Why do I get a bee in my bonnet –
I mean, it’s really not that hard, is it –
at the mere thought of writing a sonnet
when it doesn’t have to be exquisite?

Not just the rhyme scheme that does my head in
it’s this damn iambic pentameter
which has used up all my syllables now
so this bloody verse doesn’t rhyme at all.

Never mind.  I think I’ll stick to free verse
though it too is a blessing and a curse.

Sunra Rainz (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book, making questionable art, or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com

Single brown female
seeks hot affable male with
enormous library.

Sunra Rainz (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book, making questionable art, or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com

I have a circus of blood inside me
and the workings of my body are beautiful.
As it is. Exactly as it is.
The inconsistency of vision
the oversensitivity of skin
the dryness of hands from overdoing
the non-Platonic proportions
the passing tension from being so good
at shouldering burdens.
This good machine deserves good clothes.

Sunra Rainz (she/her) is a British Pakistani poet, writer and artist based in Birmingham, UK. She has been widely published online and in print. She is also a Room 204 writing cohort with Writing West Midlands. You can usually find her with her nose in a book, making questionable art, or on Instagram: @nina.s.nazir. She blogs regularly at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com

Because love happens in strange places,
the sun may duck out of view, and
the orchestra of rain-song
cannot drumbeat alone
but only when a-
-ccompanied by
deep timpan-
-ic sound-
-swirl.  

Sunra Rainz is a British Pakistani poet, artist and teacher based in Birmingham, UK.  She has previously had work published in Whispers & Echoes, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse, Free Verse Revolution and two Sheffield Libraries anthologies entitled Re-imagining Ageing and Dear 2021.   

She blogs at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com and tweets at @NusraNazir

said the woman, only you know the 
meaning of unseemly power.  
You writhe with quiet knowing
waiting to undress, slow-
-ly cooking.  I can’t
wait for you to 
manifest
and wake
up.

Sunra Rainz is a British Pakistani poet, artist and teacher based in Birmingham, UK.  She has previously had work published in Whispers & Echoes, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse, Free Verse Revolution and two Sheffield Libraries anthologies entitled Re-imagining Ageing and Dear 2021.   

She blogs at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com and tweets at @NusraNazir

Perhaps you ought to
try out a new groove.

The truth is
I was only pretending to like
your blues solo.

But I didn’t get
what the funk it was all about.

None of it
made me tremolo.

Sunra Rainz is a British Pakistani poet, artist and teacher based in Birmingham, UK.  She has previously had work published in Whispers & Echoes, Harana Poetry, Visual Verse, Free Verse Revolution and two Sheffield Libraries anthologies entitled Re-imagining Ageing and Dear 2021.   

She blogs at www.sunrarainz.wordpress.com and tweets at @NusraNazir