Day 274: Two Sides

"Two sides" explores the idea of contrasts we find in life, ones that are obvious and important somehow and add meaning. It looks at the notion that we often find ourselves at edges or extremes and are tempted to compare our situation to the opposite. It looks at relationships whatever be their nature and need, it looks at the incomplete nature of things that make them unique in their own way. Looking at these subtle realities are reminders of a place less familiar sometimes and yet they are warm when you need them to be. The extreme nature of things often pushes us to believe that we share either of the bookends, that from where we are we get to define the opposite. I chose to write this to look at a subtle interlude between the two points and in the hope to capture both these sides.

Two Sides
Two sides of an endless ocean, we never meet
We never exchange letters or words or even greet
You rise as I fall as waves & tides on the other side
Yet somehow you manage to cradle me to sleep

These slow waves they keep coming again & again
The are things we write about from places of pleasure & pain
Two end of a camera reel, negatives & postives at best
We develop from nothing into a moment captured in rest

Two ends of a tall mountain range and peak
You are the top and I am the foothill that you seek
You stare at me when you find your own quiet
While I look up to you surrounded as clouds fly by

Two pages of the book, one beginning and other the end
One undisclosed and the other is the first thing you read
So I curiously stare sometimes, and take a peek
For we are all but bound to look for all of the things we seek

Two points of the day somewhere stuck in time
Like the morning and evening golden hour in perfect rhyme
Painted pictures among colors that no longer fight
You lay yourself to bed as I find the perfect sunrise. 

Day 273: To be Fine

I keep wondering what it means to be fine. Is it a real state of being, is the same as being happy or simply in the previous state of mind that whatever you are in right now. For some reason I cannot keep thinking back of the example of states of a computer that are stored and recovered in case of a failure and all you need to do is go back to the last state. I wonder if we are expecting something similar in our case albeit a little more complicate and a little more permanent. So when I hear myself or others dispense this advice or get it myself I keep going back to this thought. What is it to be fine? and how do we know what the last time we were fine felt like? I write for those who have been for both the giving and the receiving end of this, because we share this constant dilemma of coming back to something that is a state of mind. I am writing, I am fine

To be Fine
I wonder if we are all looking for some evidence
Without me and without you, I wonder if we pretend
Do we carry a smile, are we all too rational sometimes?
Or simply promise ourselves that we are all going to be fine

But then we pull these thoughts out of thin air
Leave behind a feeling long after we are no longer there
Climb into minds as we write fiction with facts
Try to be the best of ourselves, no matter where we are at

I follow through some of the promises that I make
When no one is pointing them out as I make my own mistakes
I know not how, when or why; this story unfolds
I have been asked to keep writing, I will find an ending
                                                              So I have been told

I am bookmarked beginning and endings for a few
I am a familiar face among all of the ones who I knew
This state of being something and someone, in the back of my mind
Lets me write, as I keep looking for whatever it is, to be fine.

Day 272: Undecided, Incomplete

I have often written to the idea of being unplanned, this notion of not knowing how things would go because there is no process that guides your choices or the outcomes that follow. In the midst of it all I was hoping to find something that was simple and yet somehow as a writing felt incomplete to me. Since I couldn't decide on a topic, the idea was simple to write about this undecided and incomplete nature of things. The "me" and "you" in the poem depends on the reader and while some may interpret it as a conversation between the friends and lovers we don't get to keep. Some may think of them as chanced conversations between people that they never get to have again, such is the nature of the writing today.

Undecided, Incomplete
Whether you are a part of my world, you lay undecided
While I look for hints and clues in the moments that resided
About life as it may come, about choices I have to make
Things I fail at and yet keep trying again & again

Whether you are the November afternoon too bright for winter day
Or are you art works that for now just hasn't been appraised?
In plain sight, lies a sincere writing written in a closed room
While you question why I write again and again, I question "for whom?"

You are undecided somehow and I am incomplete for now
We are fighting against time and with parts of ourselves we don't show
We are creating our perfect selves, painted in colors I knew
Written in these simple words and yet meaningful only to a few

Whether you are imperfect, whether I am far from being complete
I do not know quite yet, so I write everyday hoping someone pays heed
For now the world looks for many versions, of both you & me
They are hoping to find the middle ground between the undecided & incomplete 

Day 271: Knocks on Songs

"When I am writing, I let the emotions talk to me. They guide where I need to go, I am not paying attention the lyrics and music, I just need to feel what the song wants me to feel." as I got the reply when I asked Abdurrahman Tarikei, a Turkish singer & musician about what he thinks about when he writes and sings. It was a coffee hour I was invited to and I got to learn more about music and songs in that brief conversation and shared songs. There is a word in Hindi that translates beautifully to a knock called "Dastak". What is more beautiful about the word is the associated meaning the feeling of anticipation, the notion of surprise and the eagerness on the other side. These qualities are born as a result of the first word and the way it is often said. I keep going back to this idea of whether a feeling emotes after the word has been expressed or whether it is exactly like what was said about the song by Abdurrahman, you feel it first & if you can get the feeling right you know you are doing the song justice. Such is music that it must be captured in it's most free form. Thanks to my conversation I feel we get to live & play these knocks on songs we write and sing.

