Nobody's noise

The voices in my head

The things you left unsaid

Or which i said 

Haunt me in my dreams

Takes grotesque forms 

Scar my sacred school grounds

My hopeful yesterday should not be seeing

The somewhat disappointing today

Turned too loud 

Even a melaconcholic symphony is

A cruel cacophony 

A wound caused by words 

Never truly heals

My subconscious is

Just one infinite reel

Help me move on

 to the next scene

Should you not speak at all?

No it's not that hard

Just be kind

Treat me like you 

Inherently expect me to

Treat you

Its not  your birthright

To subject me to noise

Just because you are deaf

To sounds of the ones you allegedly love

Prompts- Write on Noise - Poets and storytellers united

Alchemist

Prompt: Take a negative concept and turn it into something positive.

I am an altruistic alchemist

Can turn your grief into gold

locked in the four chambered

safety deposit box

known as your heart.

Yes, despite your baffling belief,

you definitely have one.

I can turn your alert anxiety

into adrenaline × agility.

Why lean into

artificial intelligence when

you can be a superhuman?

I can make you forgive

your parents —

they did their best after

all —

and most important

of all,

make you love yourself

and show yourself

the grace you extend

unto others.

I am your therapist.

Don’t forget our call!

The oldest religion

 You can have it all!

Drink perfume &

smell like milk

Dance your witch dance

everybody screams

at the greats always.

Don’t dance

to the music of mere men.

Drink deep.

kiss a few kraken

join the oldest religion

Not in Florence

nor in the machine

But love.

The soothing magic of it all

Makes you finally belong

So Poets and Storyteller's United had a very interesting prompt - next week, we’ll invite you to take inspiration from the title of songs in Florence and the Machine’s new album, Everybody Scream. Examples: “Sympathy Magic”, “Perfume and Milk”, “Buckle”, “Kraken”, “And Love”. I decide why not have it all and incorporated almost all the titles in one go :P

Fill in the blanks

 

I put pen on paper

with blind hope that

muscle memory will lead me further. 

While flexible poses fashioned my flighty youth,

I can feel the rigid rigor mortis

setting upon the dusk of my adulthood. 

Ah! I can indeed survive by merely scrolling

and autotyping 

and generally not using my brain. 

Play nostalgic games

cocooned in comfort 

in beer bosom.

Do the same work and 

not get off the treadmill 

even when I know 

I am never going anywhere

on this broken machine. 

I know I can but should I?

If the dart is hitting the middle of the forehead

maybe it is time to skateboard off to 

an unknown vortex! 

Kiwi caipiroska

prompt -'recipe' @ poets and storytellers united 

Golden hands

Can pour no wrong.

With a pinch of salt

We forget all their faults

I sip my kiwi caipiroska

Willing to take me back in time

To places which only existed in my mind

Where the golden sun

Didn’t hate the silver moon

Every day was a noon

Akin to a silver spoon.

Next round please

This time add pepper and honey

Maybe a few notes of mahogany

I’m gonna scream a symphony

A woman’s baritone

A man’s lullaby

World shouldn’t make sense

Should words?

Just get me the whole pitcher.

Alohamora

Pivot!

When you’re in front of a carrot

Don’t be a bugs bunny

Vitamin A is overrated.

Look up at the sun

And soak in the D

There is always vitamin sea

From well earned vacations.

Don’t pivot like Ross

But like Rachel

Cumbersome couches

Are meant to be potatoed in.

Be a root

Like groot

Once dead

Twice alive

Thrice tempted

Always alive

To the realm of (im)possibilities

Your mind is magic

Alohomora!

Destiny's Child

 

For the Sunday muse 

 

 

The lines of your palm

Are laced with napalm

You will keep searching for calm

Yet your hands will keep you warm

From a world full of harm.

 

Your path you walk is only yours

Your umbrella cannot protect you

From the puddles underneath

You will weather the wet &

Become a bonafide vet.

 

You will survive,

You are destiny’s child

The roads you walk will

Always be the ones not taken

Not out of sheer rebelery

But an innate sense of revelry

So child!

Don’t rely on fate,

Your destiny is in your hands.

is what I would want my palm reader to say xD 

Writing a wrong

For the PU prompt ‘ to write about a time when we realized we were wrong about something, and what we did after the realization hit us.’

I thought I was making the right choice

At that time

You ticked all the boxes 

on paper 

Soon 

I was boxed into a corner 

Crushed by your corny love 

Heck I wasn’t even horny no more.

I decided to sleepwalk through life

If I opened my eyes truly

We both knew 

This would be already over 

You lovingly blindfolded me 

I loathingly cuckolded you. 

