Episodes
![Bella's Meadow](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/Charcoal_Stay_in_Bed_Instagram_Post79awk_300x300.png)
7 days ago
Bella's Meadow
7 days ago
7 days ago
Bella's Meadow*
* inspired by Rumi’s Field by Bella Mahaya Carter. A little help from Leon.
We have all been asked one question from time immemorial - “What do you want to become when you grow up?” Or the more sophisticated variant - “What do you want from life?”
When I think back, I’m bemused with the varying answers, I would have given as I grew, and do give now. When I was a child, it was to be a railway engine driver. Then it became a desire to be a writer. Later as life's reality checks started sinking in, I just wanted to make tons of money. The subtleties of life started showing their face. And I realized all I wanted was happiness, which turned to fulfilment.
And today all I want is to be present in the moment
As the most important things in our lives keep shifting, this subtle transition is one of the benedictions of aging, mirroring, as it were, what is important to me at that phase of my life.
But this last wish, this desire of presence, of being true to the moment, will now stay with me. Because this one moment is all we really have, to create a lifetime of riches. Of making a difference to myself or my world.
Because allied to presence is the biting realisation that we cannot forever be carriers of regrets or recriminations. In a world choc-o-bloc with choices, why in the name of heaven, should we choose to carry stones in our hearts? Amnesia to things which bite the heart late in the night is possibly the most powerful path to serenity. And a good night’s sleep.
The world opens up its riches to those who see it with clear eyes.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the generosity of time -
Things We Gather
In The Drift We Will Find Our Certainties
Letting Go (because I'm alive)
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 -
Lonesome by Sascha Ende
![Her Breasts as Shelter](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/her_breasts_as_sheltraih2e_300x300.jpeg)
Saturday Jul 13, 2024
Her Breasts as Shelter
Saturday Jul 13, 2024
Saturday Jul 13, 2024
We are terrible at recognising symbols. That’s why much of popular art believes in high jinx, and the subtler softer art of hidden stories and allegories find their home in empty art galleries.
For me, one of the greatest joys of living in a world full of wonders is to find symbols and messages - where probably there are none.
But stop me!
It all started in my childhood, when I and my mum lazed in our garden, each chewing a strand of sweet summer grass, watching clouds, discerning shapes out of them and she saying “The next cloud will be what you will be when you grow up” and laugh uncontrollably when it turned out to be the shape of rotund elephant. And now everything sets me up.
From a random political poster saying “Savdhan” as I step to start a day; to the way my skin crawls when I enter a home I don’t like; from the uncharacteristically generous splash of jam on my morning toast put by my wife; to the way flowers fall on me at the exact moment I pass a tree. If I’m crossing a road and a dark cloud passes the sun my instincts go alive, if I step out and a child coos at me I start looking forward to a lovely beatific day. I have never tracked the efficacy or the evolving truth of the messages, because for me it is enough that they are there.
More than their truth it’s their presence which thrills me. It’s like the universe is having a secret conversation with me. As if it is being both naughty and generous - sharing secrets and giving messages - be aware, beware, be alive.
In the same vein, the body of a loved one is chocobloc with messages. The arc of an eyebrow, the way a hand is withdrawn, the seconds in which a hug is broken. The way her thighs touch yours when you sit in a crowded hall, the way she smiles in an elongated silence, the way music wafts out of a filigreed window as you walk to a lover’s house, the way she lets her breast caress your chest in the gentlest way as she kisses you on your cheek.
Beyond practicalities, our entire body is a gorgeous possibility of messaging. The subtle art of Vipassanna - which I so prefer to the secret-mantra artifice of TM or the forced kindness of Metta Meditation - asks us to explore our body for messages, to observe and move on. For in that observance, lies the recognition that it is important to know, but equally vital is the immediate passage away from this realisation.
I see the morning sun filter through the leaves, and there’s a delicate dance happening on the walking path. A snail waits for me, probably to let me lift it to the garden on the upper ground. It’s actually lifting me up.