Knocks on Songs
I am the "Dastak", the slow knock on the closed door
The one that I sing about, as you feel like you used to before
I close my eyes as I imagine just this much, my mind feels
And my voice talks back, only so much as it could reveal

So I take this breath of fresh air, that fills my lungs as I sing
I familiarize myself with nothing more, not even lyrics, but just a feeling
Some will say that in the depth of the day & in the song writer's need
Lies a music that is yet to be born, that to which only a few have paid heed

I am the slow winter on your closed window, I am conversations over tea
I am reminders of things, that which connect that little bit of "you" to "me"
We will write again in time, we will compose from the thin air
We will be reminded of inspiration when stuck in slow and silent despair

The knocks on songs, that come to the song writer's aid
These few things that through our voice and our thoughts escape
I surround myself with just this much, there is much more to feel
I listen with my eyes closed, waiting for something that the song reveals

Day 270: Those Who

Our characteristics features are what distinguishes us on a deeper more profound level sometimes from one another. There are those among us who are obsessed with the detail of things, it is in their nature to observe and to them it provides meaning in many layers. Those who are the rational ones who have tried to win their way by looking for explanation among places where there are none. Those who have planned and then some who live absolutely unplanned, some who are brave to look for answers. There are some who feel the need to write, and then there are some who are like meaning which comes and goes when you read something. I find most of all that we are risk takers who are in love with the risks we take, whether calculated or not we are fascinated in our own ways.

Those Who
Those who live in the details are seldom set free
They are unchained yet bound, as bound as can be
They are words that have left the mind & on paper remain
They are breath of the air so free, they are meaning untamed

Those who have sought the logical, the meaning of it all
Who have refused to drift away, who have refused to fall
Have gone around in circles waiting for things to change
The brave ones, looking for answers in their own way

There are some who plan every move, days in advance
Who believe in getting it right & yet look for a second chance
Those who have lost even if just a little bit would know
They are troubled sometimes and this side of themselves they don't show

Those who are writing none the less, who haven't taken a break
Who are not gone for long & love to take the risk they take
Those who have left home but only rarely to return
Who have watched their life go by and do the same things in rerun

The unplanned things, the things you cannot prepare at times
Are the things you learn from the most, they are rough & unrhymed

Day 269: Man in the Clock Tower

"There's a man in the clock tower who holds my back up memory" read the text, it was funny because apart from the fact that it referred to me in the student building with the clock tower, it made me sound like a character. One that you write about in story books and though it rarely happens but I get a chance to write in the second person as someone who is separate and outside the scope of the subject directly but rather writes indirectly about himself. In my case "Man in the Clock Tower" seems like an obvious choice.

Man in the Clock Tower
The man in the clock tower, he counts the hours of the day
He places faith in things that somehow manage to slip away
He remembers them perfectly, every moment clear in his head
Every time he relives a single day, and as he puts himself to bed

The dreams that he dreams in perfect synchronicity
Are in colors that are yet to be painted on a canvas by me
He wanders off from one place to the next, in thought that lay free
As he lays it down, bared for the world, all in all in poetry

The man in the clock tower, he seems to hum a tune
He is both loud and quiet at times, resonating in the room
The hands of the clock chase each other, one after the next
As he crosses off his to-do lists and puts his day to rest

I write fiction about true people tonight, hoping some of it were true
That some of it meant something and when needed came through
For now I keep writing, sitting up high in the clock tower room
As the night fades away I wonder what do I write to? and for whom?

Day 268: Being Human

Over the span of last couple of days I have realized that sometimes even if we like to write poems to a certain inclination, there are times when the topics we write about overtake our mind. They are not concerned with the world that reads but rather the mind that writes and with the heart that feels what it pours out into poetry. I have tried to make sense of these moments sometimes and as the deconstructed bits of pieces of our mind come together on my diary entries and poems. I fold the page on the moleskin diary as I reach out for a pen to quickly trace the footsteps of my thoughts. They are walking along the ocean so they quickly disappear as I write them down. It is human nature to be pensive, to be reflective when you least expect it and I guess to write when no one is reading.

