Uncut Poetry

A Garden of Departures

"The thorns sting, my palms bleed,
the blood stains the acquiescent leaves,
the morning breeze passes by, whispers -
don’t hold on to anything so tight."
 
I walk every morning on this walking path in the gated community I stay in. It’s an arboretum of colours and aromas. But much more than that, it is a passage of evanescence and disappearances. That gorgeous gladiola? Won’t be there the day after. The blazing gulmohur - here only for the summer. The yellow chandelier blossom - too fragile to even last a storm. The fragrant jasmine - empty after giving the entirety of its cachet of scent. The yellow-breasted frangipani? Hardy to look, easy to fall.
 
Everyday I see the shapes - bells and funnels,  flutes and trumpets, cups and hearts, bowls and spheres     - and I see their glory and their fall. I see how they find meaning in their being, an elegance in their stature - and a quietude in their demise. Their existence itself is drama - they don’t need to do anything to draw attention to themselves. They are touched by the eye which seeks pleasure - hidden or visible, they throw the same aroma, and preen quietly within their deep-seated beauty.
 
For me, every walk has meaning - a revelation, a realization, a reaffirmation. I learn - to pass by rather than hold on, love passionately but know the truth of passages, live every stage and love the demise, there’s beauty in the withering just as there’s tragedy in the beauty.
 
I come back from every walk alive to life because I have experienced the truth of departures.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the evanescent -
Distances (Kaifi Azmi ke liye)
Stories Which Survive
What Do I Leave Behind
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Sunset Fields by Alexander NakaradaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/7979-sunset-fieldsLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Waiting For a Storm

"It's a moment before.
 
The stillness is of a zen monk,
the heaviness of a misdemeanor unconfessed,
the puddle is a pool with the sky in shame,
the renegade vine mumbling Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité."
 
A storm as as much an anticipation as it is an occurrence. And as in all things which we expect, which we wait for, there is endless trepidation, an asymmetric thudding, an irrational prescience, and an almost-joyous fear. We know it will change things, we know it will break the breakable and bend the bendable - we find hiding places, corners away from the airstream, we want lesser impact, we seek status quo.
 
And then we open the windows, and ourselves, to the storm.
 
In the schemata of willful resurrection, there is no sweeter joy than to find oneself in smithereens, to know we will find ourselves broken into pieces and nothing, nothing will put us back together in the same way. And in that broken down situation lies the promise of regeneration. Whilst we force ourselves into survival mode, if we are alive to storms, we will seek its destructive power. We will know that the storm will pass, we will know that we will survive, we know it will leave us cleansed, we know it will leave us changed.
 
So, I open my window to storms. I open myself up, to find a new me.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on storms, summers and other life-affirmations -
Bringing The Storm Home
A Summery Love Story (in the middle of winter)
Those Days of a Lost Summer
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Landing On The Spanish Lands by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/6223-landing-on-the-spanish-landsLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The Tragedy of Seeing Life as a Broken Enterprise

"Why do we complicate the nature of flowers,
even as they sway flawlessly on branches
unencumbered as they are with
either our memories of storms
or visions of a merciless autumn.
Maybe, maybe, I'm not ignited enough
to burn out visions of life which find fears
where I should have found the air to soar."
 
We see the world through the lens of our brokenness. Every time our mirror cracks and pieces of us lie at our feet, we scream into the elements. Much before we understand the potential of solace in the world's unflappability, we find symbols of intent and hurt. We lie bruised and we see blood in the claws of the skies, our hearts crumble and we find the miscibility of dust as perfidious, the world grows intractable to our desires, and we have problems with the hard ground we walk on. Time and again we weep and see flooded rivers in our rivulets.
 
What is it about the world that we first see it as an opponent rather than a facilitator? What is it about nature that we ignore it’s nurturing and only sense it’s destruction. As we walk through the fallen flowers of a storm’s  aftermath, we could drown in the incessant floods of grief, or make our peace in the infinite tenderness of a sky which still glistens. And learn that light is inside what might lie ruptured and torn.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on complexities of relationships  -
Why Don't You Make Love to Me Anymore?
That Gorgeous Evening When You Left
He Made Lasagna Before He Left
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Golden Journey Under The Sky Of Autumn by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/6202-golden-journey-under-the-sky-of-autumnLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

In The Drift We Will Find Our Certainties

"We walk under boughs heavy with fragrance,
petals touching our cheeks with infinitesimal tenderness,
and think back to how meaningless was what we’d said.
 
In a universe of a million possibilities, we could be a certainty,
but we suffered our uncertain inequities. 
 
We should have found tenderness like kittens venturing into the world -
with fright and wonder
and the ability to believe.
Alas, we stopped at our conceptions
of each other."
 
