Uncut Poetry

Sunil Bhandari
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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.

  1. 6d ago

    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 uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   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

  2. Aug 8

    On a quest to ensure God delivers (particularly after the expensive VIP darshan)

    For an agnostic, I'm pretty vigorous in my temple-hopping. I don't let go  even a single opportunity to visit a religious place. Earlier it was a visitation only if the temple was scenic (!) then I transitioned to "if it's accessible, I'm in".   Along the years I realized I could treat the Almighty as an ally -  often for resolution (success rate 50%), sometimes with a request for a miracle (largely ignored), more often than not just to unburden my heart, with whatever is haunting me at the time.   So now I seek chats with the Almighty. To sit down in front of him (or her) and go into soliloquies - the few conversations I can have without being disturbed! Or, as I found in Harmandir Sahib, to just sit and let the quietude and munificence of the lord's presence (there, the non-believer has said it) wash over me.   My mum says she can feel the same grace, when she is with her guru. She can talk, be listened to, not judged, and leave comforted.   Because in the best presences, we learn that meaning lies inside us. A benevolent lord or a good guru only helps us wipe the patina off and makes us see ourselves as the solution, as the wonderful beings we already are.   And that for me is miracle enough. Anyone - an almighty, guru, alien, coach, mentor, friend -  who helps me centre myself, and find the goodness and kindness I'm capable of, is a god for me.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on all things God -  In Search of a God I Have Often Thought About God Closer to Death.Nearer to God. Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Betonwaldromantik by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/betonwaldromantik Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

  3. Aug 1

    I Walk Alone (wishing you were beside me)

    Too many love stories are about a single self-love. One person's agenda determines the relationship. And a couple subsumes into a singularity without a merger. There are those who survive, through will, by finding a life outside the relationship, considering it fate, or by just adjusting expectations.   And the couple misses a significant beat.   Two people together have the opportunity to discover two universes, and make both their own. To discover the inner world of someone who you care for or who is your life partner is to discover their core, to become a special denizen in their world, to discover what thrills them, what terrifies them.   It's the privilege of a steady relationship.   Nothing in our lives happens automatically. Everything has to be earned. Relationships primarily and upfront are about sensitivity and awareness. It is work until it becomes second nature, a subsummation rather than a subjugation. And the couple changes forever. Because to know someone's guilty pleasures, to know what gladdens, gives tranquility, brings solace, is to recognize the best and worst of them. To dislike them once in a while but to never fall out of love with them.   The alternate is isolation, to be in front of riches and roam about in emotional penury; of having your flag bearer, your cheer-leader, your 3 am call, your staunch supporter, your potentially-forever fan, right beside you but transversing your life searching for him/her.   If that's not a tragedy, then what is?   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on how we can be alone even when we are together -  Love's Night of the Long Knives On Breaking up (without breaking) Distances (Kaifi Azmi ke Liye) Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - The Way to Kataka by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/the-way-to-kataka Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

  4. Jul 25

    The Weight of Unspoken Words

    Would things have been better if I had used different words? If I hadn't said what I did? If I hadn't done that, which in retrospect, seems short-term, short-sighted, short-everything. We realize mistakes, often whilst we are making them, often much after the deed is done and dusted, often only when we face the consequences. Anf sometimes not at all.   We are human. We are a cauldron of weaknesses and mistakes. And we learn to live with ourselves, sometimes with ease, often reluctantly. Because we don't know how to change. The strong-willed bear the pain, learn the lesson, maybe seek redemption, irrespective, move on.   But often this is easier said than done. And in relationships, it never is. There is never a clinical break. Memory ensures threads remain, thin, seemingly fragile, but embedded deep inside us, lingering, refusing to leave.   Which makes me realize the bigger point - we are never free of the wrong we do. Never. We are haunted in ways which we might never connect with the wrong done, but which come into our lives as echoes without a sound.   Our lack of self-awareness makes us seek strange solutions, when the real solution lies in change. Change in the way we think, the way we conduct our lives, our behaviour, our attitude, our requirement for kindness, of accepting our fallibility, of realizing our arrogance.   And because it rarely happens, we have to stew in the heat of our misdeeds.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on loss and remembrance -  Memories of Peppermint Mocha Let Me Sit Beside You Quietly 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 uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - About Moments by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/about-moments Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

  5. Jul 18

    There is no love in a marriage (only power play)

