Uncut Poetry

On Falling & Failing

So much of our lives, nay, our heart-space, our mind-space, is about flying or falling, of binaries like coming ahead, being there first, being smarter than the other.
 
We live and die in comparisons.
 
And as always, when we wallow in shallow waters, we never ever get drenched fully.
Without realising that this is the way of the world, that we can be the maximum of ourselves, but never more, and that comparisons are a zero sum game, anathema to coexistence. And actually, if we apply our mind enough, they are the interim stage to combine strengths, compensate weaknesses and come out sturdier, more resilient, a team.
 
But much more than that, falling is merely the stage before getting up.
 
And to realize that in life everything adds up. How that happens is a matter of staying the course, and later, much later, looking back and seeing how it all added up to get us where we did.
 
The universe collects the debris of our heartbreaks, the whisper of our tears, the pollen dust of our regrets, and keeps them in a cachet of remembrance, pushing them back into our lives as accretions, as milestones, for us to know them as growth in time.
In the immensity of our lives, we should fall gloriously, fail with panache, and never forget to be kind to others - and to ourselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on failings and kindnesses - 
A Legacy of Kindness
Maybe, a Little Kindness
Return to You
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 -
Your Name by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Your Name
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

When We Meet Again

Friends, lovers, relatives. People we know intimately. Who do we become when apart? Our bodies replace 330 billion cells every day. Every 15 years or so each one of the cells get fully replaced.
 
We do not remain the same person physically, then what about the metaphysicality, the psychology, the soul, the belief systems of us?
 
How much of us is built by the new people we meet? What is chipped away from the experiences we stumble into? Did an unshared sunset injure us? Did a random hurt hurled in the streets prove to be a last straw even we were not aware of? Did a birthday alone hurt us irredeemably? Did we pass through a crisis with no one to hold our hand?
What do we become when unobserved and unheld by the one we dearly love?
Like flowing water glides unhampered into every decline it finds, our beings slip every slope when there is no hand holding us through.
 
And then when we meet, everything familiar about us draws us in, the memory of what we have been, for and with each other, is the bridge and the magnet. We settle in quickly.
But slowly the stranger emerges; different reactions, differing views, till the person in front of us is not the one which we knew.
 
And our skin prickles, we sink into a growing dismay, and we realize we are holding a stranger in our arms.
 
Our decision to build a relationship anew with, essentially, a stranger is a matter for our heart and circumstances to decide. But nothing is simple.
 
Because, like in all relationships, we are prisoners, freedom fighters, compatriots and counsellors, all at the same time.
 
Who prevails finally is anybody's guess.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on arrivals and departures - 
En route (how I encountered war)
Here we are in the years
Aaschi
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 -
Andromeda by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Andromeda
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

En route (how I encountered war)

I was in Emirates business class,
on the way to Dubai, en route to a holiday.
I was happy with myself, my life.
A full meal, two rom-coms, one to go,
and the relief of my kids tethered,
as they slept after all kinds of indulgences.
There was a peaceful sea which awaited me,
massages, and sunset walks.
This is life, I deserve it.
I sighed into my smile.
 
Then there was static, peculiar to a plane,
the one which precedes an announcement.
Unusual,
as it was dark in the cabin,
and it was sleep-time.
 
"Ladies & gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I know I am disturbing you, as a lot of you might be sleeping. And I debated with myself before coming on. But I thought it would be fair to tell you this. You know about the war between Iran and Israel. If you would care to slide up your window cover and look down, you would see several streaks of light. They are beautiful. Those are missiles. From the direction you would know which country fired them and where they are headed. Don't worry. We are safe. We are several thousand feet above them. Don't worry. All I would like to say is - whoever you support, at the end of these missiles is death and destruction. Not awe. Not celebration. Hold a prayer for those who these missiles find. Because we are all humans. And we all die, when someone else does. Sorry for this intervention. But I thought a collective prayer might help. Good night."
 
I looked out and down into the clear space. And saw how calmly those beautiful streaks travelled with us. If they were humans, we would have waved at each other.
I looked on for long minutes, till the missiles veered and found a new direction. And we stayed onto our course. I am glad the children slept on. Else they would have wondered why their mother held on to the seat handles till her knuckles went white, they would have wondered why she had her eyes closed through the rest of the journey, they would have wondered why she was crying so inconsolably.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on wars of all kinds - 
Politics on the Dining Table
No Revolution is Complete Without a Ruined Soul
For Anyone Who Bleeds
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 -
 Cinema Blockbuster Trailer 10 by Sascha Ende
Begegnung Romeos Erbe by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Cinema Blockbuster Trailer 10
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Begegnung Romeos Erbe
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Survivors

I have always wondered about people who go through tragedy, and then fall into profound grief. Such that their lives change, trajectories bend, and a state of being moribund sets in.
 
