Uncut Poetry

In The Nook (Special Episode)

We have a delightful little conversation with poet Riya Roy.
She has just launched a scintillating newsletter "the nook", which is choc-o-bloc with nuggets of wisdom, art, poetry and literary surprises of all kinds. We talk to Riya about her journey - and end with an amazing heartfelt poem by her.
"the nook" can be subscribed at "tinyletter.com/thenook".

Daughters Who Don't Listen (& Other Ways To Be Brave)

Khalil Gibran famously said "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself… You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow…”
 
So be there in the shadows of the lives of your children, as they find their way. Let them find their own ways to love, and be hurt....as long as they know you are there, a touch away, a call away, a look away. 

Not Making Love; Only Being In Love

So much of what we are, is defined by who we are with. And that truth is germane to what gives us happiness.
Society, norms, mores ignore that basic need which makes us complete. They concentrate on gender, forgetting that love neither knows borders nor restricts itself within boundaries. The first liberation, the first freedom starts with that realization, that acceptance.

Love's Night of The Long Knives

Relations are discoveries, found after arduous journeys.
 
Intrinsically, everything about love changes in time - the nature of love, the definition of love, the lovers themselves. Is it for good or bad? That can never be the question. Did you last the upheavals to reach the calm? That is the question. 

On Breaking Up (Without Breaking)

"My capricious love of many moons,
I wish I could meet you again -
there's so much of you I have inside me,
but out of so little of you."

We Looked Out Into the Fading Day

Clouds roll into every couple's life. Everything gets hidden - the planets, the shooting stars - nearer home, even fireflies go unseen.
 
The worst is when love's clear skies get hidden. Love goes blind, it flounders.
 
The importance is, of course, not in the clouds - because pain will come, scars will happen. The question always is - what overwhelms and what prevails. 

Lovers In The Morning

And today, I introduce you to two lovers who finally get to disengage from each other's limbs and  beings, and come out to seek some coffee and fresh air. Their smiles are soft, their skin glows.
 
And all I can do is to sit on the side, a grizzled veteran of many stories, and watch them with a peculiar sense of knowing and pleasure.....

How To Make Love To A Haibun!

Paresh Tiwari, Writer & Illustrator and Maestro of Haiku & Haibun, leads us into the minimalist, sparse, meditative and beautiful world of Haiku and Haibun.
 
Like the deep woods, it is a world full of mystery, seduction and contemplation.
 
Once there, you will not want to come out....

Love (After The Stories Are Told)

So much happens in our minds! Often, the adventures in our heads are more exciting than the ones happening in our real lives. But when our imaginings take precedence in our relationships over reality, and we conjure the worst, the die is cast for dire consequences.
Love can survive the worst, because intrinsically it is forgiving - but how can it contest the power of imagination? When what you imagine is worse than what happens, isn't the battle already lost? 

One Summer

Growing up is a time of luxurious waste. And in that indolence often lies the true meaning of living in the moment. It's only in looking back that we realize how precious that time was, & how much of us has been built in the heat & the sweat & the coolness of that time.
 
We are, in later life, what life gave us in those heady days - when nothing often meant everything.