Uncut Poetry

Heartbreak

"You will seek other beds and alien alleys,
and make yourself lonelier with every journey,
as you dream of me in the false dawn of other arms,
not knowing me as someone with a lonely soul."
 
Every relationship is a journey. Where it starts is in a fuzzy past, but equally amorphous is how it ends. Because endings are never surgical cuts, but a bunch of tassels, each thread a possible way out - or way in. And that's what reality is.
 
Because people change. How we feel changes. What we feel changes.  And just like a poem never ends but finds eternity in the heart of its reader, love changes form and finds a cosy nook to reside. It moves to find meaning in life - which might have everything to do with love, but nothing to do with a love affair.
 
And that's how life takes us in its palm - often with someone, often without. But there's always the walking, the movement, the bliss, the ecstasy, and the pain, the anguish, the residue, the remembrance....
 
It's the cross life bears -  and is it's saddest but most sublime benediction.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems tenderly talking of heartbreak:
Call Me By Your Name 
How to Hold Love as it Breaks 
Broken Ribs as a Barometer of Love
In Which He Cries And She Clears The Skies
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 -
Romantic Contemplative Nature by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/8033-romantic-contemplative-natureLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Tea With Naomi Shihab Rye

Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian American poet. Her poetry shimmers with the anguish of a whole battered nation. But it is also full of gratitude, as she notices the smallest of things and urges the reader to find grace in them.
 
For the last two months, every morning I read a poem by her. A single poem. It will probably take me years to finish all her books. But I don't care. Because this daily ritual cleanses me, readies me to face the world, with equanimity and thankfulness.
 
I feel, now she belongs to me.
 
She says -
"Let me peer out at the world
through your lens. (Maybe I'll shudder,
or gasp, or tilt my head in a question.)
Let me see how your blue
is my turquoise and my orange
is your gold. Suddenly binary
stars, we have startling
gravity. Let's compare
scintillation - let's share
starlight."
 
She's a bridge, Naomi is. Her words are flowers and never rocks. And her world always urges us to be kind.
 
Because with kindness, comes understanding, comes the stardust to change us, however small the corner of the world we might be staying in.
 
"Only kindness, that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for -
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend."
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating grace:
Extraordinary Life
Kintsugi
Tenderness
Of the Moon (and Other Things Which Don't Know They are Beautiful)
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 -
Mystery Of Dandela by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/2979-mystery-of-dandelaLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 
Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende®Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/2922-sehnsuchtLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Mother's Rambling Lessons on Life Imparted in Morning Walks in my Childhood

My mother, like so many other mothers, is a treasure house of tales. But with a twist - she is the hero of all her stories. More than the classical tales of Mahabharata and Ramayana, more than the O Henry's and Guy de Maupassant's I devoured whilst growing up, her tales were the ones which had the deepest influence. How her resilience won over indignities piled on her in a traditional Indian family, how she turned the tables in favor of a charity she was working with when a government official poured caste slurs on her, how her relentless kindness won over a trouble-loving neighbor.
 
A lot of what I am, I realize,  is because of those tales.
 
But here's what started happening as I grew.
 
I thought the tales were narcissistic, as they only talked about the glory of her. For a time, I started to just walk away when she commenced her stories.
 
Till one day, I was telling my son about something I'd done which had won me accolades in office, and in a flash of epiphany I realized what my mum had been doing for years.
 
Our stories of victory or loss, of kindness and redemption, of things which went well, and which didn't, are our character sketches - where we could be either perfect villains or flawed heroes, but where  we realize how our learnings are a talisman, and our stories of wounds our one true memorable legacy.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating our mothers:
My Mother's Lines
Kintsugi
Kripa (a blessing from a daughter)
How Mothers are Nature's Return Gifts
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 -
Sunset Fields by Alexander NakaradaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/7979-sunset-fieldsLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Extraordinary Life

Even if we don't notice it, our senses never forget the value of the insignificant. Of the sun falling on our feet, of that one teardrop falling on our hand, of that longing which fills our world, of that single remembrance which is enough to destroy everything, before it attempts to build something again.
 
But ever so often, our senses bring these moments into our beings slowly, gently, sadly, when everything around us is collapsing -  and we realize that we don't miss the big celebrations or the grand entrances or the splendid sights. What we really crave for are the most ephemeral and trifling of things. Moments reduced to quietness, walks slowed into inner explorations, a touch made to linger, sleep becoming a travel done together.
 
Finding life's significance might be your adventure; but life's meaning is sleeping in the crook of your arm with a serene smile.
 
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems celebrating life:
Of the Moon (and Other Things Which Don't Know They Are Beautiful)
Meditations On an Evening
The Sublime in the Ordinary
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, 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 -
You and Me Forever by MusicLFilesLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/7937-you-and-me-foreverLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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