and rhymes,
so she claps her slim fingers in glee?

Shall I coach her in dance with steps that repeat,
lift her chin, shape her hands, time her feet?
Teach her manners and style, so she’ll be a good child
who smiles at the strangers she meets?

Or shall I let her run free – full of fun, full of grace,
let the wind and the sun kiss her face?
I could teach her to pray or to sing – or to say
the first thing that comes into her mind.

She’s a lover of nature, a sensitive creature,
a child, but mature for her years.
Watching me now with eyes that ask how
much I love her,
how I’ll shape her,
who she’ll be.

Dhaka 2014

(previously published in Writers Abroad Magazine)

This week’s poem on finding inspiration in our best selves.

Again

Starting, she was on the edge,
wind from below,
alert, lean, sharp.
Her rapid pulse drummed tempo.
Acute angled collar bones,
shadowed hollows, gleaming curves.

Later she got soft.
Comfortable, complaisant,
laughable love handles, easy habits
set calm pace, set cool mood.

Now, doors have slammed,
there’s a thumping
in her chest.
She’s going back – to the beginning.

Dhaka 2014