Giving

far away

(and maybe closer) 

different mothers

promise their children

tomorrows,

like our today.

we are living

desired lives.

may it be

that any tomorrows we see

are taken up like someone's answered prayer.

give

that which is your life’s giving-

as much as you can, 
and if you have more than you need to keep.

maybe god has answered 
their prayers

through you. 

Descending

Descending is an art,

you must know exactly 

how much space your body can take 

before it refuses to sink

any

lower.

Letting go requires grace,

you can’t just fall down straight.

You must have faith.

Work hard-

if potato sacks dream big enough,

they can reach the ground in lilting swirls

like feathers.

musings of a ghost

they were never us,
they cannot know the flowers we must have on our graves.
i worry my soul will keep searching 
among the heaps of colour for what it needs.

the right flowers were never ours. 

'don't stand in your own way', you said, when you left,
and no one but my ghost, 
the one that will keep returning to this scene after everything is over
to find what it needs 
among heaps of what it doesn't want-
no one but that ghost
searching for the right flowers to move on-
will stand in your way and try to block your path.
but
one day it will learn 
that wisps of cold air 
aren't strong enough 
to hold a warm body back.

Shadow

everything i have ever known or felt

is burnt into my shadow,

my storage-place 

for things that are present

but to be kept hidden-

you know what shadows are made of? 

all the things denied to us

all the loves that refuse to fade

all the people we never held

and parts of us 
that are locked-up backstage.

Reminder

have you forgotten 
why
your feet have settled at this pace?
you question
yourself and fate
because you haven't reached where they are-
is that where you are going?

have you forgotten the road to where you want to go?
or you don't know
and you want to run 
down any path 
because they are running?

have you forgotten why you don't run?
why do you doubt the ability of your feet,
when it has been a choice and a decision
to walk-
because this path needs walking,
not running
you know that 
then why
do you ask 
why?

why do you doubt your actions-
is it because they seem to have reached?
where?
when did your actions get entangled with the choices of others?

why are you so focused on their feet
when you have your own 
and they are moving 
out of choice
and requirement 

do you want to run
or do you want to reach?

where you want to go 
requires you to go slow

is your doubt 
based on impatience 
or change of passions?

either way
why do you curse your feet,
condemn your fate,
why do you hate the world?

have you forgotten that you are on your way?

Jumper

the way you love him
makes me remember 
the way i used to love before
when i gave everything
and didn't hold anything back-
now consequences 
have sharpened caution
i want to test
safety nets
before jumping
but
look at you,
reckless nose-diver
putting us all to shame
you prefer broken bones to a hollow heart?
i can hear the air around you
whispering
take heart, take heart
even if it breaks
and takes
years, to simply learn
to love yourself again
take heart

and there you are
you've jumped
without ropes or nets or cords 

but i can see
those moments of delight
when i, and all watching
could have sworn, by god,
that your fall
was truly 
flight.

Method

Sylvia Plath gets too much attention. 
It's like her body of work wasn't enough, 
she had to outdo all her contemporaries 
and future generations of troubled poets
with death.

All these writers trying to outshine one another,
I cannot fathom the depth 
of this insanity
of creation.

I try to decide how to match them. 
How creatively they save themselves 
from oblivion.
-

Coming home

(on the train from Andheri to Malad)

A harmonica tempers the air with a quaint tune.

A man washes his hands and sits down on the floor to eat. 

This train is his restaurant on wheels.

 Where are we headed? 

All of us are going with the train but our journeys don’t end at the same place, do they?

 

As another station slips past, tube-lights and hoardings try to add flavour to the night.

A flock of people disembark. An even larger group gets on. 

We are always headed somewhere, it seems.

The harmonica has resurfaced. 

This time I catch a peek of a face framed trough the shining metal rods of the train grill. 

A visually-challenged man slowly edges forward. 

People give coins.

What I think is love, could easily be pity. Why do they give? 

Is there thought behind their giving or is it unconscious. 

There are men who are  huddled on the floor. 

They sit with folded legs and abandon. 

They are lost to the world that slips by. 

Small smartphone displays make a world that was previously unavailable, now accessible.

They give these screens undivided attention. 

I see a metal-framed bridge under construction.

 A few years ago it didn’t exist. 

Today it is on its way to completion. 

How soon the city changes...

Sometimes it feels like that friend who went to a fancier college or got a better job and then was suddenly in another league. Still familiar but evidently alien. 

Would this city reject me if it ever found out that I wasn’t keeping up?

Lost in words and thoughts, the train now edges into familiar surroundings. 

