Uncut Poetry
Sunil Bhandari is a poet by compulsion. He says he survives in this world because he can get to write poetry. This podcast is of his poetry.
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Episodes
Saturday Dec 04, 2021
Saturday Dec 04, 2021
"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
Saturday Nov 27, 2021
Saturday Nov 27, 2021
"I see him standing with the skies,
grafted into the clouds,
the breeze resting in his hair,
a black & white etching to life.
I gently come behind him,
put an arm around his shoulders,
as his drift leans into me,
he looks at me soft, soft."
I have often stood at the window with my dad, as evenings have drifted in. We've not always spoken much, but after all our years, we are just grateful to have the time we have together.
Whilst growing up, he was the person to whom I turned to for every question. For me, he could never have a wrong answer. My mum was my compass, but my dad was my guide. In a strange way, without expressing it, without saying anything explicitly, he became my embodiment of truths and life's fulfillments.
I doubt he's ever said "I love you, son," to me. It would have felt, and would still feel, awkward. But the truth of those words didn't require their spelling out.
It was there in his patience for me, his gentleness to me, his waiting for me, his giving his hand to me.
My mum, on the other hand, was always in search of the 'truth' and 'meaning' of things. Swinging from one guru to another, one religious text to another, her quest was unquenchable. I loved her stories of the journey. And I realized much before she did (if she did at all!), that it was the journey which had meaning for her, not the end.
In our search for the fount and meaning of life, we are often waylaid by those who complicate truths. When truly, all truths of life are found in just two things - gratitude and presence.
We can be masters of life and love, if we can be masters of the moment. Embodied in that truth is the script of our entire life.
And I see my dad saying 'I love you' to life with every breath.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which are a tribute to our mum and dad -
Mother's Rambling Lessons on Life Imparted in Morning Walks in my Childhood
My Mother's Lines
Tea-a-Tete with Mum & Dad
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 -
Elysium by Alexander Nakarada
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/8451-elysium
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Nov 20, 2021
Saturday Nov 20, 2021
To receive praise is a need and how to praise is an art.
We tend to be so focused on fulfilling our own desires, that we forget that so many of these fulfillments happen because someone else went on a limb for us. Do we always acknowledge? Or do we just move on, unthinkingly? And the irony is that those who support us silently, who give the wind beneath our wings without being asked, are the ones who need acknowledgement the most.
The strange thing about giving to someone you love is that you even give in the worst of times - and without any gratitude in return, and often it empties you, and you question yourself, but you carry on - you still find reservoirs from where you pour yourself out.
And then acknowledgement comes, often as a look, often as a touch, often as a lump in the throat - and in no time you are full again.
And how should we praise? How can something which is quietly done, often life-saving, invariably invaluable, be ever repaid? Nothing can match love's silent act in value, intent, or intensity.
So you can only be like the winter sun - warm without being cloying, present in spite of the cold, generous because that's what your nature should be.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the gentlest of feelings -
It Takes a Long Time to Arrive From Not Very Far Away
Tea with Naomi Shihab Nye
Tenderness
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 -
Winter Night by Frank SchröterLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/6910-winter-nightLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Nov 13, 2021
Saturday Nov 13, 2021
"All the goddesses have upped and left,
as they are wont to do.
They fought a bit,
showed a few dead bodies,
got us to note the weaponry -
the heads they'd severed,
the wild rides they could summon -
then dived into inescapable imaginations,
depths they could escape only in a year.
Beyond the sweltering of allegories
and the heavy lifting of metaphors,
in the dismal gloom of departure,
will lay the memory of sweat -
for the celestial after-smell is more dour than Dior.
The goddesses herald hope,
but with intimations of winter,
with the message that battles could be won,
but not seasons,
and in the inevitability of a divine victory
lies the onus of legacy
left in our care.
Embedded in the lights
which show the way in the dark dawn
lies the start of the real war -
the daily common life.
But as long as we know the goddesses as breath,
there's both hope and despair -
we will trudge home with self-injuries,
but we will survive."
As autumn begins, and winter peeps into the world, the goddesses begin to come to earth. One after another - Durga, Laxmi, Saraswati. The warmth and energy of their stories prepares us to withstand the rigors of a figurative and metaphorical winter. But in the aplomb, noise and glitter, we often forget that their battles are metaphysical messages and their victories are vision statements.