It’s gonna be a good day.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the mysteries of the body -
Punctuation for Lovers
Such are Such Days (or the days I make love to her)
Finding Souls Between Their Legs
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 EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11-the-way-to-katakaLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sunset at Glengorm by Kevin Macleod
![Musings as I Step Into the Morning (Leaving a Lover Sleeping)](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/Dreaming_of_you_1080_x_1350_px_8njw9_300x300.png)
Saturday Jul 06, 2024
Musings as I Step Into the Morning (Leaving a Lover Sleeping)
Saturday Jul 06, 2024
Saturday Jul 06, 2024
One thing which I celebrate with a fullness of heart, is the normalcy of a strong relationship, which allows for consent, dissent, conversation, dissatisfaction, honesty, fun. The pleasure of knowing one can be one’s own imperfect self, and still make a relationship stronger for it.
Life, as it were, throws enough seductions to test us to our weaknesses - of faith, of belief, of purpose (and I’m not even getting started on religion and politics!) - not to further have the ones who love us the most to sit in judgement on our munificence or transgressions.
And this is, of course, easier said than done. Because much before we demand non-judgement, we have to ensure we give it. I for one am very quick in ‘disliking-rejecting’, ‘liking-embracing’. It is my own private fiefdom of choice and I carry my opinion fiercely inside me, until I deem fit to change it.
And progressively as I age, I show my true feelings more transparently than before. I have fewer friends as a consequence, but the ones I have, are the rocks and rock stars of my life. Because we know this of each other - we are both more because of our quiddities and irritations. And we enjoy the frayed package of what we bring to each other.
Life is complicated enough not to allow love to be nitpicking.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on leaving a lover -
Letting Go ( because I'm alive)
The Things We Become When We Leave
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 -
Your name by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/13-your-nameLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Sunset Fields by Alexander Nakarada
![A Meaning Without Questions](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/Charcoal_Stay_in_Bed_Instagram_Postaelry_300x300.png)
Saturday Jun 29, 2024
A Meaning Without Questions
Saturday Jun 29, 2024
Saturday Jun 29, 2024
Time and again I have wanted to die. Oh there were reasons enough. A bruising fight at home, an extreme embarrassment outside, an absolute absence of intimacy when I was bereft of everything I cared for.
Of course there was an absolute lack of balance, a misreading of circumstances, an extreme reaction. But far more critical was what the universe laid out for me in those times.
I found an iridescent evening full of orange and purple thrown my way. When I stepped out into a budding dawn after a sleepless night, the trees bent down to caress me, the snails stopped their steady progress in the walking path to wave at me with their tiny antlers. I met a stranger who paid for my change in a coffee shop. Poori kainaat. The whole universe was conspiring to tell me - abide, hold on, you are not alone. And I was glad that I noticed.
Time and again, I wake up to the blessings of a world which never stops giving. Of course, it’s always there for the seeing. It’s we who ignore the signs and the colours and the aromas of a world which is crying out loud to be experienced. It’s we, who internalize our senses such that we are awake to our minutest emotional tremor but miss out the broad strokes visible everywhere.
But much more than that, the message to us continuously is that meaning is not a derivative or an equation. It is a presence, to be embraced, without suspecting payback or a happenstance seeking a price. Once we realise this, the entire grace of the world is out for the taking.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on why life is so beautiful -
I Like The Ordinary Life
The Grace That We Give
This: One Grace
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 -
Artemis by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/6934-artemisLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
![Punctuation for Lovers](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/punctuation_for_Loversak55f_300x300.jpeg)
Saturday Jun 22, 2024
Punctuation for Lovers
Saturday Jun 22, 2024
Saturday Jun 22, 2024
"He made love to me,
smooth as a colon,
and when he went down on me
my body waved like a tilde."
Secrecy is an aphrodisiac. As powerful as pursuit, it is often mistaken for ardour. It is by and of itself an indulgence. Its translation into a stronger emotion, into love, is a different genre of effort. Chekhov once memorably said “There’s a proper order for a woman to become a man’s friend. First she’s an acquaintance, then she’s a lover, and finally she becomes a good friend.”
Love then is a long distance run, and friendship a journey of a lifetime.
Far beyond the satisfaction of an ego to ‘get’ someone, is recognition and acceptance. Of giving the time to know someone so thoroughly that the things we fall in love with mesh seamlessly with what we don’t. Irritations become quirks become things we adore. Time spent together is finding meaning in life. And hiatuses are then filled with remembrance which then act as bridges. Till the next time.
My best friends never complain about not being in touch. If they do, they are still lovers and have not transcended to friendship, which in the holy trinity of relationships, is the highest form of coexistence. (☺️)
As I walk through the hundreds of relationships I have formed - online, physical, tangential, official, family - I have continually learnt how it is often our closest relations who suck the marrow out of the marginal happiness we exist within. And sometimes it is mere strangers who elevate us with their attention or life stories. I survive by being in a zen state. As a Buddhist sutra succinctly advises - “Sab anitya hai”. Everything passes.