Being Human
Being human, sometimes and somedays
Is the hardest thing to be, the hardest thing to stay
Being true to yourself, being honest at best
Never knowing the rules of the game, as life plays the rest

This writing of mine, it unfolds slowly in my mind
It quiets down for just a bit, while I looks for things to write
Being human is sometimes all about making mistakes
And yet learning from them somehow & someways

If writing this was my way of talking to you
Telling you of stories that we have written together too
You don't know them yet, as they get lost in time
As for me, I am cursed never to forget these memories of mine

If being human is all about nostalgia alive in poetry
About getting these simple words to rhyme & yet be free
I see many sides of this world, I read faces in a glimpse
Being human is all I choose to be, the last time since

Some will say these distractions will run their course
I tell them worry not my friend, these are the ones I chose
For being human may have been about roles we play
For me writing them down, is the only way

Day 267: Summer Winter

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is communicate, the idea of talking when you need to despite all the caveats and in-betweens that exist. Our biggest complaints some nights maybe about conversations we don't get to have, the ones we don't plan to have anyways. Sometimes it is just as simple as trying to reach someone whose battery has run out and hoping that somehow somewhere they get the message. The snippets of our talks, the ones we do get to arrange between these random conversations hold most of the meaning I write to some nights.

Summer Winter
We are lovers with nothing to lose or gain
We just know how to love even if it pains
Even if there are reasons that some things will never be
We are chained in our thoughts and yet kept free

We are long hours, that feel longer tonight
When I can't reach you as you keep your discharged phone on your side
So I label my door, telling you I am back home
Hoping you will read it and know I am waiting for

We are communications that are important yet impossible to make
So I choose to write down, the ones I might somehow forget
I write down my cold night, as my fingers; they go numb
I keep writing in the hope of seeing what it slowly becomes

We are unchained tonight, no questions asked
We are quiet that seems too long, as though much time has passed
We are wearing our warm jackets and yet we are not warm
I try to find who you are as you slowly find who I am

Day 266: Warmth in the Cold

While at a concert for BRIC nations with Yo-Yo Ma and others, I was reminded by one of the performers that it is Diwali the festival of light back home. Once in a year back home in India, the skies light up with more sparks of light than you can fathom as it aptly celebrates the festival of light or Diwali. Diwali is not just celebrated as a festival of light but rather as a victory of good over evil, and right over all wrong. There is a concept that tells you that there must be a balance between these too the one called  Yin and Yang among some cultures. Though some of us are thousands of miles away on this day, I can only share a little warmth from the candles and diyas(lamps) that glow on that night and a company that I share with them. As I write this on a cold winter evening, and the wind makes it only a bit harder. The sunlight has long faded away

Warmth in the Cold
Here's to the many lights that flicker, these warm candles somewhere tonight
They are reminders of roads we take back home, some that we can't this night
They are longer lines of a poetry that we think of and sometimes write
As our thoughts are tucked into bed somewhere, but they refuse to sleep tight

Come with me to places where hope never fades from the restless eyes
Where you are whatever you can choose to be, for me that will suffice
We are looking for music that speaks to our soul, that plays in our mind
Yet somehow the hardest thing to write down, the hardest one to find

Here's to the in(s) and out, to the shortcuts we sometimes know
They are somewhere buried in the first layers of the winter snow
They are cold and warm together, I melt over and over again
Hoping for something new every time, as you call me a bit insane

For some reminders of this night, seat numbers and ticket stubs we keep
We keep telling ourselves there is an encore, there is much more before we leave
Insignificant at best, and sometimes forgotten and unknown
These are my warm wishes, from a cold place, the only ones I show

Day 265: Tuesday Postings

This one is just a simple posting from my work chair and desk, my legs stretched out as I feel the need to write in between the chaos that might surround the day. It is a mellow one with a headphone jammed into my head and a slow music suddenly fills my ears trying to remind me of a place I might relate to it. We are all about simple writing sometimes, about expressing in the least of words and just knowing that you relate to the world in more ways than you think. In the randomness of a mid day post, in the tea cup that reflects from a far as the tea gets colder, I write with the idea of putting a story in a poem and leaving just a little bit of myself and you in the writings.

