I bet they diffuse out,
The chemicals in the head,
In all their earnest weirdness.
If only they could be smeared
Like peanut butter on the bread,
And served without a dread
To those who do not believe
That their conscience could be dead.
Maybe then they’ll know how enlightening
It is not being right in the head!
©Aaysid
“She said that was the only way for us to live, to be like the poets.”
Durian Sukegawa, Sweet Bean Paste
Featured image was generated using the Microsoft Designer
As if being a woman here
Isn’t a deep enough gash,
The motherhood’s lament
For a broken son,
A mistreated daughter,
Incites enduring pain,
That breaks a heart in twain.
©Aaysid
Every time I hear about any sort of tragedy befalling a person, my heart breaks for their mother. One of the most remarkable blessings in this life is to have a mother who loves and nurtures you.
My heart goes out to all the mothers who have lost their precious children to brutal, inhumane violence. They are the epitome of strength and resilience. This Mother’s Day feels incredibly heavy.
Featured image from Pexels
Everyone in the room
had something to say,
a story to share,
a few scabs to pick at,
a few wounds to redress,
but there you were
sitting cross-legged in the corner,
repressing an urge to flee.
All of them could see
the red in your eyes
and the streak of slow sweat
at the nape of your neck,
but not many could see
that you did not wish to speak—
for your story’s macabre,
the scab’s crusted over,
and your wounds still bleed.
So, when they passed you the conch,
you broke it instead,
but to your utter surprise,
they did not ask you to leave.
Some places are tough,
but they’ll wait for you
while you take your time to heal,
for your pain may be different,
but they know how it feels.
©Aaysid
“What happens when people open their hearts?”
“They get better.”
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Featured image is generated using the Microsoft Designer
I.
Not a day goes by
That I don’t say to myself,
“Don’t engage,
Don’t engage,
Don’t engage!”
But there I go again,
Spilling my guts out,
In response to a hesitant, “Hey.”
II.
I see you.
Even on the days
That I cannot see myself.
So, don’t you dare disappear.
Not before me, at least.
III.
I feel like the baby figs
That fall excitedly,
Albeit prematurely,
In all their greenish-amber glory
From the sturdy branches,
Only to discover
They were too unripe
To be turned into a jam or a jelly,
And too young to take roots.
IV.
I pack my bags
And leave a note
For the void
I got tired of staring into
As I walk back home.
©Aaysid
“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Featured image from Pixabay
shattered moments
sprawled on a turntable,
the sand trickling out
from an hourglass,
upside down,
or the right way up,
there’s no way to tell
with the seconds leaking out
of it like that.
the vacant evening slots
in the daily planner
stare back blankly,
collapsing into one lean
thread of the night,
kept adrift in reverence
to celebrate the decline—
of the day, of the hours,
and of the mind,
that no longer coexists
with the time.
©Aaysid
“You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself”
Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Featured image from Pexels
No cherry blossoms grow
in the gardens of eternal anguish,
and the doves leave their nests
way before winds of peace
make rounds over their vacant nests.
The flute and the lute players
come down with the spells
of hacking cough that leave the lungs
bereft of breath, and the ears
devoid of notes in the air.
The woes keep stumbling into each other,
impotent in the face of their own inertia,
and the world ends for some in the night,
but begins all over again
in the morning for a fortunate few.
While what is unruffled, remains as such,
even in the face of utter discord—
it is hard to pick a side, at times,
hence, we embrace all of it,
and nothing at all…
©Aaysid
“And I can’t be running back and fourth forever between grief and high delight.”
J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
Featured image is generated using the Microsoft Designer
None of us wants to be the one
Who keeps someone up at night,
Agitated, tossing and turning,
With a mind that won’t shut up.
Counting chirps of the crickets
Or else syncing them to the rhythm
Of their own hearts going wild,
Not wishing for the dawn to break.
But too anxious to lie fidgeting anyway,
They shake, and they break,
And they pray –
For us to get out of their way!
And I believe there is no salvation
For the anguish we incite that way!
©Aaysid
“We’re just living on our emotions and eating each other.”
Iris Murdoch, Nice & the Good
Featured image from Pexels
Don’t you wish
That you could take a break
From yourself, sometimes?
