Quiet

I have written a lot less

Than I did last year,

And I had often woken up

With a crippling fear

That I no longer had

A single rhyme left in me

In spite of being crushed

Under the weight

Of worries and troubles

That could only lose power

If expressed poetically,

But I had persevered

By letting suffocating silence

Be symbolically lyrical

For a while,

By letting blankness

Of the pages in my diary

Be the voice for everything

That I couldn’t write,

And it had been all right.

I have been all right.

©Aaysid

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
Oprah Winfrey

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Trapped Within Itself

My unseasoned heart

Wakes up

With new year’s sun

Only to sip winters

From huge, chipped

Coffee cups,

And to chew green

Jelly beans with uncanny

Flavour of summer,

And to feel alive

In spite of itself

Even when all it knows

Is how to fall

As it waits for

The promised joy

That is taking forever

To spring out.

©Aaysid

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
T.S. Eliot

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Ancient

As the years

Turn to dust,

The folded scraps

Of yellowing paper

Safely tucked away

In the pockets

Of worn-out coats,

Missing a button or two,

Become fewer

And farther between,

Until no memory

Of discrete moments

Can be retrieved

Without being consumed

By the history

Of almost everything!

©Aaysid

“With each passing moment I’m becoming part of the past. There is no future for me, just the past steadily accumulating.”

Haruki Murakami

I wrote this poem last year, and it is scary how relevant it still is.

Absurd

I.

I buy myself flowers

Only to end up

Sneezing all over

The place;

How can an act

Of kindness,

Turn that easily

Into an act

Of hate?

II.

Everything deserves a break

So one of these days

I shall take my thoughts

Out for a walk,

And then I’ll make them

Go back without me.

III.

You can send me

An empty box

As a present

For I can love it

For the things

That will be there;

I’ll make paper planes

Out of the gift-wrap

And scrunchies

Out of ribbons,

And use the box

To store them in.

©Aaysid

“I live in my own little world. But it’s ok, they know me here.”
Lauren Myracle

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Enough Said

It seldom worked…

Disagreement.

Felt unreal.

Resentfully shoved aside.

Thoughts held captive…

Indemnified.

Too late.

Nothing was forgiven.

Grim words penned…

Misspelled.

Made sense.

Left at that.

Every you knows…

Someone.

Like me.

A small world.

©Aaysid

“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

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Off Course

I.

Whispers have replaced

All shrieking attempts

At communication,

I wonder when

Silence will be

The only thing we’d use

To communicate

To be actually heard?

II.

I pretend that I

Know where I am

Even when all I do

Is dream about

Sleeping with a fan on

In December nights

Only to wake up

Feeling like I did

Last summer.

III.

I see your outline

And try not to

Fill it up with rainbows

For I am still

Quite bad at colouring

Inside the lines.

©Aaysid

“I’m still in bed writing this, lying on my back like an omelette in a pan.”

Alain Bremond

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Unuttered

Not all words

When they touch

The solid ground

Can bounce back up,

Some of them stay

Huddledtogether,

While only a few

Dare break away

To wait for the ones

Still.

©Aaysid

“The unspoken words trembled in the air.”
Iris Murdoch

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December Eyes

She sees you with December eyes,

The sleep-laden eyelids,

Frosted lenses and an inkling

Of fog all over the corneae,

That way she can only make out

The shape of your face

So if she’d ever have to conjure

Your image up from a memory,

She wouldn’t know where to begin,

But she wouldn’t make any mistake.

©Aaysid

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”
Alfred Tennyson

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Freezing Over

Somewhere a version of you

Is finally able to fix

A broken violin

As the night outside

Turns emerald green

And the fire grows cold

In the fireplace,

And you wonder

If throwing silent,

Winter nights into disarray

By sending out notes

Of a newly repaired

Time-worn violin

Will be a huge mistake?

For life may be full

Of trivial affairs,

But something colossal

Is always at stake.

©Aaysid

“and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks.”
Douglas Adams

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Tinted

The world is more pink

Than grey lately,

But those who never

View it without

Rose-coloured glasses

Can hardly appreciate

The salmon glow

Brought to it by

The sluggish demise

Of their very own

Cherry-red consciences!

©Aaysid

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Lost

She has lost

Her sense of direction,

Wherever she goes,

She is already there.

©Aaysid

“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.”

Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

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On Edge

Finding yourself rummaging

Through piles and piles

Of discarded memories,

Far removed from present,

Not wrapped in fancy boxes,

But oh so casually thrown

Into trash cans stuffed hastily

Into brown paper bags,

Seems like a dangerous

State of mind to be in,

But when they say,

“Isn’t it like one of those

Baffling things that happen

To you for no apparent reason?”

You cannot help but say,

“I have never heard of those.”

©Aaysid

“Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.”
Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

Delusional

Sometimes, love is found

In the weakest hellos

And indifferent goodbyes,

For anything that plunges

A heart into the depths

Of that abusrd a denial

Must be akin to affection.

Sometimes, all you need

Is a delusional mind.

