Tag: Nostalgia

VERSE| THE WOODEN BENCH

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writing2 Comments

We have all, at some time or another been overwhelmed, overpowered, bested by our grief, anxiety and wretchedness. At those times, some of us have also been lucky enough to have that one place where we have, for a while, found some degree of quietude and peace. This is a tribute to those secret little places and spaces of comfort and healing in our lives.

There is this wooden bench I like
It’s not fancy, quite the common type
Cloaked in by the dappled canopy
Of a gracefully pirouetting Mara tree
It sits in the park like a dear old friend
Its well-worn embrace ever welcoming
A young couple walks up, caught in the grips of wrath 
Love is lost, it’s the wretched aftermath
Words are exchanged until the fury’s spent 
Frustration - Anxiety - Sadness - Silence
Then they sit down on the wooden bench …
Slowly muscles relax and nerves untense
Even if it is a passing interlude
Loads are lightened, hearts are soothed.

Wild flowers grow lushly around its feet 
Bobbing bright heads to earth’s vital beat
The bench sits there like a quiet friend 
It’s well-worn seat ever welcoming
A man sits down in a state of unease 
Holding on to his hat in an errant breeze
He picks up his phone and looks at the screen
The unlit glass reflects the tranquil scene …
He looks up and around him his brow somewhat eased
Fleeting albeit, he’s found his moment of peace. 

Songful birds and their terrestrial friends
Roam warbling and chittering around the bench
Hoping for a serendipitously fallen treat 
They browse busily around the seat
A wheelchair-bound man looks up at an overcast sky
His female companion already has water in her eyes
They sit side by side in worlds of their own 
Reminiscence weighs heavy of days that are gone
A mynah trills as a light drizzle falls
And a sweet petrichor briefly dispels the pall …
The man looks at her, takes her hand and she smiles 
For now they’re alright, tomorrow is still a while. 

I too have sat in nature’s restoring arms 
On that bench where she weaves her alchemical charms
I too have unburdened my hopes and my fears 
I too have laid my bursting heart bare
And I have heard her soothing murmurs 
That have quietened my deepest despair
I’ve looked into her soft eyes from that corner in the park
For a time, my soul too has emerged from the dark …
The clouds have parted, the sun has shone through 
And I’ve breathed more easily, sitting on that wooden pew.

Image generated vis illustration software

VERSE | BE STILL MY BEATING HEART

On By Mahvash K. M.In writingLeave a comment 
Be still my beating heart 
It’s only the setting sun 
With its fiery orange hues 
Tinged with scarlet and indigo
They’re the colours of a day that’s done
Be still my beating heart 
It’s only the setting sun 

Be still my racing blood 
It’s only the ocean wide 
Its waves unfurling liquid lace 
Onto my upturned, sun-warmed face
As I leap into the rushing tide
Be still my racing blood 
It’s only the ocean wide 

Be still my aching breast 
It’s only a trail in the greenwood glade 
Hemmed on the edges with wild flowers 
Glistening in the wake of a spring shower 
It’s only the whispering leaf dappled shade 
Be still my aching breast 
It’s only a trail in the greenwood glade 

Be still my breathless lungs 
It’s only the afternoon sky
With a rainbow that has looped around 
The azure blueness like a crown 
A beautiful palette of pastel dyes 
Be still my breathless lungs
It’s only the after-rain sky

Be still my quickening breath
It’s only the lover’s first kiss
You’ve been on that road before
You’ve flown where the eagles soar 
And also curled up where the earthworms live
Be still my quickening breath
It’s only the sweetheart’s first kiss

Be still my beating heart
It’s only the setting sun
The mystical ocean and the greenwood glade 
The after-rain sky and the lover’s kiss
It’s the enchantment that nostalgia has spun
Be still my beating heart
It’s just life in perpetual thrum.

VERSE | LITTLE SECRETS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I sought you out, you seek I did 
Your sort I ardently sought out 
In movies on my Netflix screen 
Your type I read in pages typed 
And bound in pale lilac string 
Lying deep beneath secret things 
Amid beloved, unpublished things 
Your form I conjured in my dreams 
From lovely, daytime fantasies 
You lived in my gleaming realm 
Of poignant impossibilities 
Your mold I formed in my head 
Gently the mould spread and spread 
Amid beautiful, decaying things 
Covered in gossamery what-ifs
In golden morns and velvet nights
I looked for you, I sought you out

