Paperboat of Dreams

Copyright image Vibina Narayan

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.

Hues of departure

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Yellow fields of brightening joy

Singing out to the lackadaisical day

Painted by wishful thinking.

Penetrated by languorous breathing. 

In pure poetry you assimilate

Into you the violet needs of

Glorious fireweeds .

 

Tired eyes bearing dreams

As much as you repress the 

Sunshine somewhere within 

The thick vapours of strange lands.

Allow me to cast, that which cannot 

 

Be seen or shown.

Rejoice in this day as 

The needles of light from heaven

Percolates into the collective conscience of

All that perished and shall,

But lived the running colours of every 

Landscape they imagined-

Length, breadth and

wiser upon departure.

H is for Hamlet

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This gray day has bought with it

Some wizened thoughts

Of a past not long back

When the feet knew of stinging bites

And the heart found love in

Nothing old or known and

Thorns and stones

(and stupid idealism).

 

The hunger has died, but the burn remains.

The urge to purge the stillborn memories

Of many of our dreams we built callously,

(brick by brick)

Whetted by the stone of curiosity,

Licked by the blade of loneliness,

they have planted beautiful blooms

for the Gods in their slave’s garden.

To be enjoyed while taking a pinch of salt

With a drink to our sealed fate.

 

Grief comes to those who have the time to cry.

The rest of us keep on running until

we run dry.

And sometimes we remember to breathe,

As there is nothing any longer to feel.

While the gush of air in dissolves the body

Into the universe of our head rush,

And the clouds above roll out the drums and the show,

but no rains or tears from within,

I often question the distant rainbow,

I remember seeing while I walked a prayer for you, only to get

An endless reflection of vacuous colours,

in the mirrored room of illusions I built for myself. All over again.

Here

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Sunshine streams through the heavy clouds above

Like a call of conscience from heaven.

Life outside moves with a horizontal vector

While I’m sat here, static and in inertia of limbo.

The lilacs I always looked up to for respite

Have grown pale into the spite of existence grey.

Time moves inch by inch, every swipe of the needle

But a smudge on our longevity and dent in our breath.

I have not spent much here, yet I feel like

I have been home forever, 

The shadow of a stranger in the glass,

Some long lost friend.

I fix my gaze upon nothing yet I’m lost

Even the field of dandelions held like 

Beads of crystal in the softness of dusk tried to call me out.

Maybe that is what it is. To be here and now.

When you are really no where any how.

Harvest

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A midriff lay slumped on a chair.

The spine an adage of another existence.

Crumps and foils have been cleared away.

Breakfast long served before the bell breaks

again, 

another blush of coral in a vase, like

a little child screaming for that what it knows not. 

As always.

The sun has esteemed our resilience. Idyllic fair-weather uncle.

The soil has been trowelled for him to feast and

lush worms exposed in their hideouts.

Little sylphs of the earth, mopping up the dried salt

of this frosted mud.

I lay a bulb, inch apart, and hoped for some gross vanity 

as spring disrupts into shoots and roots entangle the mess that we call life.

I let the water flow out wondering what it would taste like. A drink of brine inside. 

A tongue for foregone rains. Outside.

A silent robin looked around, perching its hunger on a barren branch.

 

Charcoal Analogy

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There is a burning fireplace 

In every heart gathered here.

A dark chamber of secrets hidden

In the deep recesses of their ever burning soul.

Embers of dreams lost to a sallow, callous youth

when the blaze of arrogance danced to defeat.

They now yearn for the spirit of passion, that no longer

lodges in their withering flesh,

Longing to be ignited by the lick of a flame,

A touch, a swig of the tender fuel

Of love that can never be lost. Only found.

Again and again.

Our lives lie in this furnace, these lumps of burnt charcoal

That we are.

Waiting to be picked at, from its state of apparent futility.

These cold and needy times pleading for 

You and me, again,

To be burnt to the end of being burnt,

And nothing more to give but

What was already there.

Yet another chapter being written here. Sat by this fireplace.

To warm another’s belly.

To warm another’s hearth.

Simple Words

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Pollinators taken a few years back when the lavender fields were in full bloom in Snowshill.

Taking this opportunity to share a poem of mine that got featured on Poetizer as Poem of the Day. Hope you like it 🙂

 

 

   Simple Words

 

I sit in my garden for a respite

From hungry mouths and unguarded minds

Don’t get me wrong, I’m one like my own

Talking to trees and flowers

The only art I know

A swift of the white breast of a magpie

And philanderer bees seeking for the sweetest nectar

They come to me on my own

Like a sweet lullaby,

A caress of the wind of

Clouds that move south.

I sit and dream of that cottage by the lake

Where unto mortality I shall ripe

No cacophony of my own ilk to grind

Just me and myself and the rustle of leaves

Bidding time a goodbye.

Violet Reminders

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Today, I would like to share a few verses written by yours truly, inspired by my walk in the garden. I had planted and lost, and not cared and still won . That is what nature has taught me this year. To be patient. To be resilient. Hope you like what I have written.

 

 

I planted yesterday in my garden

Some hopes and

Purple dahlias.

And today they are sweetly usurped by

Little pale pink dreams I do not know

The name of.

Dainty and wild 

like some of us.

Virgin blush enchanting the naked eye.

 But their love for their mother remains like none.

Because they remember me in the wet lands,

Giving birth to 

Amethyst stillborns.

 

Doleful Sunflowers

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Sometimes, just about sometimes, even sunflowers look better in black, white and shades of grey. These colours enhance the depth and melancholy adding a character to the picture. The scene. The mood. Which can be inspiring. Which can be poetic.

I am currently reading Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poetry and I am quite obsessed with sharing her wistful words all around, everywhere I can! So I am not surpassing this chance to share a doleful poem of hers here.

If you’re feeling blue, gray and dark, marinate in it. Breathe and seek for the reason. The lesson. And arise to feel alive again. After all, a film of tear always improves the clarity of your vision.

 

SORROW by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain

Beats upon my heart.

People twist and scream in pain, –

Dawn will find them still again;

This has neither wax nor wane,

Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;

I sit in may chair.

All my thoughts are slow and brown:

Standing up or sitting down

Little matters, or what gown

Or what shoes I wear.