They are celebrations but also reminders. And they are recurrent because man tends to remember the minutiae and forgets the essence.
The richness of allegories is our cultural repast, and a yearly reminder that time could pass, but any particular moment is always the right time for new beginnings.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the divinity in various forms -
Making Love in a Cathedral on a Stormy Day
The Sublime in the Ordinary
Fear in a Prayer's Home
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 -
Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/2922-sehnsuchtLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Nov 06, 2021
Saturday Nov 06, 2021
"I'd think
the time for recrimination is long
past it's witching hour.
Your hand is still a stiff board
when I reach out to it,
and your body is still your own
when I embrace it.
You've been an icicle
all through summer,
but the time for bonfires is in -
you have to let your long limbs
find their way around me again."
The ebb and flow of love, the turning away and the turning towards its glow, the little angers, the tiny bursts of disappointments - love's hurts which linger as love-bites, it's fast-changing seasons which invariably segue into its winter glow - love should always land in soft places, however hard the terrain it transverses.
Because you can't give up on love. You have to be sensitive to its changing moods. And you have to fall in love again and again and again with the same person. Because you are also a changeable being, and possibly becoming unlovable.
But when you open yourselves up to the adventures of each other, of traversing through each other's changing landscapes, you realize that love doesn't want constancy, it seeks renewal, resurrection, reinvention. In one person lies the love of a multitude. You only need to recognize that. And work towards the greatest travel adventure of your life.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the variegated colors of love -
The Final Goodbye (or Why Lovers Decide to Die Together)
These Darned Long Distance Relationships
Why Don't You Make Love to Me Anymore?
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
Saturday Oct 30, 2021
Saturday Oct 30, 2021
Endings are ruthless. They make you forget every bit of acid existing in relationships in a moment. Regret pours in like the flood of a broken dam. But when the last line has been crossed, when the artery is cut to kill, the path reaches a crevasse - another step is a step into the valley of death.
Deep inside all lovers know when that point has been reached. But hope - that great harbinger of false dawns - persists. It attempts to give color to what is irrevocably grey. And makes the one who been walked out from, to wait, to think, of the strands of gold in the bushels of weed.
But nothing works.
Time slowly covers the one who waits in a thin coverlet of regret which, in time, becomes a thick blanket of bitterness. There's no "I'm glad you were here" which remains. It's only "Why did you even come into my life."
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of hope and regret -
A City Made of Our Sighs
Departures
Love (After The Stories Are Told)
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 -
New Beginning by Rafael KruxLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/5692-new-beginning-License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Oct 23, 2021
Saturday Oct 23, 2021
"Somewhere in the air, something whizzed past.
I looked up to see Daar ji's kurta turn into
a gorgeous crimson flower,
with a small black pinpoint center."
This poem is about what happens when a young child goes to Jallianwala Bagh with his grandfather on that fateful day in 1919.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on 13 April 1919. A large but peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab to celebrate the important Hindu and Sikh festival of Baisakhi, and peacefully protest the arrest of two national leaders, Satyapal and Saifuddin Kitchlew.
In response to the public gathering, the British Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the Bagh with his soldiers. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, he ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was exhausted Estimates of those killed run into 1000s with over 1,200 other people injured.
Apart from the many deaths directly from the shooting, a number of people died of crushing in the stampedes at the narrow gates or by jumping into the solitary well on the compound to escape the shooting. 120 bodies were removed from the well. The wounded could not be moved from where they had fallen, as a curfew was declared, and more who had been injured then died during the night.
The level of casual brutality, and lack of any accountability, stunned the entire nation. The ineffective inquiry, together with the initial accolades for Dyer, fuelled great widespread anger against the British among the Indian populace, leading to the non-cooperation movement of 1920–22. Some historians consider the episode a decisive step towards the end of British rule in India.
Britain never formally apologized for the massacre but expressed "regret" in 2019.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of tragedies we all face in our lives -
The Final Goodbye (or Why Lovers Decide to Die Together)
Chemo: As I Battle Myself
Love's Night of the Long Knives
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 -
On Fire by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5147-on-fireLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Oct 16, 2021
Saturday Oct 16, 2021
"Keep looking at me as we die,
let your look be in my final sigh,
we've been compatriots of beginnings
of which we thought there was no end -
maybe, we'll be every love's destiny,
a passing on, when there's no real reason why,
except
tiredness, tiredness, tiredness."
