Uncut Poetry

I Said I Love You First

You have to say it first. You have to do it first. You have to use the words. You have to acknowledge what is burning inside you. You don't have to find a reason. You don't have to wait for an apposite season.
 
Lack of Reciprocation, fear of rejection, the vulnerability of putting one's heart (one's ego?) on line. Life is a hurdle race and love is strewn with obstacles. In the magnificent tapestry we create of our own scars and wounds, a bulk of them - unmentioned, hushed - are self- inflicted. But they are also an atlas of our journey through the landscapes of angularities and anguish. They are markers of our journeys from which we can learn, recalibrate, reignite.
 
Because - where's the time?
 
We have to love in a hurry. Before anything else claims our time, mind, heart. Because nothing would be worth the wait.
 
Just as, in the selfsame vein, we need to forgive first. We can't wait for the 'who's-right-or-who's-wrong' of it all. The moment regret visits our heart, we need to walk across, or pick up the phone, and say that most difficult of words - sorry.
 
Because asking for forgiveness is a major component of love, going unrecognized because it is construed as compromise, a shame, a capitulation, when actually it is a show of strength, vulnerability masquerading as compromise, understanding standing with a hangdog expression asking for a rewind.
 
Every moment is a vacuum. Waiting for us to fill it with what we feel is important. If we choose not to do anything, the universe rushes in - with its offerings, its insistences, its random temptations. The reason why we need love to be a driver for our life is because we can then choose it every minute, every time. Even if it feels premature or inchoate, and there's no stardust falling on us, we would have walked through the evolution of our own truths.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the confusions and insistences of love - 
Tenderly
Love Actually (more & mess)
Perpetrators & Victims of Love
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 -
Dreamsphere2 by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Dreamsphere2
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Assisted Suicide

I read about the famous economist Daniel Kahneman, author of 'Thinking fast and slow', opting to end ha life through assisted suicide, euthanasia. He went to Switzerland, and died.
 
A friend and I were talking about it. And I remembered what Tanu and I have often discussed -
Not to live if we become a permanent burden on someone.
 
I told my friend, I was quite clear - I get to decide when I will end my life. But he asked a simple question - is your life only yours?
 
And it made me pause. And as is my wont, I started writing to clear my head. First I wrote from the perspective of the one who has decided to end his life, and followed it with the feelings of the one who is left behind.
 
And it wasn't an easy decision any longer.
 
It's easy to say that our breath, our life, is a gift to us - and after that it's our decision as to what we want to do with it. But that also started sounding glib.
 
Because the fact is that our breath, our life, is also a collective. We are made of the efforts, the hope springs, the heart carvings, the soul bindings, the body cravings, the thought mouldings of all who love and care for us. We start being someone and then are slowly changed and created out of what others see us as. What might start as an opinion, an illusion, starts getting recreated. We then are what we make of ourselves, but are also deeply vented and grooved by what our world thinks of us.
 
No, we no longer remain our own.
 
If our presence makes a difference to the lives of someone else, we are not only our own. If our mere breath gives solace to someone else, we are not our own. If mere presence, without words, without effort, makes someone's life feel complete, then our life is not merely ours.
 
And that, if nothing else, needs to give us pause, before we decide to go to the next realm.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on deaths and similar journeys - 
I Heard That You Just Set Off on a Journey
Birthday Musings of an Ageing Man
I Will Leave The Last Line For You to Fill
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 -
Movie extract by Sascha Ende
A Sad Toy Story by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/movie-extract
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/a-sad-toy-story
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

I Call Myself a Poet

I often feel that as a poet I am destined to live through the infliction, the gain and the loss, the incandescence and the darkness, of a continuing bruise. I have to confront too many truths, and make sense of them, I have to face the world with too much honesty, and to crack open too many of my lies and illusions.
 
I feel alone, trying to tell the story so I camouflage the truth, to iron up to rebuffs and to the reality of losing space. To know that I am both a mirror and a weapon, though I profess I'm just an agent of stories whose words sometimes seem like a lunging sabre.
 
When all I do is to sit on a desk alone, with a single bulb throwing shadows on my notebook, a pen which makes a scraping noise as I write, shovelling out the detritus of memory, scraping my heart and soul for revelations, which would help me unravel my own mystery.
 
Why do I do what I do, why does the universe pull me towards disaster and then helps me flee, why do I rebuff destiny, why do I run away from sanctuary?
 
And then I stop in my heels, and realize that I know. I'm merely being the poet that I am. No more, no less.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the absolute glory of being a poet - 
Old Poems for Old Loves
How a Poem Finds Itself
I Don't Think Poetry Will Save us. And yet, and yet....
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

Last Legs of the Day

So much of life is of journeys, just the way death is the final one.
 
Of course, I'm not only talking of trapezing around the world, country to country, city to city, in innumerable trips. I am also referring to metaphorical and metaphysical journeys. The ones which reveal the greatest of mysteries - of what we truly are. The journey inside.
 
