Tag: Sadness

VERSE|DUST IN OUR EYES

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, writing2 Comments 
Inspired by the vastness of our universe, and the impermanence and fragility of our own little blue green planet. 
The moon hangs low like a key lime pie
In a firmament strewn with golden gleams of zest
The sky like a cosmic porcelain platter
Holds this sweet perfection in a state of rest

I sip on my tea as I sit back in my chair
And look at the glimmering stars up on high 
My mind is a telescope of infinite scale 
My soul, a radar that amplifies

I see nebulous orbs dancing around
I see their frigid friends standing their ground
I see the little ones and the gargantuan greats
I see the middling ones jostling for space

I see luminous worlds move in grandiose arcs 
Leaving star dust in their celestial wake
I see comets race into indigo depths
Gleefully chased by their blazing tails

I see weighty old stars in their twilight of being
Collapse in a mighty roar of ultimate endings
I see embryonic knots of vital masses
Heating up at their core in hopeful beginnings

I see torus-shaped, shard-textured asteroid belts 
Circling around an oblong of planets
I feel the formidable power of gamma ray bursts
As they cannonade up vaults of ink-silver granite

I see pulsars and quasars whirling around
Solar winds spreading out in feathered plumes
I hear the happy hum of the cosmos above me
Like a foetus hears her mother from inside the womb

I collapse the telescope of my mind
I shut down the radar of my soul
I look back down into the eyes of our Earth
Now blurred and smudged with eventide kohl

I don’t hear the hum of her kinetic voice
Nor feel the tenderness of her warm embrace
I don’t smell the bouquet of her fragrant skin
Nor see the glow of her beautiful face  

The cosmos continues to dazzle and shine
To skip and to leap, to dive and to fly
While our own little world continues to be
The storm in our teacups, the dust in our eyes.
“Earth’s crammed with heaven…
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.”
Elizabeth B. Browning

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 | SIT WITH ME

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, Kindness, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Sit with me today my love 
We don’t have to talk 
I just want to know you’re here
So I can feel your warmth 

The day’s been difficult and sad
My body throbs with pain that’s new 
There are little jagged holes 
In my desolate heart now too 

I thought that I would go to bed
Lie with my grief a while 
But that kind of lonesomeness 
In its visceral rank and file 

Is not what my aching heart yearns for
While in its darkened nook it weeps
So sit with me for a bit my love
Let your tenderness cloak me.
Image: Fine Art America

VERSE | STARRY NIGHT

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, Sadness, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
The blue-purple sky today 
Has spent its moisture-ladenness
It is now cloaked in quietness 
Its sadness it has put away
In some clouded corner that
Will hold it, hide it tenderly
For now it wears a lighter heart 
Star-smeared, it now gleams
Wetly with nostalgia
A tender melancholia 
I look at it as it glimmers
Stalwart in its eternalness
Its timelessness, its ceaselessness
I yearn for that serenity
That noiselessness, that peacefulness
I take in a ragged breath 
All my grief sits in my chest 
Heaving, cleaving achingly
Endlessly, relentlessly
I look at the resolute sky 
At its crush of dewy stars
Valiantly twinkling at me 
And I look away 
Tonight I don’t feel brave enough 
To let the shimmering cloak of night 
Take me into its embrace 
Away, away from my sad place.
It moved its glutted grief today
The sorrowing, water-laden sky
And I have in my wretchedness
Made it my own this starry night.
Image: Getty Images

VERSE | NIGHTTIME SHADOWS

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
I see my shadow lengthen
With the ebbing of the day
I feel it suck up all the sadness
From the bowels of the earth 
With its purple, glistening hoard 
Of melancholia and hopelessness
I move ceaselessly, restlessly 
I will my never-stopping feet 
To sever the tortured bond 
That my swelling shade has formed
With the darkening world around 
But my shadow just spreads out
Ever further on the ground
It suckles at night’s dreary breast 
Absorbing all her suffering
So that nothing should remain 
In earth’s mighty store of pain 
With its ravening tentacles 
My twilight shadow reaches in
Never faltering in its aim
It will not stop it will not rest 
Until it has gorged itself
On a sorrow that is infinite 
It’s bloated edges 
Endlessly dredge
The gloom from earth’s wounded veins 
My shadow ripples and it writhes 
Waning only when daylight 
Breaks the tragic coupling
Of the shades and sadness of nighttime.
Image: Eleanor Woolley

VERSE | MELANCHOLIA

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
When evening falls and once again 
Melancholia sets in 
Tinctures and shadows of times gone by 
Come bleeding, weeping in 

When the orbit of the earth 
Has brought in the dark of night 
And memories, remembrances 
When all with the world was right 

When you cannot escape the bed
That has forged into a cell 
Holding you fast for the night 
In unending wakefulness

When at last your weary mind 
At some hour releases you 
Into realms of visions and dreams
That bruise and lance anew

When you finally awake 
And the sun shines bright again 
Pumping the lifeblood that the night 
Has stolen from your veins 

Breathe in deeply, close your eyes
This will not be the last 
Of eventide’s strange conjuring 
Of aching for the past 

Many will be the days when 
The joyless cycle will repeat 
But at some point the salve of time
Will turn the memories bittersweet.

