Uncut Poetry

Tenderness

"I fell in love with you
                         again
in the soft foothills of this evening."
 
The ebb and flow of feelings is the subcutaneous world of love. We are an amalgam of expectations, ego and confusion - and love for us is as much about the blood which begins to flow rapidly inside our bodies, as it is about the blood which we give to our relationships.
 
However much we may wax about the selflessness of love, the heart craves for balance. Whilst the first flush of love is about giving, the second flush wants to fill empty spaces inside oneself.  And that's when we need recalibration. That's when we need to realize that life or love cannot be a continuous test or a balancing act.
 
Tenderness defines love, not touchiness.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating the grace of love:
Lovers in The Morning
How to Hold Love as it Breaks
I Love You
Find other magical things, like a lovely free chapbook of poems, and other resources here.
 
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 -
When The Wind Blows by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/4622-when-the-wind-blowsLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Lovers of Broken Mountains

Where do the boundaries of love begin - and end? Who is the arbiter of what's right - and what's wrong? For too long, rules have followed the drumbeats of arbitrary prejudices and preferences, bereft of personal choices.
 
It's a tragedy that after centuries of literature, art and norm, there is still stigma,  there is still disapproval, there is still the need for secrecy.
 
As couples gravitate towards their desires and destinies, building defences, building walls, it is incumbent for the world at large to embrace them into normalcy, so they know they are part of the same loving community they have come from, and are not outliers.
 
As Jake Gyllenhaal said about the protagonists in the film Brokeback Mountain -
That what ties these two characters together is not just a love, but a loneliness. I think primarily it was deep loneliness - it is about two people desperately looking for love. To be loved. And who were probably capable of it. And they just found it with someone of the same sex.  Hopefully it can create an equality of an idea: that it's possible that you can find love anywhere. That intimacy exists in so many places that convention and society won't always allow us to see. And we won't allow ourselves to see, because of what criticism — and danger — it might provoke.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating the Pride Month:
Not Making Love, Only Being in Love
I Surrender to That Feeling Again
Call Me By Your Name
Find other magical things, like a lovely free chapbook of poems, and other resources here.
 
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 -
Die Unendliche Geschichte by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/512-die-unendliche-geschichteLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Of the Moon (and Other Things Which Don't Know They are Beautiful)

"And as I lay on the bed, restless, empty,
the moon poured her shimmering beauty,
with the largesse of the caring.
                        I knew it was fragile,
                        I knew it was ephemeral,
                        I knew it was ethereal,
                        I knew it wasn't mine to claim,
but I lay full
       fulfilled."
 
One of the things which people often tend to minimize, or just don't realize, is the value of presence. An ageing father might not want a long conversation with his son - he might just want to see him, touch him, smile at him, and then leave.
 
The aura which we bring into a room already speaks of the essence of what we are and what we mean to others.
 
As we search for our meaning in this world, we cannot ever forget that we are also a part of what it means to be alive, to others. However little our desire to be present, grace, generosity and life, all demand that we intertwine our lives with those for whom we matter.
 
Because giving of ourselves is the most unselfish gift we can possibly think of.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating the joy of giving:
Kintsugi
Chemo: As I Battle Myself
Find other magical things, like a lovely free chapbook of poems, and other resources here.
 
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 -
A Sad Toy Story by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/563-a-sad-toy-storyLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Making Love in a Cathedral on a Stormy Day

"When we knelt in front of Mother Mary,
we did not ask for forgiveness -
her consent was obvious, and what we did 
on the benches was a consensual sacrilege,
which she seemed to let the mists hide."
 
Lovers search for a place - and the occasion presents itself.
 
In this poem, the fact that the couple make love in an empty cathedral, is a symbol of how love makes lovemaking transcend it's physicality to something meaningful. And when you do something which completes you, you are nearing a spiritual state of being.
 
Too often, pleasure is denigrated as base, a basic instinct, but at its core it is a completion. The tassels in a rug, a painting on an empty wall, one small boat in a restless sea.
 
Too often, only too often, do we say no to life, when what it offers is opportunity and what you deny is fulfilment.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating the indefinable magic of lovemaking:
Fallen Flowers
Perils of Breakup Sex
Find other magical things, like a lovely free chapbook of poems, and other resources here.
 
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 -
Epic Intro 2017 by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/558-epic-intro-2017License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Meditations On An Evening

The words "returning home" carry within them a full universe of meaning and feeling.
 