Because that's where the truth of our sighs and lights resides, of what haunts us in the night and of what drives us in the morn. Of what irritates us, what irrigates us, what parches us, what floods us. We learn to recognize people who freeze us, and the ones who free us. How at times we become blithe spirits when alone, and how we are completely imprisoned even as we move around in company.
 
Who are we if not responses to our own stimuli? Who are we if not found persons, dug out of our own excavations and discoveries? Because in life and in death, however many our encounters, accidents or conjoinments,  we finally keep meeting ourselves.
 
And, without comparison, it is the greatest unravelling. Because journeys help us shed skin, help us become raw and open, vulnerable to our own revelations, to see our deeper fears, and what we are but also what we can be.
 
In the world of circumstances, we are both the greatest possibility and the meanest retraction. Inside us, our wings are tightly-folded. And there's no need to fly in the crowds, as there is enough space to hide, from people and from ourselves. But, journeys give us a chance to unfold those unused wings, renew our promise to the universe, and to slowly, timidly, then surely, learn how to fly again.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on different kinds of journeys - 
Adventures in Two Worlds
In Search of God
On Growing up (that haze of sunshine & dust)
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 -
Der Kristall Ending by Sascha Ende
Der Kristall the Glade by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-ending
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/der-kristall-the-glade
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

Tenderly

What are we if not the ones who crave for second chances. And what is this world if not a place which is spatially abundant but trajectorily linear.
 
An opportunity lost, a call not made, an apology kept back, a feedback reined, a love abandoned. Life is a compulsive giver. It's we who are blindsided with the cornucopia of choice - mistakenly thinking that life will keep giving. That we will keep rebuffing its generosity, with impatience, with disdain, with ego, and we will keep getting what we want.
 
But even the universe gets tired. When it sees its largesse being rejected, being thrown asunder with impunity, of being taken for granted, it just takes its plentitude elsewhere.
That's why trying to get back what we've lost, trying to bring back whom we've lost, are often exercises in futility.
 
Apart from the context being changed, the dominoes having shifted, the reference points getting lost, the heat and light which accompanies first crushes and initial rushes simply do not find any resonance when time shifts reference points. When time and tide  bring other people and more contexts which are eager to adopt the universe's gifts, the munificence shifts.
 
Our rejection of the other then leaves us bereft and alone.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the touchy-feelness of departures - 
Sometimes We Remember So Hard
Departures
I Heard That You Just Set Off on a Journey
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 -
Pullman City Hard by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/pullman-city-hard
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

Love Actually (more & mess)

Love they say
Is the mess you invite,
The mess you make
And the mess you leave behind.)
 
It's a flash, it's a paint,
It's basil in the soup.
It's a kite which finds the sky
Because its cut loose.
 
It's a shore being tugged by the sea,
It's the moon staying on in the morn,
It's the sunshade in a roadside cafe,
It's the chef's apron he can't take off.
 
It's the brownie you crave,
It's a drink you like strong,
It's a glass too many in a pub,
It's a staid party and you want to pole-dance.
 
It's the chilly flake on your pizza,
It's a fondue too hot,
It's the tandoor crispening your roti,
It's the buttered part of the toast.
 
It's the street which you love,
It's the bend in the lane,
It's the view which you search
When the highway is long.
 
It's the blood you give in a camp
Though you don't know its journey's end.
It's the ticket which you get
When you park too long.
 
It's the sock which you wear,
It's the inner to keep you warm,
It's the tattered shirt on the hanger,
The torn jeans you don't mind.
 
It's as warm as worn-out slippers,
A curtain which can't be still,
It's a dream which won't let go,
It's when you're awake though long-gone.
 
It's your song sung in a foreign tongue,
It's a glimpse you get in a throng,
It's the thong you see on a mannequin,
It's when you are hungry in a rich repast.
 
It's the sigh of a dream unfinished,
It's breathlessness after you run a mile,
It's a vein blocked in your body,
It's your heart going still, at first light.
 
When was love ever tea sipped alone?
When was it ever just dawn's first shine?
It's the hale which cracks the wind-shield,
It's when its clear and you're snow-bound.
 
It's your semen in a condom,
It's a baby you might not want.
But when you hold it uncertainly
It's, finally, the world you find in your arms.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the gorgeous mystery of love - 
Punctuation for Lovers
Coming to Your Side of the Bed
Changing Your Address (on marrying & moving homes)
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

Sometimes We Remember So Hard

So much of life is about forked roads and where we choose to lead ourselves.
If we are vigorous about living, we would give little time to ourselves to reconsider or think back to our choices. We ensure that our lives overflow, each minute tumbling into another almost breathlessly, with little time left for reflection or regret.
 
But oftentimes, on a tired evening, when a passing strain of hopelessness seeps into us, and nothing seems to be right - the ones who are closest seem far away, and circumstances weigh us down in the name of destiny - we try to fathom the mystery of choices, and think back to the forked road. And think about lost chances, of what might have been, of what we could be, of who we could have been with.
 
Memories come rushing in - words ignored, questions answered wrongly, those we professed to love taken for granted. It could all have happened aeons ago, but it suddenly seems like yesterday.
 