I woke up one day 

And decided to live the truth 

Consequences be damned 

I still remember your cries

As I sunk into my sofa 

We were away by so far

Yes

I never deserved this 

Kind of love 

But you said 

I’m incapable of love

Called me a robot 

The only time you spoke your mind 

Was when I was leaving you behind. 

I bleed too.

I’m thriving now

Hope you are too 

Wordsmith

 

The world spinning

I don’t see

When I am in the zone.

Words are all I have

To weave art

To create

 A quick restart.

Maybe it is out of fashion

To get your hands dirty

With all the ink

and  mental stink.  

Fragility is art

I cup the words with my

Tired hands

And when it stands

On its own merit

I show it off like simba.

Sometimes I just let it dry out

And adorn my wall.

Other time I just mush it

Into senselessness

And devour the meaningless of it all! 

For the awesome picture prompt by Sunday muse  

and sunday pantry in Poets and Storyteller's United

Cuckoo

 

Firmly rooted at the same spot

For Two decades and a half,

I was jealous of the monkey a lot.

Jumping between me and her

He wreaked havoc in my heart.

I yearned for bold adventure

Till one day he snapped me in half.

 

Then I began developing slow respect

For this lovely bird,

Who was content to perch on me

He enjoyed my silence &

I his comforting baritone.

He decided to call me home

And nested in my bosom.

 

We would watch double rainbows

And hilarious humans

With equal interest.

 

It was magical while it lasted

But he was a bird and I a tree,

One day I had to set him free

To migrate to new places

Will he come back?

And when he does

Do I want him back?

 

Soon I’ll be old

And I live in India

They will tie ropes on me

And start calling me goddess

And worship my bareness

Call me wise &

Never let me rise.

 

Or worse

They will forget me

And the clouds will stop cooperating

They will cut me with their axes

And make me into a table

Or whatever the hell they want.

Oh god I hope not!

 

We are what we believe

And I believe I hear in my green ears

The handsome music of tomorrow ~

 

Wanderlust

Once upon a time

Being a wanderlust

Was seen as a mental disorder

By flat earthers

(irony duly noted)

 

Then we had the likes of Columbus

Find his ‘India’

And kill a lot many Indians

In the inane name of ‘colonialisation’

And killed many a civilisation

In the name of observation.

(irony again noted)

 

Then came the modern ages

Where every instagrammer

Pronounced themselves a wanderlust

And travelled the roads always taken

As long as they got a selfie

And a pic for their tinder bio.

 

Out of the corner of the eye

In a lorry packed with explosives

Came in crazy corona.

Travel was now confined to

The end of our streets

And inside our eye

Where the mind meets

And give us little treats

From the camera of the past

To vacations visited last

And memories gone by fast.

 

Home which was once a retreat

Has now become a place of deceit

Where we now work and relax not

Suddenly our third eye and an old map

Is all we got!  

 

Written for Sunday muse and Writer's Pantry

Liquid Heart

 

 ##skylover wordlist - Alchemy , implacable , knight , aqua , mask , aloof , almond , nocturnal , landscape , sting.

 

 

These nocturnal mornings..

A product of virus induced,

Unstable raging routines

Sting me just a bit more when

It dawns upon me that,

 

My knight in shining whatever

Will find it just a bit more impossible

To track me down.

My face covered with equal measures

Aloofness & N97 masks.

 

My implacable heart demands

An alchemy of sorts

Or atleast a reverse osmosis

Of this aquatic almond

In the centre of my chest,

 

To leak the leanings of my liquid heart

Unto the larger landscape

And hope love finds me

Before it is a bit too late.

 

I thank Kerry for her monthly word list. That really inspired me and I ended up incorporating all the words to make one poem. 

Silver Linings Playbook

By Samyuktha J

Once upon a time

she did give a damn.

She reacted to every crime

On every page of that depressing newspaper.

The creases on that paper

Started residing on her forehead &

 the corners of her mouth

Her smiles few and far between

Had the air of melancholy

Of a loss felt before it was born.

She grew apart from her people

Better than to fall apart she would say.

Then one day I saw her at Joe’s and shocked to hear her sing

Once upon a time

I did give a damn.

Now I would rather dine on my dime

And definitely some more wine.

Life is too short and my dog’s life shorter

Can’t waste any on things that I cannot change

And definitely not on things designed to make me cringe

Salut and Bon Apetit!

My inquisitive eyes were question enough

She smiled a benign smile

Her eyes crinkled with joy.

