Uncut Poetry

Uncut Poetry

By Sunil BhandariSociety & CultureArtsRelationshipsPerforming Arts
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Uncut Poetry episodes

  • Replay - This Light Like Love
    This is a repeat of one of my more popular poems, replayed here with a hope of getting a new audience, who might have missed it.
     
    To awaken every morning is to reward oneself.
     
    The day is desperate for us to discover it, to unravel its mysteries and find its surprises.
    We do not have to fly or be special. We merely need to be excited.
     
    Then we can see birds with new eyes, and feel the air on our skin. We can sit quietly, sip a cup, gaze out of the window, and know this is what it is to be alive.
     
    An ordinary life.
     
    Many things could happen, maybe nothing. We might go to office, a normal walk in the park, or spend time with a friend. Or maybe fall in love. It could all happen just now.
    All this in one mere life.
     
    To see the universe in the very fact of our own day. To know that things pass even as they happen. 
     
    To know we can be anybody, anywhere, anytime, and find ourselves to be sundrop and stardust and moonglow.
     
    All in one solitary life of breaths.
     
    If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how life is richer if it is slowed down- 
    • I Like the Ordinary Life
    • I Have Been Thinking of Life Again
    • Stealing Beauty

      • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

      Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

      Get in touch with me on [email protected]
       
      The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
      Motivational soft piano meets cello by Horst Hoffman
      Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/motivational-soft-piano-meets-cello
      Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
      4 min
    • All of Me
      The other day I was reading a poem called "At Night, I Let All the Women Inside me Roam Around the House" by the marvellous poet Kelly Grace Thomas. And it made me realize how interweaved our lives are into a hundred other iterations of our own lives, and how so many unconnected things and occurrences in our world instantly become ours, how the tiniest things which might be happening because it is in their nature to do so, still find incredible resonance in our lives, reaffirming something inside us, making our lives better just by being. Thus a ray lightens us up, laughter emanating from across the room tells us how life can be randomly beautiful.
       
      There is a point in our lives, when we grow infinitely comfortable with all the contradictions of all the people we are, and settle into the infinite variety of our complex beings. The indulgent father, the generous boss, the irritating spouse, the impatient son, the charming host, the omniscient friend. The hanuman chalisa chanter, non-indulgent to liberal hypocrisy, embraced of a thousand conspiracy theories, a doom scroller, the occasional hypocrite. An incomplete irritating occasionally loveable man, who is as ordinary as anybody in this world. Trying to keep body and soul together. And trying to live with all possible contradictions and possibilities. And surviving. And finding beauty in every wart.
       
      And loving oneself and the world precisely because of it.
       
       
      If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the kind of people we can be - 
      • What Do You Fear The Most?
      • Selfish
      • When We Are Tired of Hiding Our Stories

        • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

        Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

        Get in touch with me on [email protected]
         
        The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
        Cinematic Angelical Upbeat Ambient by Musiclfiles
        Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/cinematic_angelical_upbeat_ambient
        Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
        5 min
      • The Mystery of That One Love
        Love is, finally, comfort. To talk, to tell the uncomfortable truth, to tell the story of the day, to share a silence, to share a film and disagree on it, to find a thing of beauty and to think of him.
         
        We all need one such person, for us to find a resting place in our Sisyphean lives. Often I think a poet is merely that one person who is all alone in this world, putting her deepest concerns into words, which she has no one to share with.
         
        To find couples so much at ease with each other - in film, fiction or real life - is to find god's finest benediction. Thats why I am convinced a Shiv/Parvati, a Krishna/Radha, a Ram/Sita work, not only because of their  devotion to each other, but the ability to communicate to each other. Ram faced opprobrium, told Sita about what townspeople were saying, and it changed the direction of the mythology. But the important thing which one misses out in this interaction is the ease which they had to talk to each other about uncomfortable topics. Regardless of where it would lead. Because in that deep abyss of consequence, you have to believe that whatever occurs is for the best.
         
        But most importantly, devotion in a couple is a manifestation of life's possibilities, in the worst and best of times. It is to know that 'two' is both the natural and the best state of existence.
         
        When everything fails, there is always someone who will either not judge, or judge and accept. And be there because that is what both are together for.
         