In much of our existences, we are all living half-lives in our own way, pur-blind, half-dissatisfied, fully-disgruntled. The world refuses to work according to our diktats or wishes. And we are being continually rebuffed or embarrassed. Till we take it as normal. And then what do most of us do? Chin up. Take the blow. Move on. Things invariably add up somewhere. And find some sort of an equilibrium.
 
Because the future is a consummate stitcher of 'rafoo', a darner of torn existences.
 
But then there are those whose lives don't find their equilibrium, those who stay mired, however impractically we might think, in the turbid morbidity of past tragedies. For so many people, lives stop when their love dies, or heartbreak breaks a bond with life which they assumed was irrefutable, or a financial muscle breaks and their whole existence collapses.
 
They lose the will to find light, the flex to transition into an alternate reality, the humility to seek redemption, the ability to let go of happenstances and embrace realities, to learn, absorb, embrace and then become the light.
 
They never understand the value of taking life seriously but never so much that it becomes both a vice and a vise.
 
Because that's when they find themselves as castaways in their own stories, forgoing their ability to find a log, and the wind, to set sail again, this time with a fearlessness bordering on ferocity.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the dramas of life - 
Sometimes Life Leaves You Alone
Waiting for my flight to Chennai at the Kolkata airport
Why I Disagree With the Moon
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 -
 Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadness
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Tell Me, Tell Me, How a Tear Was Born

There are so many microscopic things which happen which tend to change our lives - not in cataclysmic ways, but in infinitesimal ways making us the persons we become.
A word said in passing, a kindness shown when not expected, a smile out of the blue, a touch when unexpected.
 
And when a person opens up to you with all her vulnerabilities, bare to her soul, regardless of consequences, regardless of the delicate position which she places herself in, is the time when something inside us shifts. We learn of the preciousness of trust, how simple keepsakes can be life-changing, how devastating and life-affirming can a peek into someone else's truths can be.
 
Paradoxically, our complex journey through our lives is made richer when our choices become simpler. To pause to see, to stop to listen, to go silent to let the noise subside, to acknowledge presence, to reach out, to reach in. Each person we meet is actually a cornucopia of dreams, actualities, hopes and compulsions. To breath with them is to travel with clear eyes and a pellucid heart.
 
To know that to know a truth of another is just another way to find our own truths.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on life and its infinite mysteries - 
Elegante Solitude
I Come With Mud
Assisted Suicide
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 -
Gracias by Sascha Ende
Kathrin by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Gracias
Link: https://filmmusic.io.en/song/Kathrin
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Here We Are In The Years

"My love, of a thousand reaffirmations,
we know we will never find ourselves in adequacies.
Beyond the blemishes you absorbed,
                            the ones I ignored,
it was enough for us to have found
the places where we fitted."
 
Who are we if not a pack of confusions and misdirections? Because we are so inadequate in our understanding of what we are, and what is truly important in our lives, we ever so often miss the very opportunity passing by us with a shy smile.
 
Until, through a strange alchemy of circumstances, we don't.
 
And we find something, we find someone. And everything changes.
 
There are a million reasons why something shouldn't work, a relationship should collapse, why an idea should die an immediate death, but something holds us up, gives us the courage of our convictions, a boldness which says "whatever be the consequence". 
 
And things happen, in their own messy ways, such that through the chaos emerges a new kind of light. Soft at times, harsh mostly, often accompanied with music, often blinding - but light it is. And through the clutter we see ourselves and our lives with clarity, and we finally recognize what is important to us.
 
And beyond the love we have for another, things, seasons, art, beyond all the lives we find - our love for ourselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on fractured relationships finding peace: 
When Did You Say
Living Inside a Wound
I Come With Mud
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 -
Blockbuster Atmosphere 10 Relaxation by Sascha Ende
Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness by Sascha Ende
 
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Blockbuster Atmosphere 10 Relaxation
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 Sadness
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

When Did You Say?

Sometimes you just know.
 
As someone once said "I knew you were the one, as soon you walked into the room. There was light coming out of your ass!" Frankly, more often then not, love has less drama associated to its arrival, because it is really a feeling which grows and found incrementally, one conversation at a time, one walk at a time, one infraction at a time.
You know there's something happening inside you when there's an unexplainable feeling of excitement and queasiness and anticipation which starts to brew inside.
 
Why queasy, I have often wondered. And the only answer I get is that you start feeling that you are losing control. And it makes you nervous, helpless. But it's a feeling you enjoy, giving into it is akin to some other power taking control of how you feel and act. The more irrational the act you see yourself do, the more you see yourself say things which you didn't know you were capable of saying, the more you realize you are in the power of something transcendental. Something which will now never leave you unscathed or unchanged.
 
Love has made an entry.
 
