The Forest Sings

December 6, 2020Leave a comment

*Image and poem copyright Vibina Narayan* (IG: @soulofscheherazade)

In the quiet hours of lassitude, between the waking and rising hours of dawn, the soul of this forest yearns to be clasped in the crush of your old wide palms, a visceral map of all the worlds you have touched and healed.

Skin at every arousable tip stretched tight upon these mountains and hillocks pine for the wetness oozing from the music only your parted hungry lips can sing.

The alluring darkness of her secret alcoves and explored caves awaits to be played upon by your nimble, long, calloused fingers that have caressed the softness of many a lovers’ lips.

The feet of her earth aches to be entwined with your downtrodden ones, to infuse your roots with the vigour only her soil could give, even if you have to trample upon her,

again and again.

And somewhere between the beginning, the middle and the end of her terrain, when you have trespassed all her rocks and marsh and pits and lakes, she lies wide open and awake, to have all of yours in her, in union and unison until eternity.

Letting the glaciers of all your unshed tears, hitherto, melt into the river that would make her deltas fertile, as she gives you life, while you sob into the wake of her earthy bosom, the ravine pit of her forbearing arms, the undying throes of your passion and life.

Luna

December 4, 2020Leave a comment

*Poetry by Vibina Narayan @soulofscheherazade. Image by Shweta Kallianpurkar @a_tad_aske*w

I prayed.

A little block of

the burdened sky

dropped down.

And the sun blushed,

In the West End of

my bizarre idea of

Paradise.

Letting be, and

a trickle of

Letting go.

All for me, and

All for mine.

I chased

another bubble of hope,

and threw

another reckless of a wish,

to the brooding

handover of twilight.

Fancying always the

Canny, crescent smile

of an obscured shadow

of the two faced

lunar,

(A full blue moon only to usurp my heart)

Upon the transitioning palette of dreams

of tonight.

And it brought me

to you (once again),

And a song humming in me

all week long.

While the winter’s fire

and the abandoned echo

of a child’s laugh

down the long road home,

crooned away the passing

of this evening,

Walking all the miles in

thoughts between

the hearts of

You and I.

December

December 1, 2020Leave a comment

Just re-visiting an old favourite poem of mine simply titled, ‘December’. Hope you like 🙂

*Image and poem copyright Vibina Narayan*

Little bird.

Are you lost amongst

the thorny brambles

knitting up the clear freezing sky.

Are you hungry?

For the grains, the kind, placid strangers of summer

Once threw your way.

Are you searching for the voice

that you once used for

singing the forlorn ballads of

autumn love that

died along with their leaves.

You know, I am here

Waiting with a basin full

of love and salt, shed

this bygone year.

Soaking in them the

seeds of tomorrow for

a much brighter morning,

a much silent noon,

to plant in the soil

of my little strength.

Don’t leave me a trinket.

It is nothing but another memory of you.

Another memory of you

Owing me something.

You may have heard of this,

But my love knows no debts,

or simple words of gratitude.

Just pay me a visit,

A flutter of your beautiful wings,

And those colourful plumes

to frenzy my ill heart.

For to see your beating bosom,

Throbbing with a million unsung songs to be proud of,

And your eyes meeting a million friends

amongst yours or otherwise,

Bring a thousand rhythms of joy,

to my winter soul and

December thoughts.

November

November 26, 2020Leave a comment

*Image and poem copyright of Vibina Narayan*

In the passing of the thin day,

In the midst of this whirlwind

where I stand,

An axis held by tutored lungfuls

of cold, hard, breath,

Presides over the leftover will

in my tortuous veins.

(Like an autumn leaf that refuses to fall)

My eyes,

Marbles of fading memories,

are guided to the tremulous stance of a robin,

her chest, an orange crescent

in this bluegray, beaming pride

of a relentless November.

(Like an autumn leaf that refuses to fall).

The moon rises early

Her soft cream of translucency

Diluting the pitch dark of winter-

The silhouettes of the night

A still reminder of

Seasons and friends

that come and go,

and the ones that remain to fill my home.

(Like an autumn leaf that refuses to fall).

And for this,

I shall stay,

Rooted to the changing firmament of time,

My young, forming, learning, oak

The visceral bearer of

Life and her slow disclosures.

The rings and lines upon this trunk of mine,

An adage of all the stories

seen and untold.

(Like an autumn leaf that refuses to fall).

Wild Woman

November 26, 2020Leave a comment

*Picture and Poem copyright of Vibina Narayan*

The weathered marks of yesterday’s

sorrow summers have

left an indelible pattern to

long for something

Forever.

Little droplets of jewels

kiss the leaf tips a little longer

yearned and adorned in

another life.

Telling fairytales of the

untouched trials of

a damp, damp heart.

Frost numbs, and sunshine blinds (which do you prefer?)