Procreation is atavistic. But what about death wish? Not that point where a soul tethers at the edge of depression, but the one where you want to end things because there's nothing left beyond except pain, when life becomes a litany of diminishing returns. When looking back is the only pleasure left. And the future can't possibly hold anything more to revel in.
Life comes time-stamped for its beginning. But why not for it's end too? That point when wishes are empty of their mojo. When bodies rediscover their frailty, and are forever at the brink of breaking, inside or outside. When you look at the one you love the most, and she looks back, and the same despair rises inside both of you at the same time - the preordained fact of one of you being left alone.
Should ethics, should law, allow lovers to die together, when they want to? To find their peace just the way they find their love? Why should there be pain when there's nothing left to learn from it? When karma has nothing left to show or showcase? When the only questions left are of beauty created in togetherness, and the sheer meaningless of being left alone.
There should always be a time to do the right thing.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of death and the spirituality inherent in it -
An Epitaph Made of Light & Air
Chemo: As I Battle Myself
A Tragedy With Two Faces
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 -
Fly by Luca FraulaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/8313-flyLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Oct 09, 2021
Saturday Oct 09, 2021
"Peacocks are raucous and find roofs with easy comfort -
there is still place in this concrete jungle, even if
some hearts go for a walk in search of a soul.
Do we find comfort in the quiet disregard of the unfamiliar?"
Our search for the soul of a city is ever so twisted, as it should be. A city needs to be lived in. On its streets, one needs to be mauled with aromas, with its obsessions, with its politics, with its unkindness, with its unseeing generosities, what keeps it awake at night, and what its mornings bring forth.
A visitor passing by will only see it's freshly painted hoardings, not it's tiredness. It's facades and it's colors might give it the sheen it wants to project, but you often have to only turn a corner to see it's permanent shadows.
So then, it's a good idea to spend time in a pavement tea stall or a café in the middle of its bustling heart, and immerse oneself in its cadences and concerns, it's voices and noises, what passes by, who stays, what sticks and what's evanescent, the words which are spoken and laughed away and the sentences which linger, coalesce and fall as hard as stones and refuse to be swept away.
The soul is there for you to see.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of cities, and the love for them -
Indian Summers
Calcutta - A Lover's Epitaph
A City Made of Our Sighs
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 -
Adventure by Alexander NakaradaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/6092-adventureLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Saturday Oct 02, 2021
Saturday Oct 02, 2021
"Come to my house one afternoon,
my bed's unmade for all lovers of mine,
we will find ourselves at our wildest & truest
when we reach the third bottle of wine.
You can kiss me roughly, and push me down,
and I will tell you once more -
though you know thirty per cent of what I am,
tonight you can be hundred per cent my man."
I've always wondered what happens when two lonely souls meet. Are they able to recognize each other through their masks - of verbosity or sullenness? Is there repulsion of seeing someone who also suffers? Or is loneliness a magnet?
What ensues? Deep sharing? A slow fanning of embers, to seek life in what is moribund? Love- as something you can't help feeling? Or Lovemaking as an empty surrogate, which makes you lonelier after the act is done and done with?
Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorize. It can run deep in the being of a person, as much a part of one’s self as talking easily or having skin which glows.
As Olivia Laing says in her haunting book "The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone" -
"Loneliness is personal, and it is also political. Loneliness is collective; it is a city. As to how to inhabit it, there are no rules and nor is there any need to feel shame, only to remember that the pursuit of individual happiness does not trump or excuse our obligations to each another. We are in this together, this accumulation of scars, this world of objects, this physical and temporary heaven that so often takes on the countenance of hell. What matters is kindness; what matters is solidarity. What matters is staying alert, staying open, because if we know anything from what has gone before us, it is that the time for feeling will not last."
Are you lonely? Write in. We'll share a poem or two. Maybe a smile.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of loneliness and yearning -
These Darned Long Distance Relationships
Hope is Merely Fear With a Poor Choice of Lipstick
Love is an Unreasonable Yearner
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 -
Misty Lights by Rafael KruxLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/5686-misty-lights-License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license