Tuesday Postings
So I sat there writing a story in a rhyme
Tuesday blues around me, mellowed in headphones I wear
I keep telling myself of all things, I am feeling fine
That I am still under warranty & yet constantly under repair

This slow afternoon sunshine warms my tea mug on the outside
The cold air she blows across my face
As I wrote down to capture just a little bit of my day's fight
Redrawing, re-sketching and rewriting some things I erase

These huddled students on my work floor
They have moved in and out as always before
So I captured just this bit of mystery
How the simple things we write about are our own stories

You may ask me if I will write them long or short
Will they be inspired by real life or not at all
You may wonder which parts have made any sense of sorts
For I have made sketches I draw right on the wall

Tuesday postings from my work chair and desk
Writing a story for you and me, dreaming up the rest.

Day 264: Chasing the Sun

There is a time that is bookended at start and end of days, known as the golden hour. It is one of the best time to capture things as they are, with just enough light, just enough to capture moods and shades that you might not see otherwise. It is almost as though you are painting with sunlight, trying to get just the right amount. Yesterday was about planning for such a time, and then chasing the sunset trying to get the last glimpse, the last remains. I wonder if we all chase things we know we may not always get to keep, if we all sometimes take a chance playing games knowing that we may not win. We are painters who have just decided to paint, writers who have decided to write, even if we are painting just one and writing one day at a time.

Chasing the Sun
We are the golden hour and beyond it too
We are the winter leaves scattered on the ground
The quiet warmth of the fading sunlight too soon
We are footsteps that leave no footprint or sound

As we crumble upon these autumn leaves
You wonder about the things we take & some we leave
These snapshots of a slow ending day
Are slowly, somehow and somewhere getting away

We are chasing the sun, and silhouettes of hours today
Being captured in frames that speak of this day
Drink your coffee with cinnamon, my tea brews for now
I know what I am supposed to find, just don't know how

I want to find the perfect shot, one that captures your soul
Between frame rates and shutter speed, something that never grows old
You are snapshots in my mind, kept for a rainy day
As I capture the last moments of the sun, and it tries to move away

Day 263: Man on a Saturday

Sometimes the obvious things are about the days and hours, neither counting them or memorizing them or writing about them. They are not about finding oddities in the obvious and expected but finding a new perspective. Man on a Saturday is a self-story about this man who moves between one weekend to the other. He is a friend to a few, a guide to so many and probably sometimes just a warm hug on loan somewhere that you miss. Whether it is the emptiness of the house that calls to you, whether it is getting lost in the middle of the night, or looking for some warmth when you need it. Some songs are born out of a simple wish and some perfect writings from the unexpected places, as the man on a Saturday he delivers even if a little late.

Man on a Saturday
So I was told nothing more on a Saturday
Neither dreams of dreamers in the middle of the day
Some who are writing past their hours tonight
Who are chasing inspired pieces beside a candle light

So I sit with a pen and just my thoughts
Waiting for recollections of my days & things it brought
Brighter sunshine that writes itself to a winter day
I was writing of simple things this passing Saturday

So the man on a Saturday, he remains in plain sight
He clocks in and clocks out and yet he finds himself in overtime
The puzzle makers diaries they draw me a map
The ones we have forgotten somehow, the ones we already had

Why write about the obvious you may ask
Why not fight with the best chances you have?
For sometimes the best of my writings on any other day
Are nothing more than your thoughts arranged someways

These quiet pieces; that find themselves lonely at best
As the Man on a Saturday, he closes his eyes as you find rest

Day 262: Hanging on Words

Some journeys are not about the themes they are associated with, they are neither born out of your source or the destination we travel from or towards. These are linked with the companies we keep, the conversations and sometimes just moments of quiet driving as it rains outside.  Yesterday was one of these drives down to Indianapolis Museum of Arts to attend a poetry slam. We are inclined to believe that these poems echo louder in our minds than in the halls of the museum. I discussed this with a friend recently how as kids we thoughts sleeping with books underneath our pillows would infuse in our minds, maybe wishful thinking on our part. As I stood there at the museum lobby I stared at the roof of a dimly lit lobby I found books that filled the ceiling hanging with strings, words hanging above us, as we hang by the words. "Hanging on every word" is listening and absorbing every word and I feel it applies to the things we want to read, the ones we often remember selectively. For a few of us we choose not to remember, we choose to be living more abruptly moment to moments cashed in as needed and for a few this is never an option. For now I hang on to all your words and I write with just a few.