Indeed.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of how lovers tie themselves into knots -
Lovers as Witnesses
Coming to Your Side of the Bed
Tracing Shadows on Your Back
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 -
True Summer Love by Musiclfiles
Contemplative Cinematic Trailer by Musiclfiles
![Replay - The Improbability of Wishes](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/The_Improbability_of_Wishes6tzsb_300x300.jpg)
Saturday Jun 15, 2024
Replay - The Improbability of Wishes
Saturday Jun 15, 2024
Saturday Jun 15, 2024
This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, republished with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it.
"There's always a road waiting
for one of the lovers to depart."
The saga of love is a play of light and shadow. There is incident, coincidence, an assemblage of adrenalin, a bellowing of blood, a singling out of songs, a resurgence of senses. Love arranges it's own arrivals, often as a storm, frequently as a story, most often as winter sun. It rearranges parts of our life, it splinters our days in ways that distance hurts - the desire to be, see, touch, smell, immerse, borders on desperation.
For deep inside, every lover knows that embedded in the ecstasy of a love story is it's extinction. Sometimes as slow burn, sometimes as a turn on the road, generally as gentle drift, often as an exercise of getting lost.
And then the helplessness ensues. Compasses point towards the setting sun, the flowers coalesce into routine, the days stop beckoning, sunrises only show autumns. But it is as if it's preordained - just as love is as much a part of life as breathing, separation is it's conjoined twin.
Why does love wither? Where does it go when it's gone? Are there secret burial grounds for love, epitaph-less, unmarked? Is there a floating cemetery of feelings in heaven for lost love - a consideration for the hurt, commiseration for the haunted, a soul for the homeless?
Because the inevitability of drift is in love's DNA, it's loss is in its definition, it's celebration is forever aforetime. But we accept its inevitable tragedy, because our life is governed by its presence, and gets its mojo from its promise.
The journey, in life, or love, then, is everything.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of poignant separations -
Heartbreak
Lovers of Broken Mountains
Fallen Flowers
Find other magical things, like a lovely free chapbook of poems, and other resources here.
Uncut Poetry has started a new Podcast called Red River Sessions (on Spotify, iTunes, Pocket Casts, etc), where we will talk to published poets, about their poetry, their craft and what haunts them. It is brought to you by Red River, which is the premier independent publisher of poetry books, and Uncut Poetry.
I am Sunil Bhandari.
I am a poet based out of India. My book of poetry 'Of Love and Other Abandonments' was an Amazon bestseller. My second book is 'Of Journeys & Other Ways to Get Lost'. Both are available on Amazon.
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 -
Reaching The Sky [Long Version] by Alexander NakaradaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/6222-reaching-the-sky--long-versionLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
![Grief Strikes Where Love Struck First](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/grief_strikes_where_love_struck_first6lf8t_300x300.jpeg)
Saturday Jun 08, 2024
Grief Strikes Where Love Struck First
Saturday Jun 08, 2024
Saturday Jun 08, 2024
When someone we love dies, everything changes. The normalcies of routine possibly give an outward sense of balance, but the turmoil inside resembles wreckage. We sink, wish to remain sunk, everything around us seems trivial - almost as if we can see through the artifice of the world, unable to tell everyone how they were missing out on the most important things in life, as they fought over the the insignificant, the trivial.
And as is our wont as good people - we remember the good and the rest is subsumed in a closed vault inside our soul.
And I wonder - what is ever normal?
And I wonder about this connect of love, the dependence, the care, the thought, the absolute faith.
Are we emotional limpets to love? Do we grow stunted in love? Is care just an euphemism for dependence? Is the gift of attention a form of smothering?
Is what we call love just an emotional crutch?
When someone we love passes on, we can see our worlds contract, we see ourselves stand diminished, and we can suddenly see with incredible clarity how much we are an accumulation of all that we’ve now lost. In a strange way, we know we’ve become representatives of who and what’s lost, the protector of the flame.
And then we realize how love is always a completion. We come as sketches and it’s who we love who fill us with the colours which make our lives iridescent, and us a 3D rendition of life itself.
