Uncut Poetry

Don't we all know people who are gold - talented, beautiful, attractive - but who deep inside are uncertain about themselves. They doubt their abilities, and for ever (and ever) they look at every decision they take with trepidation, and consider themselves inadequate. And nothing one says to them, nothing, convinces them that they are talented and just fine the way they are.
 
Until something magical happens. Maybe a poem, maybe a person with insight, maybe a sentence, maybe a song, an art piece - anything which splits something open inside them, and lets out the feelings lying prisoner.
 
They are able to again look at the mirror and see themselves afresh, not with disgust or inadequacy, but as someone just right, just right to fit into the skin they inhabit, gorgeous because they are flawed, and happy to be who they are.
 
Is this transformation easy? No. Will it happen in a jiffy? Possibly not.
 
But when the touch of alchemy comes by, in whatever form, and whatever length of time it might take, it could transform the person. And then it is a resurrection, a rekindling, a reawakening.
 
And the gold always discernible to others, is the person they recognize as themselves.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how we blossom into the person we truly are - 

Lemonade at the End of a Buzzing Day

I Have Watched You Make the Ordinary Holy

When We Know Love as Found

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [email protected]
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Oil by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/oil

Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Haruki Murakami said "Death is not the opposite of life but a part of it." 
 
Loss is an inevitable part of life. It could be the loss of a pet, the end of a relationship or loss of a loved one, the loss of a friend, the loss of a child, the loss of a parent or even our health.
 
No matter the kind of loss, it is never easy. It leaves a yawning crevasse inside our soul. Even if we recover, it's an unfilled pause to our life, a hiatus which often remains one.
At such times, to have someone beside us, someone who does not bring words, but just presence, a hardened softness, cool as breeze, with a depth that is not gravitas but air, someone who tells us that all relationships are sand, and finally sand in the wind.
 
As Rob Liano said -
"The sorrow we feel when we lose a loved one is the price we pay to have had them in our lives.”
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on death and the ways we move on - 

The Final Goodbye (or Why Lovers Decide to Die Together)

An Epitaph Made of Light & Air

I Love You

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [email protected]
 
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

Marriage:
it was the end of all illusions
and the beginning of philosophy:
 
marriage was a lesson in impermanence -
not an idea, a daily unfolding.
 
To remain calm in storms not of my making.
Dinner is late.
      Plans change.
          Cushions are moved.
I nod, smile, adapt.
an ardent disciple of Aurelius.
 
Closet space shrinks mysteriously.
my belongings become
philosophical concepts.
 
Arguments teach a truth:
words are insufficient.
 
“Where do you want to eat?”
“Anywhere.”
(Anywhere is wrong.)
And I discover the absurd
as Camus sighs in his grave.
 
I broach the thesis: “Let’s watch a movie.”
I receive the antithesis: “Let’s talk.”
And confront the synthesis:
talk about why no movie is being watched.
 
“What did I do wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
But something is wrong.
And thus begins a lifelong inquiry into metaphysics -
 
what can truly be known?
 
I examine questions of existentialism:
what gives life meaning?
Choice?
     Duty?
         Love?
 
I lay in bed,
see the fan whirl, and ask -
what is love, bereft of drama?
what is self, when it must bend?
what is happiness, when it must be shared?
 
What, indeed, is life,
when it seeks surrender,
but masquerades as gift.
 
Essay:

I sometimes feel that a philosopher dissects the deeper meanings of life, only to figure out that it is meaningless.
 
And invariably, it has to do with human interaction, thought, foibles, decisions, reactions. And within the rigour of its investigation and compulsions is the real time change which humans wrought on each other.
 
Marriage is the ultimate test of change and resilience. Crafted inside the crucible of love, it continuously tests the human power to forbear, resist, surrender and claim victory in survival.
 
A less cynical view would view the wedded journey as a partnership which keeps on recalibrating itself until it hits a rhythm and a seamless marching cadence.
 
In actuality it is a flawed construct, with a societal burden of "till death do us part". Which of course provides a longevity to breeding, rearing and mutual survival, but comes up wanting in providing universal succour.
 
We are complex creatures. Feeling, hurt, chemistry, comfort, vulnerability, ego, belief, residual memory, remembrance, all swirl inside us like a Milky Way seeking their pre-eminence. And invariably coming up short when sought singularly. Luckily we are social creatures , necessarily living in a world which won't exist if not for cohabitation and coexistence.
 
Thus ironically, the most successful marriages are the ones which recognise this need and build an ecosystem of relationships rather than one rooted in ownership, bound in jealousy, and closeted in insecurity.
 
And just this musing is what makes a simple man transition into philosophy.
 
Unknowingly, a man walks into marriage a simple human being  and walks out wiser.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on marriage and its consequences - 

She's a Fierce One, My One

Love's Night of the Long Knives

How She Knew (that he was unfaithful)

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [email protected]
 
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

I sometimes feel we would be better people if we were slaves to love. Not to work for it, not to fantasize about it, not try to record of its wonder - but just to ease into its trust and surrender.
 
Because the secret of love's power is not its ability to sway but its strength to render vulnerability as an essential ingredient.
 
It's contrarian in concept - showing your weakness to strengthen your relationship - but that is how love gifts nesting space. We are allowed to show our worst, safe in the belief that we will be accepted, advised, admonished but adored. And in that paradox lies the crux of our ability to survive the worst of what life invariably throws at us.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the beautiful paradoxes of love - 

Where We Start & Where We End

The Space Between Our Words

The Ironies of Love

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [email protected]
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

About Moments by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/about-moments

Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The whole process of growing up has an inevitability- and a tragedy - attached to it. A child grows up believing - trusting everything and everyone. An innocence which is endearing - and often encouraged, possibly because of it's anachronism and the fact that an atavistic urge inside us reaches out to something which makes us remember days when we were less cynical, less pessimistic, less prone to mistrust.
 
But how fast realities catch up.
 
Our desire, nay, our encouragements for children to grow up to be 'good' human beings, bumps into reality checks. The advice is then tempered with small counsel like - be practical, don't be an innocent, you have to look out for yourself because who else will.
In a wildly confusing world, our children end up being human beings who are copycats of others- self absorbed, confused, unreconciled and ultimately neurotic.
Innocence - moribund or ignored - seeks its own burial grounds.
 

If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the sea and what it does to you - 

I Heard the Other Day

Kripa (a blessing from a daughter)

The Art of Living

Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [email protected]
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -

Sea Waves
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/sea-waves

Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license