ANODYNE

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I let gratitude crumble into

My hard bed today.

Just my breathe is enough, thank you!

The heat outside has churned the

molecules of time I have lived yet

Into a pile of obscurity.

A pale column of steam, I am.

The birds outside are chattering housework and tomorrow,

The sun burns a hole in my escape plan

And dreams. Ones forever without an origin,

destination or route.

Wayward and wanton like a rogue elephant.

Just when we thought our legs and words

Have found their respite,

Here’s arriving a thousand restless tiny clouds,

And to all the climes living in our house upstairs,

that can claim nothing anymore, but a few well spent seconds, while here at home.

 

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.

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.

Single Magpie

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I have had a very rough last few weeks. Just started off with a new job at a completely new place with lots to travelling to and fro from work and home. And I wouldn’t exactly be going ga-ga over my personal life, at the moment. My brains were all over the place and I was hurting people who genuinely loved me the most. I remember being a complete wreck last Sunday and reached the zenith of moments when I lost all my cool. In a way, it was a process of catharsis but it led to a lot of hurt and anguish that, unfortunately, I just couldn’t control, despite regular meditations.

I remember waking up the next morning, to a clear blue Monday sky. I got out of the bed, got my journal and pen, and penned down every single issue that has been bothering me ever since they started. And I could automatically feel the heavy iceberg in me slowly thawing away into a glacier of forgiveness. At the end of writing my journal, I took a resolve. That I will not my bruise my poor heart anymore. That I will treat my heart, my beating crystal of a beautiful heart with much more love and kindness and dignity, that she actually deserves. And from there on began my ability to be a lot more kinder to myself. And in the process, unto others.

I went out for a walk in the cold morning, the brilliant autumn sunshine wavering through the golden leaves, shimmering the green of the grass to make it appear gold- well technically, there was gold everywhere!

Autumn brings out every shade of gold, nature withheld in herself under the many guises of other colours of summer. Every colour of autumn, be it the bright yellow, the tarnished green, the burnt orange, the indifferent brown, the bright burgundy or even the sallow tawny of dried leaves, is a beautiful complement to the colour gold. It is as if, time wants to display her demise into the depth of another year, with a resplendent show.

My face was freezing and my hands nearly lost their sensations but I had never experienced so much happiness and release in a long while like then. I wrote a poem in honour of my day and made peace with myself. My life and its gains and losses- small and large.

I hope you like Single Magpie as much as I did writing it 🙂

 

 

I walked through miles of cold sunshine

Today.

The indignation of hitherto, waiting at its

Bay.

The sun had not smiled yet at the frost in its 

Thick white spread.

Yet the young green leaves shallow-ly bathed in the virgin waters of

The day.

Splinters of ray poked the peripheries of what I tried to see but couldn’t

Say.

Memories of bereft blood and memoirs of unknown laughters held me in my path in a 

daze.

Yonder arose a red mist held up in the sky sewn together with threads of autumn berries

A manic splay.

A magpie, a single magpie, as ominous as me

Soared up with its proud breast, perched upon the highest bough of a discarded tree, it’s foliage 

frayed.

All of us in equal share, in this frame, of the ruthlessness of hope and tomorrows.

She charmed me, this little white breast messiah, with nothing, absolutely nothing.

Just by being there. 

Loner bird, sat like a loner human

A queen in her stillness, a thinker of all sorts.

While I breathed in and earned my thought

Without a dime or two to spend.

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.

 

Pensive Peony

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Do Peonies reflect the mood of their owners? Maybe yes, maybe not. Clearly this one is a dreamer like me. Missing the season of beautiful peonies, but hey it’s just a phase!

 

Sharing a beautiful verse with you today- an excerpt from ” I Heard God Laughing- Poems of Hope and Joy” Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky.

 

My Brilliant Image

 

One day the sun admitted,

I am just a shadow.

I wish I could show you

The Infinite Incandescence (Tej)

That has cast my brilliant image!

I wish I could show you,

When you are lonely or in darkness,

The Astonishing Light

Of your own Being!

 

 

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.

 

 

 

Banyan Tree

Banyan Tree

Heartless Heaves

Headless bangs

Muscle and bones

Tightly wound together.

Soldier comrades in this battlefield

You and I.

 

 

You shouldn’t fall,

I shouldn’t slip.

 

Like a unit we grew.

An age old banyan tree.

Roots up above,

Like giant exposed nerves.

Holiest shade of all, testament to time.

 

Frail I am,

Fragile you are,

Tears- shed and those not,

Smear the I in the me.

Laminating us into

A cocoon,

A stillborn in vivo.

 

My respite are my words,

Your respite is my bosom,

Thin arms holding a strong strong heart.

I thought I knew you

Nine months ahead of any,

The audacity I chose

A grand jest for many.

 

I watch you slip into slumber

Outside my womb,

This time.

Where I wish I held you forever,

The dark dungeons in me.

My swollen feet carried us miles

While you hibernated inside me, dear child.

All alone, but never lonely,

Fears everywhere, but never scary.

 

We will chart a map to sail together

and draw

Our own blueprint of hope.

For you to see the world,

Mine, being the awe in your eyes

As the sun sets for a new dawn.

 

You are the only one

After all,

Who knows the voice of my heart

From inside.

 

 

For my autistic wonder boy-  Accept. Understand.Love.