Dedicated to my cousin, Baby,(Alias Meena)

Sixty today, should I call you by your name‘Baby’?
But believe me you are NO ole baby

Wrapped with a heart of gold
Your words are soft but still quite bold

Untouched by world’s cruel life style
Living always with a big broad smile

Having touched many weak, low minds
You helped them bloom in flowers upright

How do you curse, those abusive verse?
That is still coated with buttery words?

Your laughter is heard across the ocean
It rings with love and true affection

At sixty, hope you will grow more bold
Remember, you are not that old

Your inspiration is contagious, maybe
Although you are still called ‘Baby’

Facebook Poetry Competition number 1

The rules were simple: we had to post a poem no more than 8 lines, and must begin with the word "Face" and end with the word "book".

My take: six entries

Take 1:Face the truth

I am good
Starched are my collars
Now part with your dollars
‘Eight lines’ was the size
I deserve a prize
You collected enough clichés, look,
Now you can publish a book

Take2:

“Face it”,
You had said many times
Holding on to my trembling thighs
On those cold, clattering nights
Your precious words, a soothing balm
Could always mend my fissured heart
But now, look at you, a wrecked fool
I see you crumpled behind that book

take3:

Face above sand
caught in a blizzard
unprotected, helpless
trapped like a lizard
A joke turned sour
his friends, all gone
if by miracle ,he survives
he may write a book

Take 4:

Face of a baby, soft to a touch
Touch on a delicate petals of a rose
Rose, its fragrance hide the pain of the hurt
Hurt from a spike of a thorn beneath its bud
Bud, unfolded mystery, overlapping layer by layer
Layers hidden in the labyrinth of words
Words that come alive and dance on being off the hook
Hooked and trapped, they were, between the pages of a book

Take5:

Face the fact
Fact is no fiction that can be churned
Into a whirlpool of thoughts and feelings,
Fact is a simple truth
A virgin truth that cannot be altered
Not even in a book

Take6:

Face is potholed by too many pokes
Of friends and families in every nook
Vampires fights, somersaulting werewolf
Frightening shadows of their crazy look

Playing Scrabulous, and other virtual games,
Enjoying cold coffee by the brook
Many summers ago, on a rainy day like this
All I would do, was to just gape at a book


But the winners were with much better verses and the dollars went to
Facebook Poetry Competion 1.0

Here are the winners:

#1 Tolu Ogunlesi (Nigeria)

Instructions

Face the future.
Pick the moon off

the dark, cold floor
of night. Slot it gently
into the earth, and wait.

Nothing might happen.
Just like in an empty book.


#2 Janet Vickers (Vancouver, BC)

Face: what do you mean?
That nose gets larger each time
I see it. What can it smell?
Those lids become heavier
over bloodshot eyes and the mouth
droops so naturally. Your image
is intimate and your language foreign.
You are a heavy book.



#3 Dominic O’Rourke (London)

Face left the A Team
Around the end of the Eighties
having had enough
of Hannibal's cigars
and Mr T's golden chains
and Murdock being Murdock
He retired to a cabin,
in the woods and wrote a book

Recipe for friendship

On the fire of warm passion
Heat a spoonful of love
Add in a pinch of compassion
And let your friendship grow

Stir it with emotions of love
Mix it in glassful of imagination
Simmer a while for cooking
A friendship of long duration

Strain out the hatred and disillusion
Churn out the degrees of suspicions
Grind the molecules of corruption
Pound away cloves of rough commotion

The emotions, pure and true, can be
Served with a salad of cheer
On those days of celebrations
When you feeling blue, my dear

Just say it

Not a shirt, on your back
On your knee like that
Know not what, do I do for you?

But darling I love you,
My roses for you are not blue
Don’t you see my profound feeling for you?

Oh, look around this place
All in suits and full of grace
None are bare backed and tanned like you

Don’t you worry, my Dear
I am crouched down here
Just soaking under sweet glances of you

Shoo! Go away right now
You will embarrass me, in this town
I think not, that I have ever spoken to you

You know me, my dear
You reside in my heart, up here
You may hear my love ballet for you

Not now, barebacked
Go home, I mean that
Or you will see, this big car, crush you

Crush me, sweet love
Crush me tight, with your words
But just say that you do, love me too.