To hit snooze,
Or to put your thoughts on mute
For a short while.
To be conscious,
But to not move an inch,
As if awake
In a durable dream,
A slumber nonvolatile…
Nothing would ring
On the other end
When you dial,
And your mailbox
To get no notes
From yourself,
And all the things
That you avoid,
That you keep aside
In a pile,
To stay there,
And not fall over for once?
Don’t you wish
That you had an on/off switch
With a tiny, red light above it,
So that someone should know
That you have gone out
Like this
Whenever you felt like it?
Because, I do.
©Aaysid
I feel like carrying a compact mirror
In my pocket these days
Because I keep forgetting
What I look like in a world
That doesn’t even look
Like itself these days.
And I wonder how long it will take
To forget what was held close once,
But is nowhere to be found these days.
The wispy cotton clouds
Floating around in the azure sky,
Although intangible, but buoyant,
And pretty enough to be a symbol
Of something with a semblance of hope
That we have these days
Of a life beyond a disappearing life,
And of peace diffusing little by little
Into the fiery air and the grounds
Going up in a blaze these days…
“I am here,” the mirror could reassure me,
“It gets better,” I will comfort
My disoriented reflection,
And maybe it would finally
Bring the chills
Because these fevers take forever
To break these days.
©Aaysid
“It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.”
John Guare
Featured image from Pexels
Shackled, pinned down
In a mind that rages,
Wails, bawls, throws a temper,
And boils over in contempt
Over its own spinelessness.
I forget to blink sometimes,
Consciously choose not to do so
at other times,
Afraid of succumbing
To the darkness of it all—
The sheer helplessness,
A profound inability
To do anything but watch
A few diabolical souls
Wield inequitable power
And wreak havoc on mankind…
I do not know
How to be here anymore,
Where to go,
Or even where to look anymore.
I am sorry for being here
And not being able
to change a thing.
I am sorry, my endlessly fuming mind,
For not being here at all.
©Aaysid
“Nothing is harder on the soul, than the smell of dreams, while they’re evaporating.”
Mahmoud Darwish
Featured image from Pexels
I feel like I am disappearing,
Diminishing, falling to bits,
Getting too small
Unlike a news-clipping
From an isolated event
I was once featured in —
Neither the protagonist,
Nor the villain,
Rather a bystander,
Mentioned not by name,
But by a weird chance
Of being in the right moment
At the wrong time,
Midway through a sneeze,
Awkward, ludicrous,
Unfit for the scene,
But suited to the affair
For these very quirks.
Tucked reverently, however,
Inside a treasured book
Kept on the nightstand,
Laminated, and visited often
By that one person
Who imagines themselves
To be an anchor, a lighthouse
For a spirit adrift,
A gatherer of remnants
Of a soul amiss.
©Aaysid
“How could she tell him that we come to love those who save us?”
Jenna Blum, Those Who Save Us
AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer
To be merely
A small stroke
From a brush,
A paint drip,
Or even a tiny
Unplanned smudge,
On a primed canvas,
Or on a canvas
Still rough,
Might just be too much
If it allows you
To become a part of
An artistic moment;
Disguised, yet,
Recognizable as such.
©Aaysid
“My name is Nobody.”
Homer, The Odyssey
AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer
Plucked daisies in an open carton,
Sunday bazaar, and a long-pleated skirt,
With an ineptly crocheted scarf,
Crow-feet at the outer edges of bleary eyes.
Half-past ten there and also in the kitchen
In her home where the last night’s stew stews
Over the stove she forgot to turn off,
And the other heads turn skyward more often
Than they turn sideways – towards her.
Fearing the ominous sky about to rain
In a city that suffers miserably
Like an immunocompromised person
Does in the viral outbreaks,
But it is one of the many worries
That also exists outside of her head.
A silent, shared dilemma,
That momentarily feels like a connection
Stronger than the one she has with her isolation.
©Aaysid
“Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage.”
J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer
I am grateful to Spillwords Press for publishing my poem, The Bedraggled, today.
https://spillwords.com/the-bedraggled/
At this point, I have almost as many literary publications as scientific ones, and it is both amusing and worrisome. Nonetheless, these days, I am working on the first draft of my poetry book, struggling to find the time and patience to see it through.
