Uncut Poetry

So many people in good jobs and thriving businesses, find out, some day or the other, that they have lost their way. And frittered away life by focusing incessantly on a living. On the promise of a something-promise, a glittering, a destination, a kind of a fulfilment. Of course it is. It is a pursuit, a dream of so many. And we are blessed for anything which brings us our daily bread.
 
But after that?
 
Every life has an inflection point. A point of giving in, giving up, looking in, or simply pausing. Of realizing. That having only one precious life is about putting everything at stake, if we don't do what needs to be done.
 
But here's the kicker. We know - and still get bound. To the machinery which is sold to us as our saviour, our meaning, our definition.  We are marketed other people's dreams to be our own. But what does one do? We have to live, we have to eat.
 
But there are always escapes. As slivers, as days, as nights, as time stolen so we could be with ourselves. With our baggage, our broken dreams, our imperfections - but always aware that if we are alive, we have a chance to find what seemed - almost seemed - lost.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on ways of living - 

This Light Like Love

The Love of an Ordinary Life

A Child Mulling on Life Beside the Sea

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Yesteryear's Decision by Sascha Ende

Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Yesteryear's_decision
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

I can never stop writing about how beautiful this world is and how much we shortchange it. As we drown in its inequities and issues, we lose focus of its true meaning and what it means to our lives.
 
Because to obsess about its warts, its slings-&-arrows, its knockdowns, is to lose track of why these come into our lives. Not to move away from them, not to brush them away or try to machine gun them out of our lives.  They exist to ensure we do. For us to recognize that they are all episodes, to help us realize what we are capable of  - just a few steps away from recognizing what the world has to offer.
 
And then we find that what surrounds us is a beauty which can leave us breathless. Everywhere. Inside a flower. In a touch. In the first sight of a loved one's face, the sound of her breathing.
 
And then we know why we are here, in this birth, in this world. To know how to find beauty. And immerse in it. And become as beautiful as we were always meant to be.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the grace of poetry and living - 

Walking into the Morning's Wisdom

This Light like Love

Stealing Beauty

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Imagefilm 002 by Sascha Ende

Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Imagefilm_002
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

What do you fear the most?
Ma went around the table
asking each one to tell.
 
Son was quick off the bat -
losing all of you.
(Isn't that a given, wife said,
misty-eyed, she held out her hand.
Still doesn't stop being a disaster, he said,
unless - you reach an age of 150,
become batty like hell,
and I have to go to god and say,
you're having fun buddy eh?
Isn't it time you took them up!)
 
Dad mulled a bit, his mind we could see,
rushing through empty spaces,
things he'd lost, with traces like comet tails,
grabbing at what he could catch,
things which glistened -
he sighed - "to forget who you are
as you look down at me
as I take my last breath -
to not know love
or the ones I loved
is to rob myself of the only treasure
I can call my own."
(We were all crying by now,
and daughter said "this is a bad idea, I'm out"
but mum held her arm  - hear this out dear,
we are just being real, to know what haunts.)
 
I thought of life and what it meant,
the love we give, the love we get,
how we strive to make our breath count.
"I just fear not having made a difference
to the world, to you, to anyone,
to take so much of this world's beauty,
and not give something back -
to be mistaken to be merely a taker,
someone who merely wrote and then went to bed.
 
Wife was gazing out of the window,
as the city twinkled back at her,
a woman who thought deep,
a face of a college girl,
a soul as old as the world.
"I can't bear to go before all of you,
to not hear the changing inflections of your voice,
to not see you beautiful with wrinkles,
to not see you hold a child -
or see the sun rise in your soul.
I want to die a moment after
you all take your last breath -
not a second earlier."
 
We were quiet, just swallowed
in the depth of what love could be.
 
Mum had two large tears shimmering
on the surface of her eyes,
a little smile which spelt sad -
I fear not being on my own,
to be the person who needs
to always ask for help -
the hand which helped so many
now reaching out to steady a step -
to lie helpless in a bed,
gazing forlornly at a bedpan.
 
And daughter was weeping openly now -
there's nothing I fear more than losing this -
this - the way we open our hearts,
and know our universe is here,
what the world brings is advantages,
there is no end to the purses and scarves I collect,
but there will be an end to these voices,
this touch, this look, but none
to this love or the broken heart
I will carry after you
till the end of my life.
 
And we let the night pause a while,
as we all held hands in an uneven circle,
and let our breath be known,
that we were alive,
and this touch, this look, this smile,
this passing moment,
this colossal fear
but our greatest joy.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on togetherness - 

Assisted Suicide

Living Tragedy Forward

If I Commit Suicide

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Rising Sun by Sascha Ende

Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Rising -Sun
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

For an agnostic, I'm pretty vigorous in my temple-hopping. I don't let go  even a single opportunity to visit a religious place. Earlier it was a visitation only if the temple was scenic (!) then I transitioned to "if it's accessible, I'm in".
 
Along the years I realized I could treat the Almighty as an ally -  often for resolution (success rate 50%), sometimes with a request for a miracle (largely ignored), more often than not just to unburden my heart, with whatever is haunting me at the time.
 
So now I seek chats with the Almighty. To sit down in front of him (or her) and go into soliloquies - the few conversations I can have without being disturbed! Or, as I found in Harmandir Sahib, to just sit and let the quietude and munificence of the lord's presence (there, the non-believer has said it) wash over me.
 
My mum says she can feel the same grace, when she is with her guru. She can talk, be listened to, not judged, and leave comforted.
 
Because in the best presences, we learn that meaning lies inside us. A benevolent lord or a good guru only helps us wipe the patina off and makes us see ourselves as the solution, as the wonderful beings we already are.
 
And that for me is miracle enough. Anyone - an almighty, guru, alien, coach, mentor, friend -  who helps me centre myself, and find the goodness and kindness I'm capable of, is a god for me.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on all things God - 

In Search of a God

I Have Often Thought About God

Closer to Death.Nearer to God.

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Betonwaldromantik by Sascha Ende

Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/betonwaldromantik
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Too many love stories are about a single self-love. One person's agenda determines the relationship. And a couple subsumes into a singularity without a merger. There are those who survive, through will, by finding a life outside the relationship, considering it fate, or by just adjusting expectations.
 
And the couple misses a significant beat.
 
Two people together have the opportunity to discover two universes, and make both their own. To discover the inner world of someone who you care for or who is your life partner is to discover their core, to become a special denizen in their world, to discover what thrills them, what terrifies them.
 
It's the privilege of a steady relationship.
 
Nothing in our lives happens automatically. Everything has to be earned. Relationships primarily and upfront are about sensitivity and awareness. It is work until it becomes second nature, a subsummation rather than a subjugation. And the couple changes forever. Because to know someone's guilty pleasures, to know what gladdens, gives tranquility, brings solace, is to recognize the best and worst of them. To dislike them once in a while but to never fall out of love with them.
 
The alternate is isolation, to be in front of riches and roam about in emotional penury; of having your flag bearer, your cheer-leader, your 3 am call, your staunch supporter, your potentially-forever fan, right beside you but transversing your life searching for him/her.
 
If that's not a tragedy, then what is?
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how we can be alone even when we are together - 

Love's Night of the Long Knives

On Breaking up (without breaking)

Distances (Kaifi Azmi ke Liye)

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

The Way to Kataka by Sascha Ende

Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/the-way-to-kataka
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license