It will go on into the distance but I must stop. 

Each of us has to disembark somewhere.

Sometimes I wonder about life. 

How can we ever know if we disembarked at the right stop?

On Validation

you do not need the world

to validate your existence 

you are bone and blood

animated by air

you are fire and spirit and soul

the elements support you

the earth holds your weight

here you stand

anchored, alive and awake

don't ask for approval

stamp your feet

leave your mark

make things better 

for yourself and others

change the world, if you can.

let everyone see your worth.

we, the others.

tendrils of longing
emerge from our tree-selves
in a world where they are allowed
to walk, we can only
extend coiled up fingers
to tap them on their shoulders;

but they keep walking.

in the time it takes
to re-orient directions
and face our new suns
those bright gods have slipped out of our sky

how
deep
have these feet
sunk?

how low have we fallen that
even a ray of light
seems out of reach?

layers of invisible guilt
and pins of stabbing hate
separate
gods chosen children, they
who shine in every way
and we
the forgotten children
of lesser gods
dimmed by innocence
and claimed by flaws
we
must
shrink
back
into
our
darkness-es.

watch
as these silences
envelop us

watch
as we disappear
into shadows,
crevices and cracks

watch
as we grow still
and wait
for
our kingdom
to come.

Day 51 #hundreddaysofpoetry- Stay

what is this leaving you speak about-
i will not hear of it.
rationality bends 
in the refracting light
in the eyes of a dreaming man it seems like 
i plucked you out from the stars at dawn
just before they left from my sight
your light is the wonder that swirls out and then in 
as dreams break into day 
and barely awake, 
it seems that i cant soak in enough of you-
seep into tissue
dissolve into blood
fuse into bones
melt into muscle 
do what you must
but stay.

photo taken at Navsari

Assorted Hashtags (Day 12 of #Hundreddaysofpoetry)

there should only
be a knowing of this bliss-
when your heart hovers over mine
our hands intertwine and
things just fit.
#CongruentLove

thousand other lovers
would not make me forget 
the knowing of you
#EideticFool

the void
never really stands a chance
does it?
#OnceFullNowEmpty

it's a crime that even broken hearts  manage to work just fine.
#LostCauseStillFighting

they repair themselves 
like functional beasts 
covered in scar-tissue memory
the 
#OnceBeautiful

these new hearts that see mine 
find it difficult to 
make sense 
of  this pulsating mass of reinforced muscle
#NascentTroopers

sometimes they don't even try
why should they?
let them choose 
from the bounty of the 
less broken
#BackhandedHope

Missing

Missing is a funny thing.

First you miss big things. 
Things that consume your mind completely. 
Feelings that are larger than life. 
and fuller than sighs. 
like love and the space of wanting more
of what filled you up from inside.

next, you miss subtleties. 
Small things. 
Like the shadow of birds flying across 
the sky.

A cup of chai shared before inevitable goodbyes.

And then,
there are those inner missings
like thorns poking out from the inside

Personal things.
Scent on pillows.
Shared silences. 
Presences that overlap and intertwine.
The company of someone who crossed your path. 
maybe just for a little while.

Feelings always manage to sabotage everything, like houseflies.

They never really speak, do they? 
Their presences are enough.
Silences always say so much, 
but mean nothing. 

Even if they do mean something
I tell them not to.

meaning leads to wanting 
wanting leads to waiting
and waiting alone 
leads you nowhere.

let's not wait or want, or want to wait,
what has passed is gone
there's no use adding halos to things that don't shine.

But missing is a funny thing
It always crosses that line.

Ours

meet me 
outside reality
in the realms of fantasy
where doubt evaporates
and limits dissolve 
where the air shimmers 
in the glow 
of everything 
that wasn't allowed.

meet me
in the land where we claim
ours, for the keeping.

our midnight outshines noons-
The sky breaks like an egg
spilling light, sizzling skies
from the love of our moons.

Blank

I could write, but what good would that do.
Words are no substitute for you...

Tell them to keep their opinions to themselves.

Something a writer (at least those with a certain sense of discernment) learns over time, is that the space in which they create, is sacred. 

A space to be respected as it offers up itself to you- to be consumed by your essence, to be filled with a form of expression that emanates from your core. 

This sense of respect and honour is something that non-creators (haters, critics, and their kin) don't get. 

You know how some animals need to be potty-trained or else they will just make a mess anywhere? 
Humans are the same. 

They need to be taught about spaces- what is appropriate and where. 

You are entitled to have an opinion. You are however, not entitled to shove it down someone's throat.

