The air stirred
Just enough to hold my attention
An eerie warning
A subtle summons
No hint of witch or wizard
The subtlety of a sensuous
Mortar and pestle
Drifting through the room
Crushing my resistance
Seeking the presence
Of unknown feelings
The air swirled
Easing my resistance
Succumbing to her wiles
Captured within her aura
I rose to greet her
Somehow
I had become
Addicted to your alchemy
The Ashes clashes are a proper Proustian transporter
Wrestle in the showstopper Aussies pestle & mortar
Faustian deal came a cropper couldn't be fraughter
Our fielders run ragged like some poor market porter
From table topper ripsnorter glory to gory slaughter
Wizard of Oz magic seen in this Baggie Green backwater
For us tragic end as mean as Lean's epic Ryan's Daughter
She knocks on my rib cage
seeking access to my heart again
The knock—the pounding pestle—
taunts, its echo won’t stand to be ignored
I hold my knees and cover my ears
as if that’ll keep my walls untampered
I let my flesh wrap me whole—
so tight I might suffocate,
but I cannot breathe outside this
prison, no—this haven
She’s still here at my door,
holding flowers too vibrant in color—
the amber petals too lifeless for summer
Her indifferent smile, gentle and fair,
yet brings chill to my bones exposed in June air
My teeth knock against each other
tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap—
I want to scream for her to leave
but the only voice made out
was the repeating beat of horror
She’ll eventually enter,
one way or another—
Winter takes up a room in my chest
always waiting to host her.
Ponder the old pestles and mortars
used at times in apothecaries,
older drug emporium quarters.
Some of the porous surface was shared
by grinding both mortar and pestle
ending up in medicines prepared.
Do today's microplastics alarm you?
Minute particles endanger us all;
microwavable repercussions? Whew!
Unrealities and realities
grind together in mortar’s mouth,
spilling, pulverizing, volatile perfumes—
succumbing scents of citrus, crushed copper,
musks of bruised lightning,
threshing thunderous throbs.
Instability incarnate sings her reveling wails,
fragrances of something
Beyond Name.
I guide existences into black curve,
severing them against sharp, obsidian walls,
letting them rupture—letting them bleed
—syrups and statics—
messy marrows of forgotten equations.
Their shapelessness mutable,
pliant pages to pulp in the plunge
of the merciless pestle.
How many combinations will one
blend and crucify—
to crush, to coax, into coherence?
Rasps of bone bend against sanguine salts,
sheens of opulent oil merge with ember embryo—
iron filings licked into life by tempests reigned.
Anything of matter becomes
moisture—mass—mold—
hunger pooling at my basin’s heart,
seething for impending strike,
for sudden and unforgiving
birth.
The cold fog rises from the meadow like smoke from Poppy's pipe...
... ever upward with the sweet savour of meadow grass.
My bare feet, like mortar and pestle, smash out the green scent as I walk through the wet dew, chilled and sprinkled with drops of water.
Goosebumps chase each other up my legs to tender, pebbled breasts. I cross my arms for warmth and blow out a quivering cloud of warm breath.
Revealed now, the rugged brown trunks of the trees surrounding me in the distance.
They wave the fog away, as I've seen Mamaw do with Poppy's pipe smoke...
... with twisting limbs that sway in the breeze.
New Yam
Death brings life
New, tender and green
Earth brown, immaculate white
The priest heralds her coming
The town crier drums it
The farmer dances to the market
It's time to celebrate
Let loose the masquerades
Celestial visitors from yonder
Let the melody of the odó
Echo the birth of the new yam
Like the birth of a newborn
The drums are rolled out
The market is flooded
With news of its coming
The homestead salivates
The streets jubilate
Vegetables will bleed today
The fattened cock will crow no more
The slumber of the pestle is over
For what is in the yam that the knife doesn't know
The noise of pounding
Will keep the neighbours awake
Iyán funfun báláwú is on the menu today
From: Echoes from the Savannah © Makinde Adebayo Adeniyi, 2024
That's one thing about Media Hype:
A help to the The Low - Rated Type,
An unseeded challenger ripe
For a show down with Champion Tripe,
Who'd him not spare blows like a snipe,
On yielding flesh taking a swipe,
Blood permitting rush from slit pipe;
On challenger's body Christ's Stripe...
Many rimes Hypes have struck sad blows,
Blood on River Nile as it flows
Several times brought in stark pestle
For some chap to with it wrestle...
Face of one denied Media Hype
A parade of lines that could gripe
Another morning
Breaks in a wet and thickening
Cling of fog, gathers on leaves to load
Down and bend
Each with a growing weight,
Fastened until too heavy to hold when all
Gives way to spill and
Hammer on the roof of your world.
Inside, the air throbs. Fragile nerves
Jar with every weighted blow and cry to
Keep the light from
Leaking in between clenched lids.
Migraine !.
Nothing worse to wake to,
Or have the inflamed dregs of a dream
Pounding like a pestle in the mortar of the skull,
Quickening with every stroke and
Revved to pummel each clambering thought
Should you try
To escape the prison of your pain. And when
Unable to take anymore, you have that
Vision of a place where you would like to go, then
With your finger, marking it with a large
X on your imaginary map, hoping when
You're ready, you can blast off leaving a smouldering
Zero on the pillow where your head should be.
