Here are a series of short poems I wrote for a college assignment for a subject called Love, Life and Poetry.
Writing poetry for an assignment is a tricky business. You are called upon to deal with themes you may have no experience with. You are called upon to make a sculpture with material you've never worked with. Luckily you have chisels and other familiar tools (in this case words) to make the process easier.
Working with a new theme like romantic love was a learning process to say the least. I talked to people, read books, and watched movies to understand how I could translate the feeling of experiencing romantic love to paper, in an authentic yet accessible manner. I wanted to move away from the usual characteristics of love poetry: praising one's lover, listing all their physical attributes, etc. I also did not want to write about another common style of love poetry: viraha (separation) but instead, I wanted to look at what one looks forward to in love, what questions one has about love, and what one fears most about falling in love.
1.
2.
Writing poetry for an assignment is a tricky business. You are called upon to deal with themes you may have no experience with. You are called upon to make a sculpture with material you've never worked with. Luckily you have chisels and other familiar tools (in this case words) to make the process easier.
Working with a new theme like romantic love was a learning process to say the least. I talked to people, read books, and watched movies to understand how I could translate the feeling of experiencing romantic love to paper, in an authentic yet accessible manner. I wanted to move away from the usual characteristics of love poetry: praising one's lover, listing all their physical attributes, etc. I also did not want to write about another common style of love poetry: viraha (separation) but instead, I wanted to look at what one looks forward to in love, what questions one has about love, and what one fears most about falling in love.
1.
The Dream of You
Some nights, when I close my eyes
I find you, faceless, formless
And I know you.
Like I know myself. Perhaps better.
We sit side by side, on banks untravelled
And talk.
Of stories and silences. Of poetry and possibilities.
And I whisper to myself,
"This is what people write songs about."
One day, I will see you,
You will have a face, a form.
We will move in tandem,
Swaying to the steps of a dance only we both know
Synchronising and separating,
Rotating round and round each other,
All the while standing still.
And I will whisper to myself,
"This is what people write songs about."
"This is what people write songs about."
2.
What is love?
Is it a touch,
Is it a touch,
a glance, a word?
a whispering of sweet nothings, of sentiments unheard?
Is it when two persons lock eyes,
glimmering with shared laughter
at affectations and inanities?
Or is it,
while traversing life’s twisted road,
the one cobblestone I skipped?
3.
If love called to me, would I answer?
Could I tell it apart from deceit?
Would I recognise it if it were dancing in front of me,
Wearing a top hat and a tea cozy?
If it beckoned to me with red eyes and forked tongue
Would I let the apple juice touch my throat?
If love sang to me, of horizons and hope
Would I raise naked ears and a wrecked heart?
Or would I lose myself in what it’s not
And fail to sense it, when it comes?
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(the last one has a few mythological allusions/ references. Hope you got them! Especially you, my fellow Lit heads)
(the last one has a few mythological allusions/ references. Hope you got them! Especially you, my fellow Lit heads)