And when evening falls, and the skies are in ruins, and, something inside us too - just the act of turning back and returning into a place which asks no questions, and folds us into its depthless warmth, is an act of saving ourselves.
 
Who are we if not the unmoored boats let loose every day into the wild ocean of the world? Untethered and unfulfilled, we lose ourselves every day, and hence have to bring ourselves back every night.
 
Home then is shelter, home then is a repair shop, home then is the place where we are loved however bedraggled with life we might be.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating the indefinable magic of Evenings:
That Gorgeous Evening When You Left
Departures
 
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.
Get the podcast, a lovely free book of poems and other resources here .
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 -
1000 Lichter by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/3161-1000-lichterLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Call Me By Your Name

Strangely, I always think of winter as a presence and summer as an interlude.
 
Summer is always a passage, to go from state to another, from one feeling to another, to make mistakes, suffer for them, and never regret them.
 
So much of our lives is a litany of inevitabilities, and truthfully and figuratively, summers are when we let our souls seek truths, and however much the anguish, we look back at that time and have no regrets.
 
Also -
In my last episode I had asked you what are the ordinary things you miss most in these trying times. So many of you wrote in. And with such tenderness and nostalgia. Hear what you had to say in this episode!
 
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.
Get the podcast, a lovely free book of poems and other resources here .
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other Summer Poems:
Indian Summers
One Summer
 
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

Vaccine (or Ways to Save Love from Itself)

Seeking normalcy in these incredibly abnormal times has become a task by itself. We hear the news with dread. We fear the very air we breathe in, we fear phone calls which come too early or too late. We fear those who come back home from outside.
 
The yearning for normalcy is a yearning for the small pleasures of life, the ones we took for granted, didn't pay overt attention to, and now miss the most.
 
I miss meeting my friends the most, seeing laughter in their eyes, sensing the indefinable crinkle in their voices, their embrace as we say goodbye. And I miss visiting places. And I miss eating out.
 
Is the vaccine then the doorway for us to reclaim the life we always took for granted?
 
What do you miss most of the ordinary times? Tell me, write into me at uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com. In the next episode, I will share it with the world.
 
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.
Get the podcast, a lovely free book of poems and other resources here .
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to the following poems too -
 
I Carry Love in the Hearse of My Arms
I Think I Am In Love With You
 
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Hades by Sascha Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6903-hades
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

I Carry Love in the Hearse of My Arms

These are trying times. Tishani Doshi writes "You would have expected the clocks to freeze". In this once-in-a-century tragedy, when grief sits outside our doors, and then comes in without knocking, there's only memory, meditation or living in the moment which can sustain meaning.
 
We all make mistakes. Alas, some mistakes are more expensive than others and get counted in human lives. Beyond the mistake, lies redemption and the cure.  But true healing begins when we go beyond the blame, and realize we are also a part of the problem - and have to be a part of the solution.
 
Reaching out is a way to reach the goodness inside us. And kindness, beyond ourselves, is the only poetry which can save others -and save us.
 
Be there for friends who need you. Donate to organizations like Give India on giveindia.org. Be positive. Be active. Be available.
 
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.
Get the podcast, a lovely free book of poems and other resources here .
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 Ende®
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6934-artemis
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

I Think I Am In Love With You

One of the most revelatory things about any relationship, is how we discover a person, and in the process we reveal to ourselves things we didn't know about ourselves. The limitlessness of our generosity, the craziness of our imagination, the things we are capable of doing.
 
We can be the balming breeze, we can be starlight, we can be the softest evening, we can be the sheltering sky. We marvel at ourselves, we are amazed at the things we can be.
 
And we discover the most significant thing of true love - it's makes us fall in love with ourselves too.
 
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.
Get the podcast, a lovely free book of poems and other resources here .
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 -
Lockdown by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7658-lockdownLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Stories Which Survive

"And we sat in front of an /
auburn sky /
and talked of found-homes /
and lost-loves. /
We smiled at our follies & foolishness, / 
& with a tinge of regret (o yes) wondered /
at where life had taken us."/
 
Is there any ending to any story, ever?
 
Even if something ends, there is residue floating in the universe - or in the universe inside us. Because every experience, every relationship, every happenstance leaves either dust or ash, for our lives to deal with. It could clog every artery of our memory or mix in magical ways with our blood to render us changed.
 
Either way we are rendered different, beyond imagination, beyond redemption....
 
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.
Get the podcast, a lovely free book of poems and other resources here .
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com