Let’s all bring our mortar and pestle
And have a party of great papaya pickle
We call this a famous Thai ‘’som tum”
So delicious! Heavenly awesome!
Let’s first wear our kitchen attire
Dance the Thai music, don’t be shy
Then prepare all the somtum ingredients
For superb taste, a hundred percent.
Main is fresh green papaya, shredded thinly
Raw string beans, chopped evenly
Dried shrimps, fish sauce, limes and lots of chili
Tomatoes, peanuts and crabs smashed heavily.
Yummy somtum is always served with sticky rice
Paired with fried chicken—get more, twice, thrice…
A long table party, others can sit on a mat
While enjoying somtum scrumptiously hot!
Aug. 28, 2022 10.20pm
Note *hot =means very spicy (but yummy)
Please watch the video on YT on how to make super delicious Thai Somtum
It's A Pickle Party
Contest Judged: 9/10/2022 2:36:00 PM
Sponsored by: Mystic Rose Rose
Place 5 (up to 9 single w)
Canons of Maternal Love
Whirled pestle like a dervish,
a meter long wooden rod,
in a mortar of clay.
Body swayed in rhythmic moves
as her feet anchored mortar.
Jingle of bangles added harmony.
Lunge of pestle into mortar
pressed condiments to exude
and perfuse sauce with fragrance.
Oh! The aromatic bouquet,
redolent of mother’s kitchen.
Fingers measured blend of spices–
cloves, cumin, pepper, coriander,
cinnamon and a glint of turmeric gold.
Her dawns began with cock’s crow.
She milked buffalo, churned yogurt
and skimmed the spume of butter.
Coaxed us into eating breakfast of Paratha,
suffused with love, enough to last our
two–mile walk and a day at school.
When we returned the house was clean,
floor was scrubbed and clothes hung on the line.
She heard our stories with love and attention.
Our selfish wants never acknowledged,
years were taking toll. But she remained
a center pole, holding the tent–
built of canons of motherhood.
It arrived one day by morning post,
from writing she knew from foreign coast.
Small seeds packed in two polythene bags,
had some criss-cross writing with strange tags.
Martha, Brenda two neighbours, close friends,
cast their wise old eyes to comprehend.
Expert nostrils sniffed for aroma,
this was beginning of weeks drama!
Books and fables they knew from before,
of magic potions that help men score!
They nodded their heads in agreement,
the cure for their men’s predicament!
They soon got their pestle and mortar,
to brew soup so their men are hotter!
For full five days on till that weekend,
the two men were fed medicament....
Result was evident Sunday night,
when men held them in their big arms tight,
Kissed them goodnight and began to snore,
men so very pleased with their golf score!
Written 11/August/2020
“Mystery seeds” contest
Sponsor Carolyn Devonshire
these glass vessels that you see,
no longer appertain to me,
no longer feigning to make part
what was the mainstay of my art,
my skills no more appreciated,
as if I were some rusticated
old fool, living like a recluse,
who’s mind has become “ loose “.
people do not comprehend
the powers which I can bend,
conferred to Man by nature,
developed patiently through nurture.
earth, fire, wind and water,
are the elements where I wander,
they’re the mirror of the soul,
through which Man is made whole;
mortar, pestle, alembics my tools,
books of ancient wisdom my rules,
herbs, spices, base and precious metals,
potions, magic formulas and crystals;
not mere science with which I deal,
but the science of Man; one must feel!
now alas, this is not fashionable,
everything has to be “ rational “.
yes, M.Lavoisier your visit is auspicious,
take what you will, alembics, tools,
glass, books, formulas, take the lot,
for what happens now, I care not a jot.
It fell from a dune
Into my path
This day
Near where freshwater bubbles forth
And waves push foam
Fraught with tempest
Of a southern sea
Upon an isolated shore
That would turn fatal for
Two pieces
Perfect
In shape and size
Mother with child
Mortar and pestle
I can only pray
You rest in peace
All
Smooth
So smooth
After generational use
A vision of people past
Grinding, grinding
Grinding away
At a meager and humbled life
Only to be
Buried away
For another day
That nether came
Until this day
It fell from the dune
Into my path
I walk it back
Into the dunes
And bury it away
Again
Out of respect
And remorse
For I know
It was you
Your people
That died
Beyond
That lands head
Just there
Wrapped ...
In dark wonder
Lost to the moon
In mists of madness
We ...
Are conflagration
You burn my blood
The fiery chaos, coursing
Molten forms in synchronicity
A libidinous engine, erotique
Revving inside you ...
I, the sudoric hand to your glove
Crimson nails rake my chest
You grind me, pestle-on-mortar
Eyes above me rolling back in carnal bliss
I stop, and wait ... teasing
Your gaze returns the moon's delirium
Seeing my vexing grin ...
You squeeze my cheeks like a naughty child
Trembling ... anticipating
Eyes pleading ...
I wait ... building tension ... need
Milking your desire and intensity
And when the want in your eyes is unbearable
I relent, and push you slowly up
Arching with renewed passion and depth
Your hair and soft places lilt
Hypnotizing me ...
Coy, sexy smile ...
Letting me think I'm in control
When we both know
Otherwise ...
Wrapped ...
In dark wonder
Lost to the moon
In mists of ...
US.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Picture Prompt" Poetry Contest, Brenda Chiri, Judge & Sponsor.
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