Methuselah

• 

From roots that run on love and
veins throbbing with the breath
of a million sentimental poems
grew our very own Methuselah
Grand in its rugged ancientness
Carrying secrets of Earth’s soul.

This is our clandestine habitat
where you softly lay your head
and feel my fingers run through
an undergrowth of old fantasies
We travelled this far not to die
We evolved so we could survive.

~

Today marks the end of the #30days30poems #NaPoWriMo challenge. There were days when I did not feel like posting a poem, but I’m glad I persevered.

To everyone who read my poems and appreciated my efforts, a big hug of gratitude. Since today feels special, I’m sharing a poem that’s very close to my heart and one that made it to the anthology ‘Verses of Love’ published last month. This one is inspired by the grand, old Methuselah tree in California’s White Mountains which turned 4,853 years old this year.

I shall try to post frequently – though daily posts might be difficult – and hope that the few hearts that have found connection stay with me.

And now for a favourite song, but one that I haven’t listened to in a long, long time. Hope y’all like it.

Have a lovely weekend. Cheers!

Bottling up rhymes

• 

I spend afternoons
Bottling up your rhymes
Into old vials of Guerlain
So when empty nights come
With all their dreariness
I can spray the verses
Onto my feathered pillow
And drift into sweet sleep
On a bed of your fragrant poetry.

~

Solitude sometimes becomes a presence; so real that you can almost touch it. Over 20 million people in this city and yet this eerie silence. Also, I’m running dangerously short on rhymes. So I turn to a song that is recommended like a magical potion for precisely such days. It is pure therapy. Nothing comforts my heart quite like this one. Hope it feels like a hug to you too.

~

thank you for this song

Lovesong

• 

I wake up with a thousand suns
To the beats of your lovesong
Unveiled, unabashed, I lay myself
Like an offering at your altar
Poems spill out of your eyes and lips
With reverence I kiss those scriptures
They say the ocean is very deep
But I know a love that is deeper
With sacred seeds we grew an Eden
We are the keepers of its gate
I believe this rare love is our destiny
Oh darling is there a better fate?

~

It’s been four days now since I’ve stepped out of the house. So here I am slipping into reveries instead and listening to bird calls.

Speaking of lovesongs, the most vocal right now outside my window is the Indian Cuckoo because March to June is apparently its breeding season. Genghis’ ears are perked up all the time – with annoyance or intrigue, I can’t really tell.

Which brings me to Coldplay…

Happy flying!

Faint flutterings

• 

We find ourselves trapped
Within confines of little worlds
“You take the bedroom desk”, I say
“I’ll set myself up in the living room“.

We have become territorial
Each careful not to spill over into
The quiet room of the other.

The only sound comes from ribcages
Faint flutterings of unfrequented hearts
Flapping their rusty wings
Nudging to find gaps in doors
Waiting, waiting, to take flight.

~

After a day glued to the desk and trying to ignore the constant fluttering, what else would I write about?!

This poem has re-ignited my desire for a bird tattoo. I’ve had the design and location marked out for the longest time now. Some things just take time. But there is always hope. Here, listen to this one.

Out of the sirens might come the birdsong
Out of the silence might come the lovesong….

Pink Moon

• 

The air is abuzz with longing too heavy to hold
The same canopy of Copper Cods bright like gold
And tiny rivulets flowing down my back.
Even then, the days are alright, busy and bearable
But the sorrow of a sunset brings me down.
Tell me what to do with all the empty minutes
And the disarray that you left behind
How do I tidy it up?
Beneath the sky of a warm and tender evening
As the summer breeze comes through
My only solace comes from knowing
You are gazing at the Pink moon too.

~

Let us clutch at the tiniest consolations and find a way to smile. I cannot stress how rare, yet necessary connection is. Devoid of such attachments, all that we are left with is a vacuum.

Gazing at the moon and listening to Sinatra tonight, because the apartment building is sealed and I am trapped, when all I want is to fly to the moon. In other words…

Plasma

• 

Gone is the rousing
The bracing of soul
The movement of mind
and body just by
mere suggestions.
Like plasma carrying
water, salt, passion
where it was needed.
The lack now obvious
on sheets and paper
where my veins
incessantly bleed.

~

Genghis, the cat, is curled up on the couch – peaceful, as if nothing can go wrong with the world. The season in my soul has changed though, without warning.

In a bid to write about hope, I tried to hold on to the scarlet sun, but it only lasted a minute. So, I turned to a song and this is what came up.

Happy languishing!

A Twig on a Wave

• 

I can’t stop crying today
Everything is a trigger
The night clings to the day
The tea leaves misbehave
Verses don’t speak my name
Right now the sun’s making
patterns that aren’t right and
I can’t stop crying today.

The river runs back
Refusing to fall into the sea
There are things to forget
The blur of what was said
A fragile heart, the way it wept
Hours vast like the ocean
You, a pause on the horizon
I, a twig on a wave and
I can’t stop crying today.

Every wave hits a barrier
Twists, spins away
Most days I do okay
But right now the tide’s making
whirlpools that suck me in and
I can’t stop crying today.

~

The Softness of a Memory

• 

Mid-sleep in the dead of night
I am awakened by a touch.

Without opening my eyes
my hands grope and feel
the softness of a memory.
I pull it close to my belly and
sleep with my arms around it.

Soon dawn chorus resumes
in the Silver Oak — reminding me
of songs from bygone days
I sigh and clinically open my eyes
to the demands of another day.

~

Many many years ago, my father gifted me a small cassette player and a few tapes. Most evenings, I would turn down the lights, pick a cassette and lose myself to the music. This morning (and I don’t know why), a song from then, one that I haven’t heard in ages, came back to me. A simple, sweet one…’When I need you’ by Leo Sayer.

Have a nostalgic evening.

Traversing miles

• 

I’m hungry for a taste of salty seas
Seashells held over discerning ears
The grains of sand falling through
Fingers that once touched your soul

The moon hovers awkwardly amidst
Dark, sentimental faraway clouds
Meet me somewhere in the lull, I pray
between fading dusk and radiant dawn

I read of waves traversing miles
The distant horizon their childlike goal
I scoff at love that’s absurdly dumb
The naiveté of some strange desires

And just as the smirk leaves my lips
Between laying down and falling asleep
I read of a salt flat in distant Bolivia
Where earth and sky doth meet.

~

Inspired by the desolate, heavenly beauty of Salar de Uyuni Bolivia, the world’s largest salt flat where earth appears to meet sky.

For such grandeur, a befitting song tonight: ‘Mad About You’ by Hooverphonic.

Feel the vibe
Feel the terror
Feel the pain….

Worlds within worlds

• 

The evening is doused with gentle rain
Life throbs and fills worlds within worlds
Behind closed lids a tear forms and stays
Far away a heart tends to a memory
Perhaps this is how love’s forest is nurtured
And how it grows in silence.

~

Apart from imagery, what I love immensely about poetry is ‘movement’. The way one can cross distance, otherwise impossible, in the span of a few lines. The ease with which the unspeakable flows, like rain water, replenishing the very soil it rose from.

~

PS: Since songs are now becoming inherent to the poetry posts, this evening let’s go with The Sky is Crying by Gary B. B. Coleman and pine for imaginary rain.

~