VERSE | KNOWING

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
For every smile upon your lips 
A million more have beamed 
On happy faces old and young 
With joyfulness they’ve gleamed 

For every tear that you have spilt 
When sadness cleaved the air 
Countless others have also grieved 
From the depths of their despair 

When you have laughed with tears of joy 
Right from your belly out 
There have been a billion others 
Who’ve chortled in delight 

So live completely sit with both 
Your joy and with your pain 
The energy that thrums in you 
Flows in everyone the same 

For every smile that’s on your lips
For every tear that falls
Someone somewhere feels the same  
Someone is sharing it all.

VERSE | LOOK SOFTLY

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writingLeave a comment 
Look softly my darling 
When you look at me 
Be calm and be tender 
As I take my leave 

I want to remember 
Your lovely face 
Serene and peaceful
As I leave this place 

Let us talk of things 
That are close to our hearts 
Of bittersweet endings
Of gentle new starts

Of faces and places 
Those still here, those gone 
Of tea-cozied rainy days 
As I hum my last song 

Look softly my dear one 
When you look at me
Let your beautiful smile
Be the last thing I see
Painting by my sister, Zeenath

VERSE | DO YOU REMEMBER?

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, truth, verse, writingLeave a comment 
Do you remember when you felt the blood
Gushing through your body
You felt it etch into your being
All the kindness, courage and love 
That you thought you could ever feel
And your heart sang!

Do you remember how your breath
Caught in your throat. The sheer shock 
Of those emotions rocking you inside
You felt so overwhelmed that your tear ducts 
Felt the strain. You blinked your wet eyes
And your heart sang!

You looked straight ahead
The wave kept rising in your chest
You felt like you were everything 
That you were meant to be. Your atoms ricocheted 
With those around you. Nature played 
A little bit of handball as she caught 
Your atoms in her hands and passed her own to you
And your heart sang!

Do you remember feeling like this was 
The perfect moment in your time
In your space, in your place
And everything had come together that day to remind you
That your heart was aligned with all
That defined you as the happiest version of yourself
And oh your heart, it sang!

You don’t remember - not really. Neither do I. I mean 
I remember the warmth in my being, the love flowing out
In waves, in rivers. A oneness with the essence of the world
But beyond that, I can’t remember; I can’t evoke the feeling
Something has gone awry, something has been lost 
Along the way 
But I still see its ghost flitting
Vaguely passing before my eyes when I am still
But my heart, it doesn’t sing.

VERSE | THE IMPERMANENCE OF BEING

On By Mahvash K. M.In Emotions, hope, Humanity, poetry, verse, writingLeave a comment 
I wake up, my mind numb, my legs feeling
Like 10 kg bags of wet cement 
Have been tied to my ankles, weighting 
Me down, ripping a dent
With my name in the fabric of the universe
I think briefly of yesterday, it was the reverse
Of the state of my mind, as it ties and it binds
Me today as if to remind
Me that nothing ever is permanent - No
Nothing stays forever, it isn’t meant to
Charmed luck, joy, good health and peace
Hardship, tragedy, anxiety and disease
They come, they take their turns at the wheel
Some lasting longer, some just touch you and flee
I wake up, my mind numb, my body feeling like lead
But tomorrow I’m hoping I won’t feel so dead.

VERSE | THE ANATOMY OF HOPE

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, writing2 Comments 
It is feeling like the world has overcome 
You body and soul and then some 
It’s like drowning in a bottomless sea 
Gasping, gasping, trying to breathe 
Sputtering, choking reaching for air
Crashing, thrashing limbs everywhere
It’s feeling the whole world closing in
Vision blurring, darkness descending. 
It’s being sure that many endings are near
Of wanting, of living and even of fear
It’s feeling the numbness spread like a pall
Binding you, blinding you even as you fall
Into the swirling, whirling abyss 
Of dead emotions, of nothingness

It’s finally seeing the smallest of gleams 
Picking the darkness at its hoary seams 
Little by little the flicker grows bright 
Ever so slowly it pierces the night
Your leaden heart too warms in the heat
Resuming its vital, pulsating beat
You rise to the surface on a rip tide 
You’re thawing and warming on the inside
You break the surface of your despair 
As your throttled lungs fill up with air
Gasping, gasping you take in a breath 
Sputtering and choking you hold on to the thread 
Of the world coming back within reach
Hope on strong wings, has ended the siege 

She gathers you up in her healing arms
Anointing you with her soothing balms
Freeing you, steeling you so that you may walk
Another day with strength and love in your heart.