Hanging on Words
So I start with a thought, in between hours of restless sleep
Racing with those that get away and some that I get to keep
So I write them down and keep them close anyways
As I look for meaning in between odd hours of the day

I wonder what qualifies as imperfect mistakes
Between the giving and takings, do I get to choose what I take
Do I write undefined to you or with a purpose in my mind?
Or hang on every word that comes from you, the ones I find

We are part of the artwork installations we walked around
We are the moments in between the sights and all the sounds
Nothing as special could be captured all alone
Even live music and pencil sketches, and a drive back home

I am shelter from cold rain and sometimes just a warm hug that you sneak
Caring for things that I keep as mine, while I let you take a peek
So stay with me just a little bit more, write poetry as though nothing changed
You are coffee cups with hot tea, you are my perfect mid-week breaks

So write back to me, smile unnoticed and with absolutely no reason
Words that hang from books, like leaves that refuse to fall this season
Color me with just the shades you know, the ones you love to use
For everything & nothing makes sense all the time, so I write with just a few.

Day 261: Distracted Spaces

We wield great power in other people's lives, not just because of our defined roles but because of the undefined, the part of us that doesn't need a rational thought process to exist. We value our spaces and sometimes these people, are our spaces. They are our cushions for the world, which we find hard to understand. They are our clarity when needed and sometimes even our distractions combined. They are our strength and weaknesses in a single gift wrapped package and as we make sense of it all, we are left behind taking a chance. I find it hard to define these spaces, these comfort zones we find for ourselves. I write from such a place today, I am the distractions and spaces combined, in the few lines I write.

Distracted Spaces
So we are these "spaces", that are kept so close
We are warm hugs & conversations that never draw to a close
As I watch the sunset & sunrise from sides of your window sills
My canvas lies empty, I look for outlines & colors to fill

Our constant insecurities, at the end of today
Wrapped up in the conversations we never had, that got away
So I hold you down to promises we never made
Hoping for a holiday in between a week, as we take a break

Be unsatisfied, be restless, be inconsistent even with yourself
Be quiet, and loud in your mind, and be the best of self
Be the candle that burns long into a dimly lit space
Be the flicker of light I see, that offers warmth without a trace

I am your spaces for now, and sometimes so are you
I am distractions that are strong enough to somehow get through
The irrational and the sensible me, they seem to pick up a fight
So I decide to be neither, I am just me as you capture in your sight

These stories we write, the short chapters with shorter titles they speak
They are undisclosed chapters for now, as you take a sneak peek.

Day 260: Inside Out

Some say that poetry comes from strange places, whether they are from moments that make you smile, some that make you sad or whether they are reflective reminders of your winnings and losses in life. What makes them special is the fact that they are constantly changing from the places that we write from and of the places we write about. These writings for better or for worse come from the things we comprehend as a shared experience between one who writes and reads. Somewhere in between all the smiles and heartaches, lies a place we both share. Are you reading still?

Inside Out
For want of better or worse, this is all I take
A bit of my memories and a little bit of heartache
Cuddled up on warm couches or passed out on floors
Some warm bodies who have felt the morning indoors

We are hidden sometimes, under wraps & in repairs
Fighting a sleepless night, staying up finding what is fair
There are some things that never break, always hold true
They are like sticky notes that are permanently glued

We are songs that echo from wall to wall
In the staircases that go nowhere, as they stand tall
So we take them and reminisce of what used to be
Connections between people & open doors that set us free

This is all I take, even if they are pieces combined
These are my "original", they are impossible translations to find
So I write sometimes, with a faintly brewed cup of tea
Pour my soul on paper, hoping this is who I am, still me

Day 259: Extra Hour

Daylight savings time ended today, meaning the clock went back one hour and somehow so did the time. Well at least in theory, we are at a strange love affair with time. We like both the past and the future and yet dislike our present sometimes. We are attracted by nostalgia and hope more than reality, and we are all hoping to face something that we already face every single day. For now this extra hour of the day is all about what you decide to do with it. These pieces of moments that you can stitch together somehow and the ones we write stories about. My extra hour comes close to the end of today, so I giving it back to you in writing, somehow and someway.

Extra Hour
Come, spend with me an hour this day or night
The extra one, when hands of our clock lost their fight
We moved back an hour somewhere in time
And yet we were reminded that we hadn't lost our mind

An old friend in the stories that we are yet to write
Or new ones in hours of the day that might have gone by
True surprises they stay, they are restless at best
So we take the easy way and somehow leave out the rest

I divide my hours, by minutes too I guess
Plan them bit by bit, in my to-do list at best
They are gone somewhere too in a sleepy, sleepy day
Where cups of coffee & tea don't seem to keep me awake

Come, live an extra hour with me today
Much has been said among all that is left unsaid
We will live like kings in these 60 minutes more
Yet keep these writings grounded for now to the floor