I wanted to publish a short list of poems that I wrote for a class. I would love to hear feedback on them at ankil335@gmail.com.
International X Day
It was cause for celebration recently
To commemorate well-deserved progress gleefully.
Imagine my disappointment to see some naysayers
Amongst the politically vocal taxpayers.
Too eager to miss the forest for the trees
Too eager to burn the tree for the forest
Too eager to make podiums from twigs
We are to aspire to the creator
Not the common denominator.
And yet time and tide are more patient than I.
I initially wrote this after International Women’s Day but later realized that it unfortunately still applies to a lot of different groups.
(Jazz is) Controlled Chaos
Swimmers' lungs can't compare
To the turbulence stored inside
The madness within exhaled into lullabies
O' demon within, exorcised into articulation,
Sell me my soul back to
Harmonize this brash instrument to beating organ
I love jazz and playing the alto sax. I especially love the way I connect to the music with the saxophone. In the timeless words of Ted Chiang: “when we speak, we use the breath in our lungs to give our thoughts a physical form. The sounds we make are simultaneously our intentions and our life force.”
Work
Work, work, work
Like god’s forgiveness, we
Worship it
Surrender to it
Sacrifice for it
Identify by it
Belong to it
Depend on it
The theocracy of work has but one currency:
A token of my gratitude
While I love the work I do, I sometimes feel like too much of my identity revolves around it.
Laws are like fences
Fences keep the honest people honest
Until it’s more practical to ignore the wire
Just don’t take away the fence promised
You can weaken the hurdle as an upper-class monetarist
And epitomize the etymology of entitlement
Fences keep the honest people honest
You can jump the railing as a lower-class dualist
And weather the indignity of indifference
Just don’t take away the fence promised
You can pass by the palisade as a middle-class sophist
And reflect on the shrinking stratum
Fences keep the honest people honest
A veneer of trust that celebrates devest
But articulate clearly the ethos to aspire
Just don’t take away the fence promised
The best laid plans of mice and men are never blest
The rules of paradise are never nice
Fences keep the honest people honest
Just don’t take away the fence promised
The assignment was to make a villanelle. This “villanelle” is verbose because of the rhyming and meter constraints. However, this version is still not strictly a villanelle because it doesn’t comply with the rules completely.
Northern Lights
Dancing acrobats
Clad in malachite
Streak the sky
With wondrous glee
To unspoken applause the dancers bow
Until daybreak, they whisper their stories
Imparting their wisdom to the north wind
And wayward trekkers on distant voyages
-------------------------------------------
New stories
Are born from old
Spinning
Thread from
The entrails
Of stars
And
Old Wisdoms
My time in Scouts has been such a formative experience for me that I couldn’t pass on an opportunity to write a poem about seeing the northern lights on a camping trip.
Bharatanatyam
Let me tell you a story
About a dancer supreme,
A craven king,
And his foolish dream
She spun around
With emerald eyes
And stole his heart
But left his fears
When she spun away
With blinding speed,
It broke his heart
But left him wise
Avoid the eyes, I should've said
The fearful get trapped there!
There’s an old Indian ballad about a king who lusts for a dancer and loses his kingdom in the pursuit of her affection. At the end of the song, the songstress blames the dancer for seducing the king and brands her a witch. This might remind you of medieval witch hunts. This poem twists that ballad by framing the king as craven and weak instead. Bharatanatyam is a dance style with distinctive eye movements. The eye movements are meant to be subtle in some cases and powerful in others to indicate emotion but enchanting nevertheless.
All of these poems are works in progress and I would certainly love to hear your thoughts on how I can improve them.
Cover of Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven by Guy Lombardo This is not a poem but I love whistling and jazz, especially Canadian jazz composer, Guy Lombardo.