We are lucky if our beings have overflowed with a loved one's presence, cantankerous and problematic as they might have been, because deep inside every such relationship is the kernel of care, the warmth of which fills our life - it burns when it breathes, it glows like a flame when it’s gone.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of passing on -
What Do I Leave Behind?
The Final Goodbye (or why lovers decide to die together)
An Epitaph Made of Light & Air
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 Long Travel to Terra Two by Kalak
![Dreaming of You](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/dreaming_of_you86dmf_300x300.jpeg)
Saturday Jun 01, 2024
Dreaming of You
Saturday Jun 01, 2024
Saturday Jun 01, 2024
A lot of what we are, the comfort of living, the beauty of how we view the world, is when we know we are cared for, and the ones closest to us are people we have implicit faith in.
To know that love is a thought away, that nothing will take away the presence of the person we care for the most, is to know that the primary foundations on which our esteem, worth and respect lie on, is immutable and unmoving. And in a broad sense, it gives us permission to fly - or not - with the full knowledge that we will be saved and savoured irrespective of whether we succeed or we don’t.
Faith is potent force. Its presence, though amorphous, is what really makes life’s meaning tangible, as our relationships get cast in something which is akin to a permanent state of being. We are better because we know we are not alone. However much the physical distance from the ones we love.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on distances between lovers -
In the Drift We Will Find Our Certainties
Lost Atlas of Belonging
These Darned Long Distance Relationships
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 -
Summer Morning (full version) by Musiclfiles
![Life for Rent](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/E04CEBEB-AC72-4AF6-8E62-6CAE214133EA_300x300.jpeg)
Saturday May 25, 2024
Life for Rent
Saturday May 25, 2024
Saturday May 25, 2024
So much of our life is a reaction. As if it is determined by someone else’s priorities and emotions and needs, and we become byproducts of their ambitions and needs.
It could be anybody - a father for whom we become the fulfillment of failed dreams, a lover whose hauntings of failed relationships find shelter in our quiet nooks, a brother who leans on us when he needs validation or unquestioning support. The list goes on.
And we act as obedient support systems - loyal, available, eager to help. Even when we know we are asking for trouble, even when we know it is not in our best interest, even when we know life has something else in store for us.
But we still become someone else’s agenda.
And we suffer for it. Because we get sucked into universes we did not want to be part of, but of which we become reluctant denizens. And our lives change.
And instead of making our own lives, with our own mistakes and compulsions and realisations and hurts and sinews and wounds, we become carriers of other people’s needs, bridges to other needs, derivatives of others dreams.
Till we build the courage to look inside ourselves and force ourselves to learn to say - no, no longer, no more.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the strange dilemmas of life -
Adventures in Two Worlds
Things We Gather
I Like The Ordinary Life
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
Strange New Worlds by Sascha Ende
![The Art of the Lonely Good Deed](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog6892851/the_art_of_the_lonely_good_deedaog47_300x300.jpeg)
Saturday May 18, 2024
The Art of the Lonely Good Deed
Saturday May 18, 2024
Saturday May 18, 2024
We are often given chances in life to go beyond ourselves. These could be random happenstances, things which only we notice, and which we may choose to ignore - or not.
If we pay attention and choose to clutch at those moments and do something tiny, unwittingly we invite, if not the appreciation at least a nod, from the universe. Maybe nothing changes, maybe nobody notices, but here’s the thing - we change, in tiny degrees but enough to shift something inside us.
The quietness in this is important, the element of shy boldness is a prerequisite, the lack of noise is a given. We should do, we should move on.
So, what does this unheralded, unspoken of, often unnoticed, act do to us?
I think, apart from the loud gifts of DNA bestowed onto us, we are also a growth of things we do, an amalgam of all the traces left behind in us of the deeds we do stolidly or impulsively. But something shifts inside us. Something tell us - we are better for it.
To be a good human being does not need headlines or acknowledgment, as it is sufficient in itself. And this goodness radiates out, and people who know nothing of it, also wonder and gravitate towards this basic element which shines through. Because this is a secret which nobody can see but everyone can sense. And makes people dip into their better selves.
The fire grows, as it were, with just a sense of the flame. And the world is a better place for it.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on good deeds which fall on us like soft rain -
A Legacy of Kindness
Maybe, a Little Kindness
Why We Should be Happy with Berry Jam on Table Edges
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 -
Artemis by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/6934-artemisLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
&
String Impromptu Number 1 by Kevin Macleod
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