They say “The only real battle in life is between hanging on and letting go.” In that one coruscating truth lies the crux of relationships. The question then is not of doubts or misgivings or dwindling love, but it is - have you given yourselves enough time? In that one question lies an irrevocable truth - things take no time to unravel but take time to settle.
 
You have to keep examining, you have to keep asking. Why don't you care? Why did you hurt me? Why did this happen? Why do you believe this about me?   Why did you do this?   The answers would be unsatisfactory, they will be evasive, but though they might not bring clarity to you, they will make the other think. And they will understand why you hurt, where you hurt. The shrapnel will be blunted.
 
At the same time, you are embracing your own strengths, the preciousness that you bring, the value of what you are, and it nullifies when others attempt to make you think less of yourself .
 
You will not like everything, but you will understand a few things. You will be able to cut through the fluff of your own misconceptions, and theirs, to understand the truth of what makes relationships work.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on complexities of relationships  -
Why Don't You Make Love to Me Anymore?
That Gorgeous Evening When You Left
He Made Lasagna Before He Left
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Heart Love by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/9259-heart-loveLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Asperger by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/9264-aspergerLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
 

Come When The Heat of Noon Has Still Not Dimmed

"Come.
Come softly.
Come when the heat of noon has still not dimmed.
Come when the streets have stopped asking questions.
Come when the world has left its own care to us.
Come."
 
In anticipation lies a whole universe. In the waiting lies the shape, the sound, the colour, the contour of beauty.
 
In a world strewn with disappointments, of truths with no spine, and lies with fashionable make-up on, often the only solace lies in the wonder and the dream. And particularly in love, anticipation is often the beginning, the glue, and the end. Particularly, as we wait...
 
Because in that hiatus of restless emptiness, our heart and mind have conversations, nay, battles. There are questions asked, doubts raised, admonishments given. With great rapidity, joy and misery tumble around in a struggle for supremacy - there’s nothing real, but everything seems real. We dread excuses, we anticipate excuses, we destroy excuses.
 
In a span of few moments - minutes - which have the jaggedness  of hours, hearts are deciphered, conclusions are drawn, decisions are hewn into stony consciousness. But everything seems fragile.
 
And then the wait finishes. The nervousness melts. Questions are unquestioned. Answers no longer require stilts. There is light. There is air. Before it all ends, there is life.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on conundrums of life  -
What Do I Leave Behind?
In The Darkness of Our Autobiographies
The Complex Algorithms of Giving
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Heart Love by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/9259-heart-loveLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
 

What Do I Leave Behind?

What do I leave behind? 
 
A folder named 'private poems'
full of diatribes against life,
a bunch of diaries full of tales
of unfinished love,
a half-eaten apple thrown
carelessly into the bush,
a spaniel with warm eyes
who will wait for my morning pat.
 
As I grow older, I often think of the legacy of me. Will I be remembered at all, or not; if yes, for what? Or is that even important, for I won’t be there either way - to see the inevitability of the human drama, and how we are but a traveler  in everyone’s life. We WILL be forgotten, we will be ashes and dust in people’s memory. People we love will find other people to share the tales of their breath and time.
 
Apart from my breath, nothing else will stop.
 
So how will the worth of my life ever be garnered, known? And what would it mean to me? What would it mean for the world?
 
I have lived a life I have filled with listening to the softest of tones, the pause I have revitalized with the feel of skin, the breath I have rediscovered in the euphoria of a note, the careless trails of things I have loved which I leave behind as discoverable secrets.
 
And my refrain reaches a realization. If it matters to me, it would just be enough.
 
Because a life well lived requires no legacy or memory or remembrance. It is self sufficient in itself, it is its own cache of fragrance and song. And traces of such a legacy will find its own place under every sun - like pollen which is unseen but remains in the sun to slowly descend into the beings of everyone who passes by.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on yearning  -
Who Do You Choose to Become When Alone
I Am a Residue of Life
It Takes a Long Time to Arrive From Not Very Far Away
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Francescas Story by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/2981-francescas-storyLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Flucht (Romeos Erbe) by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/3146-flucht-romeos-erbe-License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The Complexity of Simple Lives

An ordinary life is so complex. In its unending inevitabilities and Gordian knots it is both an unravelling puzzle and an enduring mystery. To mesh our life’s experiences with those who we love, is itself a quotidian Everest to be conquered. And we slip, and we fail, and we try valiantly and fail miserably. And then we pick ourselves up and start all over again, and then we fail again. And then we find a rhythm and we lose it. Recriminations and regrets galore come into the equation, and we again seek balance and again find ourselves in the deep end.
 
What is it about ordinary lives? Why does nothing find an equilibrium? And why, when it seems tranquil, it sinks in a morass of habit.
 
What is a complete life, and how does a couple find it? Does it exist in sacrifice and adjustment or does it reside in the brave singularity of lives which happen to find togetherness.
 