Until yesterday 

When I saw you clear as day
You looked through me and then away 
The likes of me you didn’t like 
You sought a whole new other sort
I was no part of your reality 
But I looked and looked silently 
Seek you still, I do sometimes 
I still urge for your bewitching kind 
But now doubts riddle that enterprise 
Few are the days when I look for you 
Fret-free, with stars in my eyes 
Those days are still the most sublime
But sublimity is not for me
Its glittering garb is too profound 
Peace is now what I seek out 
Still, old habits of the heart 
Are damnably hard to put down
So keen for you my secret love
And seek you still, I do sometimes.
Image: John William Waterhouse

VERSE | LOVE ODES IN THE 21ST

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, satire, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Live in the moment, write a verse
Sing a song for better or worse
For those that are still around
Still aground, that still abound
Purrs New Zen in dulcet tones
Cease to scruple, seize this time 
This time, say it out 
To the ones whose breath still vaults
On quickening wings still topside
Of the cosmic vault up high

But En-meshed and-mashed in 
So many things still intertwine 
Seethe and sizzle, yours and mine
In gleaming lips and blistered minds  
O’er crowds of marigolds and mines
In perfect storms come rain or shine
In eggshell treads, blessings and all
Around the holes within our whole 
Where things leak out, eke out, grow cold 

Love poems can’t fit in, flit in 
To spaces filled with oxygen 
Rushing in and then out 
In bouts, in routs, in-halations
Love in poetry is pos-thu-mous 
Past-the-mists of life’s bliss 

Waiting pages like watching sages 
Stay pristine, unscripted. Cleaned
By life-sodden exhalations 
While lungs and wrists and hearts replete 
With forgotten dyes wait to spill 
Nostalgic ink in clots and things 
In what-if meanderings, when
No more breath is left to draw 
Shrinking wraiths on windowpanes 
When the dearth of death is overcome
They sink their teeth into the sheets 
That flutter for their odes of love.
Image: Cashi Sutar

VERSE | DISTANCES

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I know we haven’t talked in a while
I know I haven’t seen you wear your soft smile
We’ve said things to each other we didn’t mean 
Tearing and splitting the vital seams 
Of the fabric of our togetherness 
I know that I have felt desolate, helpless
We have sat in silence, cold as frost
The glow of our closeness long since lost 
Somewhere along life’s bewildering way
I let your warm hand slip away

I know we haven’t talked in a while
I know I haven’t seen you wear your gentle smile

Through the years we have journeyed on
Along the same path but each on our own
Forged by our children, we treaded their dreams
Only seeing shadows of you and me 
Still together we walked into middle age 
But it’s been a while since I really saw your face
It’s been a few years since the air around
Was filled with your familiar scent and your sound
Somewhere, somehow I lost the quickening string
That bound us together through thick and through thin

I know we haven’t talked in a while
I know I haven’t seen you wear your lovely smile

But I know you’re still here, your pulse still beats warm
Even as we’ve both whipped up raging storms
They’ve whirled inside, while we’ve pulled away
The terrible loneliness adding to the fray
I know that we are distances apart
But I can still feel you in the depths of my heart
Let me find you once again in the mists
Of sepia memories, reminiscences 
Let me hold your hand as I once did before 
Let us walk together, in step once more

I lost sight of you, dearest for a while
Let me love you again, let me make you smile.
Image: Portia Mendigo

VERSE | LONGING

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I found an eyelash on your cheek 
It perched there like a dream 
I couldn’t take my eyes away 
From that hypnotising scene

The beautiful imperfection of
That eyelash out of place 
Was also the exquisiteness 
Of nature’s untamed grace 

You looked at me as I looked at
The fallen angel on your cheek 
It fluttered on broken wings like 
Back into heaven it would leap 

And then you smiled that special smile 
Where your eyes light up with mirth
The eyelash took a leap of faith 
Becoming one with the pulsing earth 

I found an eyelash, it had strayed 
Onto your sun warmed skin 
It filled my heart with wistfulness 
With love and with longing.

VERSE | REMINISCENCE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
You said to look for you in blooms
The most vibrant that adorned 
The sunny yellow Amalthas 
As it stood verdant in the lawn 

I chose a bower in my mind 
It was you whispering to me 
Everytime a drizzle fell 
Or when she murmured in the breeze

But then came fall and with it all
The flowers began to drop
I held my breath as I watched 
But you stayed shimmering on 

You wore your golden yellows 
Dancing in your green abode 
But then nature came calling your name
You were the last to free your hold 

You whispered softly one last time 
As you let go of the tree 
I watched but did not linger, I
Imagined you somewhere roaming free 

But in my heart I’ve always known
You’ve shredded up your form 
With all your love and courage 
Back into the earth you’ve gone 

You said that I should look for you 
In the things that make me smile 
I see you now in leaves and flowers
In the rain and the fireflies.