Uncut Poetry

I Can Sense Her Loneliness

How much we are afraid to say what often simply needs to be said. It's an unavoidable fact - the conversations we avoid are the conversations we require the most.
 
Often we are afraid to face the black-&-white of the spoken truth, often we fear the unpredictability of confrontations.  Maybe, in the past, we've had to face the consequences of a scathing talk, and have now sworn to avoid anything which has the potential to break or hurt, welt or injure.
 
But subtly, irrevocably, what lies unspoken also changes us as persons, as it does our relationships.
 
On the surface, a calm descends. The need to avoid conflict overwhelms the need for stark truths. And the elephant sits fat and solid in the room, munching away time, growing fat on what's unspoken.
 
And by including avoidance in the definition of love, we chip away at truths. We become politer but less honest, we want to confront monsters by pretending they don't exist.
In the song of life, we try hard to avoid the discordant note, and thus lose the soul required to give love not only its longevity but its singular breath.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loneliness  - 
Old Poems for Old Lovers
The Art of the Lonely Good Deed
Loneliness (oh these rains)
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 -
Loneliness by Sayan Mukherjee

Old Friends

What is important to us? This question needs to be asked every morning, because weeks, which have been days, soon become years, and when we look back, we find that things have changed and people have drifted.
 
It's not that we lose ourselves in the trivial. It's how we let things subtract our lives rather than add to it. And we regret the time where we let go of opportunities to be with people who mean everything to us, or do things which we feared at that time and now regret not doing.
 
Time and again we are told to live in the moment, to embrace the passage of time, to know that living in the moment is the only way to find meaning. Time and again we regret not embracing it, and to let go of the opportunity which life gives us.
Akin to this are the small stones of resentment which grow inside us, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, for people we care for, which become boulders stopping us from reaching out.
When we look back we can see the reasons of withdrawal were so slight that in the schemata of lives, sorrows and admonitions, they really counted for nothing. But then we would have wasted time, we would have wasted years.
We would have lost out on someone holding our hands in grief. We would have lost out in hearing voices with laughter in them speaking to us. We would have lost out in seeing familiar faces in front of us, growing more loved by the minute, because we love their mind and their heart and what they stand for and what they mean to us.
More than anything else, it is people we should always reach out to and be close to and pick up the phone and talk to, because our true meaning comes from only two things: the things which we do, the people we reach out to.
Our lives are always lesser when not filled with who or what we love. And in turn we are lesser as people.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of friendship  - 
Memory Keeper
Compatriots of Trust
Aaschi
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 -
Spring fervour full version by Musiclfiles
Mystical autumn by Musiclfiles

The Party is Outraged!!!

It's been a tumultuous few days.
According to WHO, one person is murdered every 60 seconds in this world. One person commits suicide about every 40 seconds.  One person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds.
And busy with our quotidian struggles, we let the numbers swirl around our consciousness before slipping away. Until one day, our blasé conscience finds something which goes beyond even our overburdened shock meter.
And in strange infinitesimal ways, our world shifts.
Something inside us breaks - and something else breaks open. The overwhelming feeling that a public tragedy is a personal visitation, beyond a dining table conversation, starts to haunt us. The tragedy becomes our own.
We want to go beyond the pale of our usual cynicism - "what will change? what can change?" - and want to demand change.
Of course, the patient procrastination of officialdom, the slow overtures of bureaucracy, the survival instincts of political whataboutery kicks in - as do attempts to wear us down.
And we understand the strategies, we know how we will grow angrier and progressively frustrated - and our lives will begin to call, our duties will come to the fore. Our livelihoods will begin to be at stake - and we do give up. But we don't give in.
For we know the long game too.
Along the years we have also learnt the power of giving the long rope. We know that beyond the immediate sufferance, there are a few knockout blows which we hide beneath our sleeves. The streets, the polls, protests, poems, a non-cooperation movement, emptying halls where they speak, refusing their doles, walking out in the middle of speeches, a continual call to conscience.
Beyond the pale of greed and corruption, which we all see and bear on a daily basis, we unite ourselves from cynicism, of not giving up because struggles often take years, maybe generations. We ensure that the blow is significant, and political parties, for years to come, will remember that those who bring them to power can never ever be taken for granted.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of what politics does to all of us  - 
Politics on the Dining Table
Mr Hoskote, have you visited Kashmir recently?
No Revolution is Complete Without a Ruined Soul
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 -
Refugees by Sascha Ende
https://filmmusic.io/en/song/539-refugees
 

Memories of Sex Addiction

Who are we if not slaves to our addictions? In the annals of definitions, we are often what we are at our worst. Which is the world's way of prioritising simply - and slotting conveniently. But much worse than our ruthless judgement is what we do with our own judgements about ourselves.
 