“One Sunday morning

I was reading the paper in no man’s land

I didn’t feel the heat nor the beauty of what was around me

Nor did I feel my loneliness or the danger surrounding me

I was feeling older than my age and carrying the burden of the world

When I suddenly looked out of the paper

And saw a wolf in front of me.

Peaceful and wise staring at me

I found beauty in the beast

And possibilities of violence

If I moved too much.

Then I Realized the whole point of my life

Was to look at him ,

look at what was around me

And not darned piece of paper!

I tore it to pieces and was searching for a dustbin in that wasteland

And when I turned back he wasn’t there anymore

But atleast I was."

I smiled. 

 I know she did give a damn

but this time

To what really mattered

To what was in front of her

Life~

Written for the sunday muse

Bottle Tree

Alas! 

I am just a glass bottle hanging from a tree, 

oscillating in an orbit of pain

to the tune of my circumstances.

My emotions are somewhere sealed

inside that airtight bottle,

I think they are transparent

But ofcourse!

They are actually invisible to the onlooker.

And he asks,

What are you a glass bottle doing

clinging on to a bare tree?

I'm better off with my fellow bottle mates.

But once our paths collide,

Won't we just crash and break 

and let loose that noxious subtance 

which man calls love and

I call pain?

Written for Sunday muse's picture prompt.

A trip through October

                                                                                              

So September ended

And someone woke me up

As previously promised

~ Oh! The ever painful pinky

Always randomly hitting stuff

And bringing up pent up sh*t

Aren’t you supposed to be a secret? ~

I tear the daily calendar sheets

And suddenly here we are…

There is more torn than less to tear

IT IS OCTOBER

The month of Mahatma Gandhi

A magnificent man who

Truly walked the walk

All the way to Dandi

And paved the way

Towards democracy

with secularism ,

He took a bullet for it too.

#respect

Then comes navratri

9 days of steaming hot culture

Which defines  South India for you.

Sundals , ancient dolls and Carnatic music

All wrapped in a silk saree

That is golu for you.

 And to cap it all off

We have the crowning jewel of Indian culture

DIWALI – the festival of lights

The big boom of crackers,

The smell of ghee emanation from all the delicious sweets

*Ah all the calories

I already feel fat now*

The colour popping from all the traditional clothes

Can make even a blind man shy

This is India at its most glorious

All are invited

With family

Please RSVP!

I tear more sheets

and

The month is over now!

Absolutely no work done

I carry around a few more kgs

And a bucketload of memories J

Written for PU's Pantry of poetry proses : October prompt. This is my october for you :) added prose in poetry form to justify the prompt :P 

Join the fun. How is your typical october?

An ode to the good night

The night gave me his shirt

And solace and comfort

I could stare at his face

All night long

And expose my secrets how

He gifted me solace

From mundane encumbrances

For most part exacerbated by

That cantankerous bitch known as day.

Her piercing eyes

Questioning everything

Intent on making me sweat

You cannot excise the truth mom

Just ask nicely maybe?

Why do you like him more you ask

I can walk his streets

Dark it maybe

Safe to brandish out my scattered self  

And lick the ice cream off my hand

Streets sparse with kindred spirits

Silent whispers

Ready to let me in

On their simmering secrets

Once the sunlight sets in

The clocks get reset

The same souls turn back into harsh humans &

Atone for yesterday’s falter

With my back broken

I limp through the day

And surrender to my dear father

He puts on his twinkling smile

Reserved only for these special nights

And snuggles his daughter

The travails of the day seem far away

If only for these few hours.

"in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems" took this Toad's prompt to heart and the results are for yours to see. 

Scream

Taking a raincheck on one’s feelings

Is a recipe for disaster

Trying to be strong for both of us

Has only made me weaker

World’s greatest armor

Is being in disguise

Only when the chinks start to show

You will know that there is nothing brave inside

 So why don’t you pull that veil

Make me scream

Say those words and

Save me too?

Alphabet Song

Image from the internet

We’re all at the Anonymous Café

Basking in each other’s misery

Cotton over our bleeding hearts

Defying Death and all her friends

Ever ready to give it another go

Fossiled memories motivating rather than defeating

Grape sized heart can carry

Such humongous weight

Ignominious defeats

Justifying its strength

Kudos to us all for still trying hard.

Lavish meals and meringue pies

Can only take you so far

Novice Romantics chuckle at us silently

Our orchestra of sadness drown them quiet easily.

Be proud of all the battle scars

Queer we are not for choosing this

Rocky path

Songs getting written by of us at this very moment

Taste of victory after testing times is the best after all.

Right? 

So the Toads had an interesting prompt where you take a letter-word and run with it. I ran with the letters from A-T then ignored UVWXYZ because I already made my point.