        If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the slow and long burn of love - 
        • I Can Be Your Poem
        • I Love You
        • A City Made of Our Sighs

          • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

          Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

          Get in touch with me on [email protected]
           
          The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
          Aerobatics by Sascha Ende
          Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/aerobatics
          Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
          5 min
        • An Alumni of Broken Hearts
          Relationships are so amorphous - and so complex. You can’t hold them in your palms, yet they can crumble in front of your very eyes.
           
          I have no idea about the statistics or the studies, but all around me I see dead ties that persist. And I’m glad they do.
           
          In a world where we demand perfect relationships and expect them to become shiny almost overnight, there is something worth remembering: relationships take time to find their richness, become their best - or, at their worst, become bearable.
           
          I think most couples will agree that once the honeymoon is over, the toughest years are often the early ones. That’s when they discover that sharing space is vastly different from sharing love.
           
          She wants a harder bed; he wants the room chilled to 18 degrees at night. She wants an “I love you” before breakfast and twice after dinner. He thinks a thought, a hug or a phone call is quite enough. She loves elaborate gifts because she loves giving them. He couldn’t care less and is happiest writing her a personal poem - which, naturally, leaves her dissatisfied.
           
          The trouble begins when these differences stop being differences and become permanent battle lines.
           
          Some things have difficult solutions, of course. But when both people keep digging in their heels, they are simply creating a frontline. And then another dynamic kicks in: one starts feeling that they are always the one giving in. Isn’t that unfair?
           
          So the heels go deeper. More arms are added to the frontline.
           
          And then the inevitable happens. One person begins to feel that they are always giving more. The uncomfortable truth is that, in most relationships, there will be an imbalance of sorts. One person will take more decisions; another will be more involved in the home; one may handle more of the finances. And there will inevitably be moments when one person has to take the majority of the important family decisions. Like it or lump it, that’s often the nature of relationships - working or personal.
           
          The unfairness begins when you start keeping score. When the relationship becomes a place to prove who gives more, who sacrifices more, or who is the boss.
           
          It rarely ends well.
           
          Counsellors would grow hungry if all of this were revealed early enough in a session.
          Because when all a person can see are the bad things in a relationship, they become completely blind to what drew them to each other in the first place.
           
          And once that happens, the road to perdition is already well laid.
           
          If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on broken hearts - 
          • A Primer on How to Deal With (Being) Hurt
          • When You Lose the Lover but Not the Love
          • I Walk Alone (wishing you were beside me)

            • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

            Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

            Get in touch with me on [email protected]
             
            The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
            Adventure by Alexander Nakarada
            Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/adventure
            Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
            7 min
          • This Morning I Refused to Get Out of Bed
            Oh that delicious feeling of never getting out of bed. The battle within. Knowing that routine was king, and would win, because life is weaved around a framework, which urges disciple, and gives rewards, which are really life's gifts.
             
            But once in a while, just sometimes, when the windows lay unopened, the curtains remain drawn, and the body pleads for respite, sometimes as a false alarm for rest, sometimes just for indulgence, sometimes as a mere call of indolence, we decide to give in. Without guilt. As a valid choice, as a happy choice without any value judgement.
             
            Because life deserves the pause between moments, the lazy minute between two busy ones.
             
            As our mind eases and slips into a peaceful penumbra, in that half-light of giving in, we, strangely, find answers to questions we might not have even asked. And we know, this is life too, that this too is important.
             
            That between being busy and madness, this comma is the circlip which keeps us connected, springily, alive.
             
            So - the world outside calls us into action, but for one brief morning we recognize that languor is just another way of belonging to the world.
             
            If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the mornings of our lives - 
            • Mother's Rambling Lessons on Life Imparted in Morning Walks
            • Lovers in the Morning
            • A Morning Ramble in How Love is Rediscovered at the Bottom of Rubble

              • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

              Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

              Get in touch with me on [email protected]
               
              The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
              Liberty Quest by Sascha Ende
              Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Liberty-quest
              Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
              4 min
            • When Do You Know It Is The Last One?
              I am forever left bemused with how unprepared we are to the inevitable. And I talk not only of deaths, but consequences. For every action, thought, word of ours pushes the engine of our existence and our world forward.
               
