Uncut Poetry

I am forever left bemused with how unprepared we are to the inevitable. And I talk not only of deaths, but consequences. For every action, thought, word of ours pushes the engine of our existence and our world forward.
 
A dear friend always chastises me when I say something dire, even when it is in jest. He then rattles off five examples of things which went wrong because someone spoke of them - maybe even merely thought them!!
 
But the lesson is subtle - and a lesson for life. The very basic tenets of Buddhist and Jain philosophy talk of 'good words, good action, good thought'. It is not said as a cliche or lightly, it is a truth, even if it is oft-spoken, sometimes reflexively. Because a lot of sorrow which we gather in our lives is because of what is said to us, and what we say and immediately regret.
 
Alas, nothing valuable in life, once lost, is ever retrievable. There is an inevitability. And it's our bane in life to carry with us in all the days left.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on noticing and observing - 

Marriage Made Me a Philosopher

This Light Like Love

On Death (if it happens to stop by)

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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 -

Imagefilm033 by Sascha Ende

Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Imagefilm033
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

We carry so many stories inside us, which keep dying small deaths. Nobody to narrate them, often lying in the dungeons of memory, sometimes forced there, often simply ignored.
 
So much of what we are, and why we are what we are, are these stories. But we are afraid to tell them, often even as they are happening. Because we don't have safe zones in our lives. People who will not start looking at us differently when they discover something contrary to what they see us as.
 
And we live these lives of half truths, or full lies, and navigate our days with beatific smiles which have nothing to do what is going inside us.
 
The caveat is that sometimes we unravel. We either let go physically and find our emotions overflowing or anorexic. Or our minds split due to stress and we are rendered untethered, a psychological shadow searching for its host.
 
But do all our truths deserve the sun? Wouldn't it be chaos if we lay ourselves out bare and naked? Is it better to be true and friendless or halfway there but a part of a culturally acceptable reality.
 
That is where it is critical that we seek and keep safe places, people with whom we can be our worst selves, and we would know they would still love us even when we make it really hard to love us.
 
Because this is so rare, that's why we have people becoming liars or simply collapsing in their internal stress.
 
The only solution is to live a true life, as close to one's proclivities as possible and let the world know about it. What is inside is then outside. Nothing more nothing less.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on stories we tell ourselves - 

The Sublime in the Ordinary

I Don't Think Poetry Will Save Us. And Yet, and Yet...

Seasons as Consultations To Life

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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 -

Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende

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

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

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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