As love stops  being a wandering minstrel and works towards finding tranquility in the domestic, the lines of everything gets blurred and within its confined confusion lies the truth of two fully alive people living half lives.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of ordinary lives  -
A Home as an Open Dream
Extraordinary Life
The Ageing of Love
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Your name by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/13-your-nameLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Those Days of a Lost Summer

Youth is so wasted on the ones who carry it as a burden. The changes which wreck havoc to the body and heart are later looked back at as the sweetest damnation possible, irreplaceable but never ever lived through fully.
 
We all know and understand the alchemy of a moment richly lived, but still let it  pass us by ruthlessly, unthinkingly. Why do we consider time as a rich man’s wealth, when it can’t be hoarded or spent endlessly? In its strange and beautiful equalities, we realise it is the only thing bequeathed equitably to all.
 
But we are fooled by time’s serene passage, lulled to forget its irrevocability. And in that lassitude we end with half-lives. In our puzzling pursuit of things which finally matter little - lucre instead of light, breath in lieu of breathlessness - we take away the most precious gift we could give ourselves.
 
And when we realize our folly, often it is with nothing left in our banks - not health, not inclination, not circumstances - and what is lost is a glow, and the possibility of finding light - and being it.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the summers of our lives  -
A Summery Love Story (in the middle of winter) 
Indian Summers
Call Me By Your Name
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
The Positive Way Of Hope Piano Solo by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/7522-the-positive-way-of-hope-piano-soloLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The Complex Algorithms of Giving

People may love to give but they hate being asked to give. It’s almost as if there’s  something accusatory about being asked to be generous - as if so far you weren’t, and here comes this person saying, gently but firmly, “why don’t you at least do it now?”
 
It’s not that people can’t give - they can and they do. But there’s generally a calculation, a quick mental reconciliation of give-&-take, of subjective and objective returns, and a decision which is derivative - if the net result is a dopamine high, go for it. Else prevaricate.
 
More insidious are the false promises, people who can’t say no on the face, because they are feckless, and can’t face their own truths and enunciate them. These are people who can, who should, but won’t - they fudge, they lie, they want the proposal to die out of sheer tiredness.
 
But what about the time a person is duty bound to lend a hand? When morally, as a countryman, as a co-citizen, a co-human, as someone who speaks out against injustice, as someone who commiserated, who shed tears, about what can and what should be rectified, what about such a person? What do you do with them, when they refuse to reach out or reach in?
 
In the schemata of life, one needs to simply go on and ask. Show, talk, make aware, and then again -  show, talk, make aware. Often, change comes in tiptoes, it enters hearts like a whisper, unheralded, suddenly. A continuous litany of no’s suddenly opens a corridor of acceptance - asking you to walk in. Why does it happen? Why does a person change? What makes a person change?
 
Deep within the complexity of our beings lies the tenderness of our essential goodness. We often ourselves don’t know our mind, or it’s mindfulness. Even as a person seems to be closed to us, there's a quiet awareness, a forever openness. And it requires a happenstance, a feeling, an experience, a sharing, a word, an unsolicited kindness, to suddenly open the person up. The revelation is not of a change of heart but a revelation that the heart always existed. All that this inherent goodness requires  sometimes is a mirror to go behind the façade and show the person that he’s a much better person than he himself knew.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk about generosity -  
Her Grace Without Notice
Extraordinary Life
The 101 of How to Praise (someone you 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 -
Betelgeuse by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5780-betelgeuseLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Winter Night by Frank SchröterLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/6910-winter-nightLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

He Made Lasagna Before He Left

Heartbreak is often an ailment which is never prescribed for, but the one responsible for so much of what drives a person, often off a cliff, often into darknesses. In the stories of our fallen leaves lie traces of heady summers and barren winters. We are what we are, but so much of the blood we spill is because of the shrapnel of a broken heart’s pieces. In the morning of realizations lies the barrenness of what we could have been.
 
But the deepest cut is when the person we love - who we thought loved us too, no, who we KNEW loved us too - now says she loves ONLY  someone else. Is it a lapse of the flesh,  is it lust masquerading as love,  is it a discovery of a truer love? Is it a drift away from me, or a choice made in spite of me.   How much of what she was then a lie, how much a transformation? Is there the possibility of one heart holding two loves? Is that acceptable? Is it real?
 
The real challenge is to know it’s she - not me, if it’s perfidy, it’s a lesson for me not to be her, if it’s a change of heart, to learn grace instead and kindness, to learn and know what moving on means. To know that to be hurt might not be right, but could often be inevitable. But the universe always has something true for the truly hurt  - the possibility of survival, of finding grace in the deepest cut. And in that one benediction lies the possibility of finding the best in life, of finding the best in ourselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk about love in trouble -  
The Door is Unlocked. I am Awake.
The Final Goodbye (or Why Lovers Decide to Die Together)
The Improbability of Wishes
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/song/3232-sleepersLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license