Life as you know it ceases to exist. Sometimes infinitesimally, sometimes significantly, you find yourself change. Even when the high fades, and love becomes a normal part of what you live with, there's a glow which never leaves you. Even as obsession tapers into normalcy, you know your life is forever touched with magic.
 
The most significant change comes as you stop thinking in singular terms. Is it freedom curtailed, or life enchanted for its inclusion? If there's excitement inside thinking of experiences together, then you are on the way to a twosome. Plurality is only acceptable with its promise of shared experience if one does not consider sharing an encroachment or a loss of freedom.
 
Because love is, in so many ways, an acceptance and an accumulation. It's the difference between being breathless and gasping for breath. In that thin line of differentiation, lies the richness of our choices and the changeability of everything we stand for in life.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the progression of love - 
I Come With Mud
I Said I Love You First
Quietly Yours
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 -
Angels by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Angels
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Will We Ever Trust The Skies Again?

Someone once said "The path of peace goes through power." It's not only the truth, but a reality. Sadly.
 
In a world largely ruled by men, rules are set as statements of power and domination. Even if someone seeks a hassle-free existence, unencumbered by positions, they are forced to seek bullies as allies, and are blackmailed in the name of security guarantee.
 
In the sick paradigm of domination, innocents are both targets and collateral. And we, who are unaffected till we are not, react in disgust, fear and with the full force of our prejudices. Somewhere in the chasm between left and right, right and wrong, righteousness and hope, prejudice and fact, we the innocents also become warmongers in the name of being opinion-makers. Even on the sidelines we bring in the full force of our prejudices and opinions, seeking to change who cannot be changed. Facts take flight, and we become mood makers, reflected in wayward news articles, op-eds masquerading as headlines, passion disguised as television reportage.
 
We the populace, the common people, thus also become warriors. And find that the battlefields and nationalism which conjoins us, does not stop us from fighting our own battles of our versions of right or wrong on social media, newspapers and tv channels. We stand divided. And we, the hoi polloi, become our own worst enemies.
 
And we find, later, much later, that we are the ones who are the ones who hollow a nation out. Much much after political parties have come and gone, our debilitating legacy stays on.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on country, war, and other confusions  - 
Politics on the Dining Table
Mr Hoskote, HAve You Visited Kashmir Recently?
For Anyone Who Bleeds
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 -
Sleepers by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Sleepers
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Sometimes Life Leaves You Alone

Vincent Van Gogh, possibly the loneliest man in history, once said - “A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.”
 
We are so much, and so little at the same time. As we transverse our fulfilments and relationships, seeing one flourish, and the other flounder. And we struggle to understand why. We find that we are that person who is loved outside as also the person agonizing over the one he loves the most.
 
So much of us lies unidentified. Why - we struggle to know ourselves! As we see ourselves in other people's eyes and are astonished that they see someone else altogether than the one we thought we knew.
 
Until the realization comes that we are illusions trying to find our own realities. And we transverse the world through the dream version of our lives. And we encounter strife and pain. Things start unravelling. And with dread within our hearts we know we are less than ideal.
 
And we find ourselves alone.
 
With space to not find someone else but to find ourselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness and aloneness - 
Elegante Solitude
Sometimes We Remember So Hard
Those Days of a Lost Summer
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

Living Inside a Wound

Too often, only too often, couples live lives of quiet despair.
 
Without knowing that's not ordinary, that's not what coupledon is all about, that we can't have lifetimes compromised to the extent that an entirety passes by and there's nothing to show for it.
 
Life is valuable and nobody, no relationship, has a right to take away from the preciousness of each moment. Because we have too few in the entirety of a lifetime to be in a position to even lose a single one of them.
 
We need quick reparation, priority conversations, time to sort things out, to sit down with the intent of resolution, to come halfway - if not whole - to mend.
But that's easier said than done.
 
For the simple reason that hurts are deep-seated, more cavernous than ego. And fault lines once created are like deep crevasses. The solution is not bandaid, neither surgery because the scars which remain still hurt. It's only massive change and a change of attitude that will act as the silt to fill those fissures - a flood of gratefulness which would leave its residue behind, a continuous level of self-awareness of how our inadequacies are compensated by the other's presence.
 
Couples are a team, and much more than the centripetal forces of differences, it's the pre-assumption of intent which destroys. Close relationships have to start with gratefulness, take each other as gifts and stay in the moment, to find real joy.
Zen is not a strategy for love, it is the first principle. Nothing is impossible if intent and awareness are the emotions which lead.
 
Ordinary lives are then haloed in quiet beautiful ways.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the struggles which mark coupledom - 
Before Bruises Become Wounds
What is Loss, She Asked Me
Grief Strikes Where Love Struck First
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 -
Evacuation by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Evacuation
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license