              A dear friend always chastises me when I say something dire, even when it is in jest. He then rattles off five examples of things which went wrong because someone spoke of them - maybe even merely thought them!!
               
              But the lesson is subtle - and a lesson for life. The very basic tenets of Buddhist and Jain philosophy talk of 'good words, good action, good thought'. It is not said as a cliche or lightly, it is a truth, even if it is oft-spoken, sometimes reflexively. Because a lot of sorrow which we gather in our lives is because of what is said to us, and what we say and immediately regret.
               
              Alas, nothing valuable in life, once lost, is ever retrievable. There is an inevitability. And it's our bane in life to carry with us in all the days left.
               
              If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on noticing and observing - 
              • Marriage Made Me a Philosopher
              • This Light Like Love
              • On Death (if it happens to stop by)

                • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

                Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

                Get in touch with me on [email protected]
                 
                The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
                Imagefilm033 by Sascha Ende
                Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Imagefilm033
                Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
                5 min
              • When We Are Tired of Hiding Our Stories
                We carry so many stories inside us, which keep dying small deaths. Nobody to narrate them, often lying in the dungeons of memory, sometimes forced there, often simply ignored.
                 
                So much of what we are, and why we are what we are, are these stories. But we are afraid to tell them, often even as they are happening. Because we don't have safe zones in our lives. People who will not start looking at us differently when they discover something contrary to what they see us as.
                 
                And we live these lives of half truths, or full lies, and navigate our days with beatific smiles which have nothing to do what is going inside us.
                 
                The caveat is that sometimes we unravel. We either let go physically and find our emotions overflowing or anorexic. Or our minds split due to stress and we are rendered untethered, a psychological shadow searching for its host.
                 
                But do all our truths deserve the sun? Wouldn't it be chaos if we lay ourselves out bare and naked? Is it better to be true and friendless or halfway there but a part of a culturally acceptable reality.
                 
                That is where it is critical that we seek and keep safe places, people with whom we can be our worst selves, and we would know they would still love us even when we make it really hard to love us.
                 
                Because this is so rare, that's why we have people becoming liars or simply collapsing in their internal stress.
                 
                The only solution is to live a true life, as close to one's proclivities as possible and let the world know about it. What is inside is then outside. Nothing more nothing less.
                 
                If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on stories we tell ourselves - 
                • The Sublime in the Ordinary
                • I Don't Think Poetry Will Save Us. And Yet, and Yet...
                • Seasons as Consultations To Life

                  • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

                  Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

                  Get in touch with me on [email protected]
                   
                  The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
                  Sehnsucht by Sascha Ende
                  Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/sehnsucht
                  Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
                  6 min
                • Selfish
                  So many people in good jobs and thriving businesses, find out, some day or the other, that they have lost their way. And frittered away life by focusing incessantly on a living. On the promise of a something-promise, a glittering, a destination, a kind of a fulfilment. Of course it is. It is a pursuit, a dream of so many. And we are blessed for anything which brings us our daily bread.
                   
                  But after that?
                   
                  Every life has an inflection point. A point of giving in, giving up, looking in, or simply pausing. Of realizing. That having only one precious life is about putting everything at stake, if we don't do what needs to be done.
                   
                  But here's the kicker. We know - and still get bound. To the machinery which is sold to us as our saviour, our meaning, our definition.  We are marketed other people's dreams to be our own. But what does one do? We have to live, we have to eat.
                   
                  But there are always escapes. As slivers, as days, as nights, as time stolen so we could be with ourselves. With our baggage, our broken dreams, our imperfections - but always aware that if we are alive, we have a chance to find what seemed - almost seemed - lost.
                   
                  If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on ways of living - 
                  • This Light Like Love
                  • The Love of an Ordinary Life
                  • A Child Mulling on Life Beside the Sea

                    • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

                    Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

                    Get in touch with me on [email protected]
                     
                    The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
                    Yesteryear's Decision by Sascha Ende
                    Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Yesteryear's_decision
                    Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
                    6 min
                  • Always the Grace of Poetry
                    I can never stop writing about how beautiful this world is and how much we shortchange it. As we drown in its inequities and issues, we lose focus of its true meaning and what it means to our lives.
                     