Stood in the wet grass

dazed, squared, and still,

skin of a strong, dry bone memory upon,

a jaded rose quartz,

bare and labile flesh amongst the weeds,

in an overgrown backyard,

reminding, remaining, and

remembering

a young girl in the

wild woman’s art.

Silhouette

October 23, 2020Leave a comment

Picture and Poem copyright Vibina Narayan

Nubile dreams of an unborn woman.

Fair feet that dance through the weather.

Thick and thin veils of rain you

Caress the skin of clouds you fall

from, (upon).

Magic and sweat percolating

your balmy disguise.

Tender breaths freeze in lines,

still smokes of passing time.

As the sun shines,

on a golden cascade of inimitable ribbons.

Travelling bandwagons of the North.

As the teeth of your memory melt,

Into her honeydew mist and the

Sweet sorrow water pulp of

Yesterday’s forgotten promises and joy

rest on your tongue.

Never cry a river, while you await a paradise,

The silhouettes which fleet now

Only within your reach to see ever,

As much as you seek forever.

Never truly anybody’s, never truly there.

Where Gods are lesser creatures and myths walk

miles.

And the mist of rising dawn unleash

The argent face of morning fields.

Your lips that held the secret of her navel

and a night,

that was held together for your desires,

by the wings of seraphs.

Shroud stitched in the corners with

the whispers of the oracles

that will never blight.

Six feet

September 5, 2020September 5, 2020Leave a comment

Soft light whispers into the forgotten corners

Overlooking shadows and secrets laying bare in the middle.

The moon cradles the night in her wistful arms

As you cradle mine, in your made to believe strong.

And all that remains,

is this momentum and space

between our condensed breath heavy with the magnitude of now,

Skin denuded of pride and satin we never bought.

Pulse stroked in the labile hands of time

Held like a pearl, dived deep, hard to catch.

The oyster of your world presents the song of your heart.

This bed I wish to sleep on, the sea of your life, (for the rest of mine)-

On a raft, a plank or may you call it my home.

I inhale in selfish lungfuls of all the dispersed wishes- stray and not

And forage to trap all the stars beneath the veined veils of thick eyelids-

Those carrying dreams and not.

Praying to slip into the burrow of you, skeleton and soul through.

Six feet, deep and under and more.

Six feet, beyond and wide and whole.

Indefatigable

August 27, 2020August 27, 2020Leave a comment

Elusive sunshine, playmate of the cassock clouds

Let me soak you in, until you allow.

The birds cackle- happy silhouettes of freedom

In a happier blue sky,

A song of chores and forage, amongst the thicket of

Coloured woods of a depleting August summer.

The gentle breeze, that was yesterday a storm to reckon,

Makes the trees sway and dance to soothe our listless souls

That lay basking in the afternoon drizzle, believing

they will escape what they cannot.

Home is much cherished with pride until

Love is replaced with the truth of what it is not.

And I breathe to myself, a silent whisper-

Heaven and winds churned by the same skies know,

These trees can bend to break and destroy, but do not.

As much as they know me, indefatigable

Beneath the placid armour of livelihood I don,

To make everything simple and worthwhile.

Paperboat of Dreams

August 25, 2020August 25, 2020Leave a comment

The pen is being wielded by

her misshapen fingers.

A child’s hand- like a supposed

joke, that is pumped by the veins of

A century old heart.

Wisdom grays, that heard a million

Stories, but never knew her own.

In the turbulence of whispers though,

She now sought her belonging.

A feeble, but a strong call,

Like the distant seething of a hurricane,

Opens the gateway, to what

Will always be.

They have had to fell fortresses,

Built of the cement of inherited love.

Over nights and over years,

Over the seven seas of unslept nights.

Her dismantled breath and an autonomous neck, still reaching out,

beyond mediocrity and not being understood-

The radio humming through the ticking pulse of the night.

Allowing the plastic biro and the ink of tomorrow to stain

The callus on a well rounded, cuticle bitten

Finger- to swear and for pleasure.

Setting sail on some once-upon-a-times and

Paperboat of dreams.

For what is poetry to a poet, but

A vacant essay, with

No beginnings and no ends, but

A scattered middle, shaped wholesome with,

Words strewn like confetti and

Cherished like a memory.

Hymn for the soul of a night

August 2, 2020Leave a comment

IMG_20191010_182600_864

Through the looking glass

I see,

Deep wells of resolute.

Never ending chasm of

Another universe.

Blinking big bangs and

Enigma burnt comet tails.

Hearing the notes from

Yesteryears, the gentle waft

Of a piano lay in

The cosmic river of

An incense I burnt.

Deep into another’s heart.

A midsummer night’s shadow

Hugging a forgotten corner.

Stranger on my bed of thoughts.

The well of hope and happiness

Seems bottomless

Until a boulder is hit upon

A leap of faith.

And still we must.

Jump to know what

Being alive is. Like

a requiem for the one

In the looking glass.

An incantation for the one

In your star crossed path.

A hymn for the one

Who felt a never tomorrow.