It burns, and it stings,
The cold wind against
The numb cheeks,
And the great distance
Between you
And the opulent world
Grows ever so greater.
You are a silhouette
Of a person you used to be
Two winters ago,
Separated at the edges,
Not making ends meet,
Making blankets out of dreams
That no longer recur
As sleep eludes you.
The open sky is not a roof,
The pavement is not a floor,
And existence feels illusory
Without four walls and a door.
It can get taken away
In days, in a minute,
The will to just be
In spite of the unbecoming
You get subjected to —
January breaks apart
A great many souls!
©Aaysid
AI generated featured image by Microsoft Designer
We can be found
between the lines,
in the margins,
underlined, struck through
with a pink crayon,
for crying out loud!
A mess in the sticky notes,
lost in the sticky tabs,
scribbled over and under,
doubly struck through
with a neon green
highlighter this time.
Flipping the pages
sends out a waft
of the perfumed notes
hidden inside…
Alas, our books are read
with an utter disregard
for the annotation guide!
©Aaysid
Featured image from Pixabay
A poem is not a person;
An exposition is not a place.
The masquerade on the paper
Is a witless charade.
The mind comes undone,
And it is tough to save face
For those who choose to write,
Keep falling in and out of grace.
For those who choose to write,
No longer feel part of the race.
©Aaysid
“We write to make sense of it all.”
Wallace Stenger
There are barricades
in the stream of consciousness:
unprecedented undulations
in the middle of the spectrum—
thrice removed, detached,
discombobulated, re-patched… tranquil,
but not yet asleep
to remain in the midst
of the blur of the world
through approximated eyelids
as the journal writes itself,
one unfocused entry after another.
©Aaysid
“I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end.“
Richard Brautigan
A soundless morn
Ends up summoning
A few clouds of blue to rain.
A scriptless eve
Tries to extinguish
What was left of the flame.
A voiceless night
Adds to noise
And causes, thus, much pain.
©Aaysid
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
Michael Cunningham
A long way from home,
And not getting any closer,
Not anytime soon, anyway.
The sun sets late
In places you have left
To be close to yourself,
And as the night darkens,
You lie fidgeting,
Staring nervously
At the ceiling,
Hoping against hope
That the skies outside
Don’t light up
The way they did back home.
Someone else loses sleep,
Worrying for you,
You, who have left home
To find it.
©Aaysid
“We start out as little bits of disconnected dust.”
Naomi Shihab Nye
The world is bleeding and is in terrible pain, and it leaves the writer in you at a loss for words. I do not have the right words to express grief and outrage as the violence spreads like wildfire. Today, in a low moment, I practised a calming exercise, where I thought about all the good people I know and how they are the exact opposite of the evil that so unabashedly prevails in this world. After a while, I wrote this poem to enlighten my own heart, and now I am sharing it with my friends here.
You are a June guy,
Making homes in the deserts,
But forever waiting
For the monsoon guy,
Staying up after hours,
In love with the moon guy.
Slept-in, wept-out,
Eyes like a raccoon guy,
Outside looking in,
In-sync, out-of-tune guy,
A dark cloud in the bright sky,
But too animated,
To be a maroon guy…
Happiness in a teaspoon guy!
Staying for the moments,
Day in and day out,
Giving up in the afternoon guy.
Ephemeral, too good to be true,
In a rush to run away,
Always leaving too soon guy.
©Aaysid
It is seconds from fading away,
Once and for all,
But you pull through,
And begrudgingly resuscitate
What’s left of your will
To carry on despite
A desire to leave
The shards of it
To gnaw through the wall
You have built around
Everything you cannot stand to recall.
You cannot help but laugh,
A maniacal laugh,
As you look back towards a woman
You used to be just a moment ago –
Awry hair sprouting out
Of a last-night’s bun,
Coming undone,
Same disdainful look in the eyeball,
Stuck in an awkward pose,
As if in limbo
Halfway through a fall,
Trying to process
An enormous situation
With a concentration span too small!
©Aaysid
“Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’
Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘… Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.”
Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
Featured image from Pexels
Outrageously Erratic 