                    Because to obsess about its warts, its slings-&-arrows, its knockdowns, is to lose track of why these come into our lives. Not to move away from them, not to brush them away or try to machine gun them out of our lives.  They exist to ensure we do. For us to recognize that they are all episodes, to help us realize what we are capable of  - just a few steps away from recognizing what the world has to offer.
                     
                    And then we find that what surrounds us is a beauty which can leave us breathless. Everywhere. Inside a flower. In a touch. In the first sight of a loved one's face, the sound of her breathing.
                     
                    And then we know why we are here, in this birth, in this world. To know how to find beauty. And immerse in it. And become as beautiful as we were always meant to be.
                     
                    If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the grace of poetry and living - 
                    • Walking into the Morning's Wisdom
                    • This Light like Love
                    • Stealing Beauty

                      • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

                      Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

                      Get in touch with me on [email protected]
                       
                      The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
                      Imagefilm 002 by Sascha Ende
                      Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Imagefilm_002
                      Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
                      4 min
                    • What Do You Fear The Most?
                      What do you fear the most?
                      Ma went around the table
                      asking each one to tell.
                       
                      Son was quick off the bat -
                      losing all of you.
                      (Isn't that a given, wife said,
                      misty-eyed, she held out her hand.
                      Still doesn't stop being a disaster, he said,
                      unless - you reach an age of 150,
                      become batty like hell,
                      and I have to go to god and say,
                      you're having fun buddy eh?
                      Isn't it time you took them up!)
                       
                      Dad mulled a bit, his mind we could see,
                      rushing through empty spaces,
                      things he'd lost, with traces like comet tails,
                      grabbing at what he could catch,
                      things which glistened -
                      he sighed - "to forget who you are
                      as you look down at me
                      as I take my last breath -
                      to not know love
                      or the ones I loved
                      is to rob myself of the only treasure
                      I can call my own."
                      (We were all crying by now,
                      and daughter said "this is a bad idea, I'm out"
                      but mum held her arm  - hear this out dear,
                      we are just being real, to know what haunts.)
                       
                      I thought of life and what it meant,
                      the love we give, the love we get,
                      how we strive to make our breath count.
                      "I just fear not having made a difference
                      to the world, to you, to anyone,
                      to take so much of this world's beauty,
                      and not give something back -
                      to be mistaken to be merely a taker,
                      someone who merely wrote and then went to bed.
                       
                      Wife was gazing out of the window,
                      as the city twinkled back at her,
                      a woman who thought deep,
                      a face of a college girl,
                      a soul as old as the world.
                      "I can't bear to go before all of you,
                      to not hear the changing inflections of your voice,
                      to not see you beautiful with wrinkles,
                      to not see you hold a child -
                      or see the sun rise in your soul.
                      I want to die a moment after
                      you all take your last breath -
                      not a second earlier."
                       
                      We were quiet, just swallowed
                      in the depth of what love could be.
                       
                      Mum had two large tears shimmering
                      on the surface of her eyes,
                      a little smile which spelt sad -
                      I fear not being on my own,
                      to be the person who needs
                      to always ask for help -
                      the hand which helped so many
                      now reaching out to steady a step -
                      to lie helpless in a bed,
                      gazing forlornly at a bedpan.
                       
                      And daughter was weeping openly now -
                      there's nothing I fear more than losing this -
                      this - the way we open our hearts,
                      and know our universe is here,
                      what the world brings is advantages,
                      there is no end to the purses and scarves I collect,
                      but there will be an end to these voices,
                      this touch, this look, but none
                      to this love or the broken heart
                      I will carry after you
                      till the end of my life.
                       
                      And we let the night pause a while,
                      as we all held hands in an uneven circle,
                      and let our breath be known,
                      that we were alive,
                      and this touch, this look, this smile,
                      this passing moment,
                      this colossal fear
                      but our greatest joy.
                       
                      If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on togetherness - 
                      • Assisted Suicide
                      • Living Tragedy Forward
                      • If I Commit Suicide

                        • Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts'

                        Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

                        Get in touch with me on [email protected]
                         
                        The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
                        Rising Sun by Sascha Ende
                        Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Rising -Sun
                        Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
                        6 min

                      About Uncut Poetry

                      From the publisher's feed

                      Sunil Bhandari is a poet by compulsion. He says he survives in this world because he can get to write poetry. This podcast is of his poetry.