And we try to think of where the lost ones might be, what could they be doing, who they might be with - and whether, in some balmy sighing night, they think of us. And what would it be like to be called again, or what would they say if we call them? Whether their number would be the same, whether they would recognise our voices, whether their voices would suddenly flood with emotion. Or just remain neutral, unfeeling, silent. Whether at all they ever think of us, the way we are thinking of them?
 
And we wonder that though we might not go back to having the luxury of changing our choice, but whether there is ever a future for a remembered past?
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and regret - 
Before Bruises Become Wounds
Old Friends
What I Miss is the Tender Moment
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 -
About Moments by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/about-moments
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

I Would Hate To Be That Man

I fear disuse. I fear lack of purpose. Not necessarily in terms of conclusions but more in terms of direction. Whatever I do, I feel good to think it adds something somewhere.
 
No, I'm not thinking of increasing the national GDP or my fame or fulfill a spouse's desire. I think of it more in terms of experience. Where nothing goes waste. It could be anything - a film which knocks the daylight out of me, music which haunts me through the day,  a shadow I see lengthening as I lay in the winter sun, the unceasing drip of an incurable tap as I sit reading, of sitting silently with my dad as he nods off to sleep, of letting my mum tell a story from her childhood a millionth time because old experiences are her mainstay now.
 
But I grow older, and have started to forget. What gives me sustenance are traces of the life I have lived and am living. Because that is what experience does - it makes you alive in the moment - and the moment consequently never ends.
 
I am keenly aware, with each passing day, of how life seems long but days turn out to be so short. And before I know months have gone by, and then years. And I have nothing to show for them. Not in memories, not in the senses. And I ask myself - 'what have I got this life for?'
 
And I battle for a full day, and consequently a full life.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on embracing life - 
Those Days of a Lost Summer
Her Breasts as Shelter
And the Crowds Roared as the Music Rose
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 -
Flucht Romeo's Erne by Sascha Ende
Childhood by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Flucht Romeo's Erne
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Childhood
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
 

Waiting for My Flight to Chennai at the Kolkata Airport

We are all strangers singularly and a brotherhood en masse.
 
With a seamless earth and a sky being shared between us, in spite of boundaries - of homes, cities, countries, continents, hearts, colour - we cannot but be similar, looking out for each other and being there lending a hand when we see the other struggle.
 
The tragedy of borders is their illusion of easy divisibility. But a line drawn is a slash on a heart which in spite of divisions seeks conjoinment. In thought, religion, spirit or opinion.
How can we be anything less than a whole?
 
If a million stars can be a galaxy, and adorn the skies with their synergetic beauty, how can millions of us be merely individuals, concentrating on differences, trying to find our fulfilments alone, and not strive for connections?
 
I love the idea of all of us solitary as a reality, but being part of a collective as a necessity. It could be the way our parents are the nurturers and the caregivers, to the way we marry and start our own broods, seeking and getting succor and shoulders. It's not a case of quid pro quo but a primordial need. We are not meant to be alone - however much we might do a Thoreau. And if we can be at one with a partner why can't it be with a collective, a mass, a country, across countries?
 
In the hullabaloo of our own egos and existences, we forget we are lesser alone, as soon enough we start to struggle with the minutiae of our solitary existences, wondering where time went, wondering why we are not what we can really be. 
 
In the schemata of life's design, we are made independent by body, but are never enough in brain or brawn to pull the entirety of our existence alone. It is my firm belief that it is the universe's strategy, its design, that we are made adequate, but lesser - so we can reach out, join hands and find both the strength and the comfort of being in each other's company and support.
 
We are more because we are more, lesser when we are less.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the need for being solitary and together - 
I Heard That You Just Set Off On a Journey
I Can Sense Her Loneliness
The Art of the Lonely Good Deed
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 -
Epic Intro 2017 by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/epic-intro-2017
Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

Walking Into The Winter Sun

I sometimes wonder if there is anything comparable to the generosity of a morning?
 
Once you force yourself up, the cornucopia of the universe is laid out for our delectation. The sun is at its most benevolent, the birds are full-throated, the flowers are sleepy and demure, the air is soft even as it bites, the leaves are brittle, letting themselves to be crunched to a satisfying exuberance.
 
The trees above are in a state of measured chaos. Bushes which have grown thick have deep caverns and shadows, inviting exploration. The smaller bushes are like poodles itching to run away. My walking path has a large amoeba-shaped pond, which suddenly appears as you take a turn, and it bares its shimmering heart to the red of dawn. And the canopy of trees is a filter for light, throwing dimples and moving tapestries as I walk.
 
And I enter this treasure room, as an auberge of hope, a safe place to replenish, an energy drink to jumpstart one's nerves.
 
A morning is a kriya, a dawn is a kripa, as we walk purposefully for a life, which is nothing but an opportunity to find meaning in everything we find beauty in.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the whispers of mornings  - 
Dawn in Hampi
Recalibrating Dawns
Musings As I Step Into The Morning (leaving a lover sleeping)
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 -
 
Medieval Tabletop Session by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/lonely-fish
Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
 
Immersion by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/childhood
Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license