Especially if that person has created something. Has been vulnerable enough to put a piece of themselves out there.

For a creator, a writer or an artist, the critics place needs to be clearly demarcated. 

It is outside. Outside of everything that matters. 

Most often, opinions expressed are insipid, banal and rather inconclusive.

Let me ask you one thing, before having a sense of entitlement to have an opinion, also consider the following-

1) The creator may have already thought of what you are going to say. It takes a certain amount of intelligence or art to create, you know. It's not as easy as 'commenting' on something.

2) What are you trying to say? Don't use your mouth like a rectum. If you have the intelligence to think about what you put in your stomach, have the decency to consider what you bring out of it. Consider what you are saying and make sure that it is constructive, considerate or conclusive.
Don't rant. Nobody has any time for your shit.

3) What is the position from which you are speaking? Are you a reader? Are you an expert? Are you a smartass hater with a holier-than-thou attitude? 

If you are the first, make sure you comment as the first. 
If you are the second I would like to see your credentials.
If you are the third, fuck you.


It is established that this post is angry. But people who create have been on the receiving end of a lot of nonsense lately. 

I just want to make it very clear that we are not here to justify what we have created. Neither are we here to have an argument disguised as a discussion with you, that you initiate just to assuage your lack of talent or self-esteem.

Your opinions are worth what opinions are worth these days. 
And if you don't have the mental capacity to gauge the value of them, I will assist you by pointing out that they're worth nothing. 

Especially if they are shit, which they usually are.

So yes, only express your opinion if you know how to use your mind like a mind and not like an anus.

Hope you have a fantastic day.

Cheers.

Mirror by Sukanya Venkat

This is the first guest post on my blog by the wonderful, Sukanya Venkat. Although she claims to be unfamiliar with poetic terrain, I think she navigates her way quite impressively. Here is Mirror.

This woman inside me

I want to look like her-

fierce

shining

full of chaos and poetry,

unborn stories glistening in her veins,

a mighty winding river 

full of fury 

and quietude.

I want her courage. For adventure. 

For falling darkness and blinding light

Her obsession with the truth. 

Her artless ways of finding it

Her gentle ways of speaking it

Her talent

for alchemizing lies.

This woman inside me-

I want to be her

I want 

her wars

her violent landscapes

her passionate marriage to freedom.

I desire her fortitude.

Her forgiveness. 

Her abundant wrath. 

Her infinite love.

I covet her femininity. 

Her celebration. Her divinity.

Her imperfection 

and her scars.

This woman inside me, 

(my body my heart my soul my brain)

I want her to take me in. 

Turn me into her. 

I want her stories, her secret dreams.

Her life.

I want my mirror to swallow me and spit me out;

covered in mercurial incandescence

in my dreams, I am she. 

There is no separation. 

In reality 

She towers above me 

And I worship at her feet.

Our life…

This life…

No, this dream.

It is us. 

(It is her. It is me.)

I am the cosmos. 

I am her. 

We are inseparable

My nemesis and I 

We 

Are one.

Sukanya is a fellow traveler from Somewhere Else world. 

And when she's not doing fancy things that usually make up her day,  

she is busy waging war on pages with the most difficult weapons to wield- words.

She tweets at Stormborn@suku06.

Unreasonable

My heart is a balloon. 
It wants to rise out of my chest. 
Doesn't realize the mechanics of flotation.
Helium and haemoglobin don't mix.

Inverted Musings

life 

calls me

away and above

everything else.

there is this inward swirling-

ask the wind to show you how

with leaves.

tumble and dry

up in the sky.

but wait-

that's me,

and the swirling is also me.

in my stomach

the churning

and yearning
is once again
me.

life calls out to me.

and paused, somewhere 

high up in the unknowable sky,

the upside-down me

is trying to find out-

how many 'me's have swirled

in the same wind

like leaves 

from the same tree.

On Chances

In the years that have passed, we have changed.

So much.

Sometimes, an echo will add- too much.

Who decides the much-ness of things.

Who decides but you.

Why do we take chances?

It’s instinct.

It’s an attempt to feel more.

It’s an attempt to grow.

Even when you fail, you grow.

We are forever thrusting our feelers out into the world, an invitation saying- 

Yes, I want to feel more. I want to be more than I am right now.

I want to be one with all that there is.

Because maybe deep down, this hunger for everything is a call.

A call from oneself, to oneself.

A glorious returning of the parts to the whole.

The universe exists in you.

As thought.

As potential.

And maybe, as soul.

How can you not want more, when you are made of so much.

We want to feel the vastness of who we are fit and maybe even be, all that there is.