©Aaysid

“Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.”

Tony Kushner

Hypothetical

If I were to see myself

In a light that wouldn’t flicker

Would I feel the air

To be unrealistically thicker

Will there be a heart

Aflutter, suddenly beating quicker

Would the nagging world

No longer be a cosmic trigger

Will I finally stay

Despite being a habitual quitter?

©Aaysid

“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”
Donald Miller

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Bitter

she became her own

personal shade of blue,

at war with the dusky,

almost-angry

glint of his

prussian blue iris,

and dreamt of a day

when she would

be immune

to that cataclysmic sky

in his eyes

which ends up

infecting her like a virus!

©Aaysid

“You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.”
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

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Unfaltering?

Neither a ghost

Nor a memory,

But like a drop

Of blood

That is thick,

And pungent,

And repulsively red,

We are as unabating

As the thoughts

You keep crushing

In your head!

At least for now.

©Aaysid

“Out of my ignorance I called you a homeland, and I forgot that homelands are taken away.”

Mahmoud Darwish

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Mediocrity

We could have been putting

Our souls in a mesmeric trance

By dancing like whirling dervishes

In cold, November mornings

To let our thoughts somersault

Out of our heads to appear

As glistening beads of perspiration

To evaporate into nothingness,

But we are far removed from all that,

For mediocrity has slowly devoured

The fire that was supposed to

Burn within our hearts forever!

©Aaysid

“I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.”
Jalalu’l-din Rumi

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Cutting Corners

Three short poems:

I.

When we decided

Never to talk again

We did not know

What that entailed;

It has been three days

Since I have heard

From you but it feels

As if it has been forever-

Never’s not forever!

II.

As I

Fix a snack,

I let it vibrate,

You’re calling my phone,

Hoping that the pedometer app

Would count a few extra steps that way,

Everyday I cheat my way through exercise,

And wonder why my back refuses to have my back!

III.

The solitary chicken

Crosses the road

To run away from the coops,

Don’t you realise

That nothing brave

Can ever be done in groups?

©Aaysid

“One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it.”

Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards, The Daffodill Principle

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Memories and November Nights

I wish that I didn’t remember

Every dying word,

Every sinister number

That seems to be etched

Into the walls of my heart’s

One flailing chamber,

And I don’t wish to be put into

An extended slumber

For my mind to dismember

Itself in order to sort through

Fragments of burnt thoughts

In search of a salvageable ember,

For I am too much in love

With this time of the year

To give it up like that,

But if that is what it takes

To forget what I

So painfully remember,

I begrudgingly surrender!

I’ll pretend that the sombre

Nights in December

Are as ineffable

As the ones in November!

©Aaysid

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
John Banville, The Sea

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Fading

It has been an hour

Since I have been

Mindlessly scrolling,

Hurriedly swiping away

One grey photo after another

When I am suddenly hit

With a realisation

That brings me to my knees-

There are only a few photos

In my phone’s camera roll

In which my own face

Can be fully seen,

They feel so out of place,

But I better not press delete,

For there are times when I

Forget that I am here

And I can use a proof

Of my existence-

Even a virtual one would do.

©Aaysid

“It is good to be a cynic — it is better to be a contented cat — and it is best not to exist at all.”
H.P. Lovecraft

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Deception

When the fall breeze

Brings along a few

Gratifying moments

The world feels

Less of a scam,

Just like a batter

For muffins

Without any butter,

And a marmalade

That tastes like a jam.

©Aaysid

“I’ve heard that sarcasm is no substitute for cleverness.”
Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You

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Free

We emptied

Our heads of

Memories, dreams,

And aspirations

To make room

For things

A bit more palpable,

And days went by

In long spells

With infrequent bursts

Of newness

As we blinked

The nights away

Wrapped in the very

Burden of being nothing

And everything

All at once.

©Aaysid

“I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.”

Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human

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A Blue Wind

We may have auburn skies

In Autumn,

And soft lilac ones

In Winter,

But the wind in both

The seasons

Is always a perfect shade

Of blue.

©Aaysid

“There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves.”

Joe L. Wheeler

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Torpidity

Three short poems trying to explain the state of apathetic torpor I keep finding myself in these days. I blame the weather.

I.

I sometimes feel

Like leftovers

From a great feast;

Joyful enough

To last through

A couple of meals

The next day,

And that’s it.

II.

Is it cold enough

For impassiveness

To set in?

Everything seems

Like a chore lately-

I put “wake up”

As the first thing

On my to do list,

And it is usually

All downhill from there!

III.

I dread the post-lunch dip

For it arrives with all of its

Somnolent glory to put

The coffee-induced

Morning rush to early sleep.

©Aaysid

“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

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Unwritten

I have sharpened a pencil

Within an inch of its life,

And I can no longer pretend

That the blank pages

Sprawled in front of me

Are a metaphor for

Some great new thing;

I am beginning to envy

The world outside

My solitary window

Reveling in its freedom,

And I wonder if tonight

I am destined to be

This gallingly unwritten?

©Aaysid

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing