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Poetry Month: IF

Updated: Apr 14, 2020

I see the birds dancing above me,

Sitting on the park bench,

I wonder,

If there is nothing poetic about being happy,

Why do we write love poems?

With elaborate descriptions of 

How we hold hands, 

The way we sing our hearts out while travelling,

And how we argue when we're both hungry.

Why do people make songs,?

That talk about how it's all colourful in love,

And everything is lucky all along, 

Spilling secrets of eyes being the windows of love,

And the way skin shines when the other one smiles.

It's crazy,

I am sitting on this bench, 

Boggling with a single thought I had,

When all my words suddenly seem to have found a way,

To oppose my above ideas -

Right after I remember your favourite song.

Now I can't stop but only

Write about love.

 
 
 

we could hear better

if we just chose to listen

without any condition.

 

dear reader


if I could shape shift

you’d find me living inside you


as a bird’s eye chilli

my sting’ll stick to your gum


a ticklish snap dragon

I’ll tangle your tresses


sprouting in unwanted

hairs on your armpit


buzz of a bee in

auditory canals of conscience


itching the throat

after the last cigarette


the unfazed spice

of impressionable skin


is home even now

so good luck


with finding me

another one then

 

I do not want to write today,

Because today, a clear head and a messy diary seem very elusive,

Today, I want to cache all the metaphors and images;

I want stock up on all my feelings and make a chain out of them,

I want to collect all my beliefs and build a bench or a barrier,

I want to hoard my opinions like a child hoards her chocolates,

I will not give all of this away.

Even to my poetry.

I will not cave to the constany need to convey or to convince,

I do not want etch my poems with my unwillingness to cathart.

So today my mind will shelter chaos,

It will embrace conflict,

It will try not to shirk or shatter.

Because maybe,

My mind isn't ready,

Maybe, it doesn't want to let go of what is left of the routine of venting.

Maybe, it doesnt want to forego a 'what if'

Maybe,

it just wants to know better.

 

We would have never scarred each other's soul

if we ever felt complete within ourselves.

 

My parents' mouths

spew endless ideas

for my future - which 

country to finish my

education in, the things 

I could study, the jobs

I could get, the people

I could be… For now,

all these possibilities

seem alien. In this 

moment, I am still

learning what means

to be me, to dream 

my dreams. The

weight of all these

ifs is dragging me

away from all

the places it is 

supposed to take me.

 
 

David Hockney sits alone in his Normandy home,

Watching winter turn to spring.


Ruby, his dog, naps in the sun,

As the octogenarian toils away,

A pack of Camel cigarettes close by,

In isolation with nature.


Amidst the elderflower blooms,

The chirping of the starlings,

Odes to spring manifest

In vivid technicolour.


If we could enter paintings

Like I do in my dreams

I’d have liked to go on a walk with you.

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