Within the tumult of being a sex addict or an alcoholic or being bulimic, there are those despairing battles where we fight our worst indulgences, and heartbreakingly, lose, and lose again, till we stop even putting up a fight.
 
And to live in the shadow of this continuous defeat is to realize how much of a lie we live in, and how everything dwarfs, even in our mind and soul, in front of this assault of unrelenting indulgence.
 
And after a while there's no place to hide - from the world or ourselves.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on sex as life  - 
Her Breasts as Shelter
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 -
Sleepers by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/3232-sleepersLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Old Poems for Old Loves

Our feelings are a yo-yo. Forever seeking more, something different, something ultra energising. As if different is better. We are not able to figure out the difference between excess and endurance. Everything around us moves so rapidly - technology, circumstances, opinions - that even relationships fall victim to the syncopated rhythm of indulgence & desertion. And in this cornucopia of life, we lose sight of what is actually enduring, what is flippant, what we need to hold onto, what we need to release.
 
We indulge in a hurry, and regret at leisure. And in the hullabaloo of choices do not even realize what we've lost. Till, someone recognizes our gold, and realises the unmindful flippancy of our directions - and refuses to let us take them.
 
And in the blessings inherent in our lives, the accumulation of the good we've done in this world, we are able to embrace what finally endures. Our life is changed, we go past the nightmare of options, and find both the compass and the perch, the arc and the direction, the zen of the passing and the depth of what endures.
 
We are then blessed, because we have been found.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems full of nostalgia for love  - 
Living Tragedy Forward
Of Love (& other bouts of sadness)
Favourite People (who we love and leave)
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 Children Of MH17 by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/268-the-children-of-mh17License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

What is Loss, She Asked Me

Loss is embedded into our lives. Its advent has both unpredictability and inevitability written into it. It never comes as a stranger - but never ceases to break us. As humans, we are too embroiled in the now, too sure that the inertia of happiness will never cease its trajectory, to even mentally (leave aside emotionally) prepare for it.
 
The definition of loss, for each one of us, lies in whether what we lose is in our care, is our concern. Whether it lights us up. In concrete (often amorphous) ways, whether it gives meaning to the breath we take. Every which way, loss has a wake of tragedy. It could be a pinprick in the routine or a chasm in our soul. However robust our defence systems, however practical our relationship with reality, loss which means something to us, leaves us desolate.
 
It's this fear which leaves us unprepared.
 
Conversations on death - the ultimate loss - are avoided, because we think it's bad omen. There's no one to blame - we are humans, we have our quiddities, weaknesses, blind spots.
 
But the loss which leaves as deep a cut is when someone we love decides to move on. The sadness fractures us because the occurrence is not inevitable, and is often unexpected.
 
To lose someone who brings gold to our lives, and amber to our hearts, is to lose treasure.
 
We are then no longer the lees of loss, but its extension.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and desolation  - 
Grief Strikes Where Loves Struck First
Letting Go (because I'm alive)
The Things We Become When We Leave
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 -
Blockbuster Atmosphere 9 (Sadness) by Sascha EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/304-blockbuster-atmosphere-9-sadnessLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Living Tragedy Forward

There’s nothing like tragedy to make us feel dreadfully alone. The particularities of what afflicts us is so personal that very few can find ways to hold us together as we fall apart. We seek the shoulder of those whose contours and smells are familiar and make our desolation feel less lonely. But often their presence is merely a body to hold onto, even as we tear up inside.
 
So, paradoxically, if there’s anything which exacerbates the implosion, it is the non-presence of the one we expect to be beside us as we disintegrate. Because what could be more devastating than not having a loved one, whose mere presence lights us up, to be not there to hold us up. One can travel across the globe in multiple hours, there’s no office, no binding, no power - except probably deep illness - which could or should hold a loved one back.
 
And in that absence lies the deepest cut. Because human beings are tactile, and sorrow requires presence. And hurt CAN build upon tragedy.
 
We shrink inside when love gives intimations of deserting us, particularly when it still hasn’t deserted our hearts. However much we find ourselves self sufficient and centered, we are special when people find us so - we are the validations we receive, we are the unexpected call, we are the sidelong glance, we are the deer caught in someone’s glance, we are the unplanned trip, we are the early-morning love-making.
 
Our life is often full because of the smallest gifts. When we are denied those, our lives shrink into decimal places. And our tragedy multiplies.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of lovers who move on  - 
Of Love (& other bouts of sadness)
I Will Leave The Last Line for You To Fill
Favourite People (We Love & Leave)
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 EndeFree download: https://filmmusic.io/song/563-a-sad-toy-storyLicense (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 

Bella's Meadow

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

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)

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