    Human beings. Our blessed lives, this gracious breath, this universe. And then the small infractions blown out of proportion, the disputes, the ego play. Human beings doing what they do best - destroy what's good.    And then men & women with their particularities starting to chip away at the very foundation on which their worth and purpose and joy is built on - the people they love. Simplicity is never the preferred choice. Power, ego, insistences. Relationships become a web. To capture, enrapture, to keep, to not let freedom find its course.   A word, a tone, a brusque denial. Sometimes the smallest infractions make the deepest holes. And then a refusal to acknowledge, reluctance to seek understanding, an alacrity to come to conclusions - to not forget, to hold onto hurts. The refusal to heal as memory teases ego.   Men are boorish, physically, in nature - often just as a masculine cover for uncertainty. Women too are boorish - as they instinctively understand the chinks in their males and find ways to control - stooping cleverly, as it were, to conquer.   Nobody makes a mess like human beings - indeed, they conjure new ways to hurt, blame, destabilise, destroy. They wallow in self-pity, hit out viciously when encountering emotional cul-de-sacs, not realizing that when they maim, they hurt themselves too and become equal victims.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on marriage and its complexities -  The Games of Thrones We Play With Ourselves Marriage Made Me a Philosopher A Love Letter From a Frustrated Husband to an Exasperated Wife Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com

  6. Jul 11

    The Games of Thrones We Play With Ourselves

    Darkness slips into every life. But it is upto us to allow it to slip into us. Except for lives marred with extreme deprivation and choicelessness, each one of us has the power to give direction to our destinies.   Mystery enters our lives after determinations.   But if we die every day, there is only so much of a safety net life can provide us. Death wishes are not looked upon kindly by the universe. Be pessimistic but not fatalistic. Dire predictions are subliminal messages which find their truths in unexpected ways. Hence the adage "Don't talk about it, if you don't want it to come true."   Relationships are a strange configuration of entanglement provided by nature. They have to be anchored and shored and propped and protected on a daily basis. 'Giving up' is a germ which multiplies prodigiously. Just as every thought is not a truth, neither is every feeling a finality.   The problem with us is that we take our own internal conversations too seriously. We are wrong, very often wrong. But consider our feelings to be repositories of final truths. We scarcely realize it but the biggest bane of our lives is is the lazy and prescriptive nature of our hearts and minds.   The very moment we realize that every morning is new, and in a thousand ways, new as a new beginning for relationships, for life, for decisions, we would have repurposed our lives into something which comes alive with the crack of dawn, and repurposed into something precious.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on life's vicissitudes adn life's trajectories -  Where We Start & Where We End Marriage Made Me a Philosopher Naked, My Love Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - This World Instrumental by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/this-world-instrumental Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

  7. Jul 4

    On Death (if it happens to stop by)

    Covid was an incredible time for humankind. Rarely have each one of us confronted, in real time, and with examples pouring in daily, death as an occurrence which could hit any one of us, suddenly, irrevocably, and often in lonely quarantine.   Reality, and confronting it daily as a tangible occurrence, became a horror story. We were forced to confront our worst fears - and ironically realize our biggest strengths. Because embedded in the tales of heartbreak and horror were also the ordinary unsung stories of resilience and recognition.   Confronting the fragility of life helped repair relations by engendering conversations. As we sat in front of our worst fears, we realized the preciousness of what we already had and how we could lose it all in the blink of an eye.   Conversations were had, bitterness poured out, regrets laid out gently on the table: love was kindled, babies were made. For those who survived, it was rejuvenation, often resurrection, of what was secretly moribund inside.   Sharing of chores became a symbol of how people came together, for days on end. There were conversations had of deaths, of what will be missed, of what had gone right between people, and what they loved about each other.   When you are in an enclosed space for months on end, when life itself is uncertain, what we consider as bad suddenly seems inconsequential, and what floods our hearts are the things we would miss about each other.   Passion for work transcended to become love for each other which in turn became a worship of life.   And in strange ways we were, for that brief, oh too brief, time, better for having confronted, and seen at close quarters, mortality itself.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on confronting life -  Let Me Sit Beside You, Quietly Memories of Peppermint Mocha When You Lose the Lover, But Not the Love Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Odyssee by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Odyssee Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-licens

  8. Jun 27

    The Love of an Ordinary Life

    We are just ordinary people, living lives which often don't make sense, seeking our share of meaning, joy and fulfilment in our own ways. Embedded deep within - undefined, unspoken of, often unrecognised as such - are tiny and eternal stories of love. There are no bells and whistles attached to these stories, nothing to define them as special, but in their quiet ways, they light up lives, and make them worthy of it.   Rarely does real-life love show up as drama. It evolves as presence, a legacy of commitment, years of dedication, of roughing it out through thick and thin, often finding companionship in spite of incompatibility, of finding genuine affection beneath shy roughness.   A world which admires stories of legendary lovers, misses out several which exist in our immediate worlds. Silent, unspoken of, undefined - they exist as mundane routine, lookouts in the evening, sleepless nights in illness, silences one could ease into.   In a world full of turmoil and uncertainty, to have steadfastness and commitment, to be able to show vulnerability and find joy in the other's trivialities, is truly the only relationship one could want in one's life - definitions be damned.   If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the enduring charms of love -  A Poem as a Gift for a Girl With No Confidence in Herself Let Me Sit Beside You Quietly Hale, Fall & Spring (of you & I) Subscribe to my newsletter 'The Uncuts' Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup. Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com   The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Lockdown by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/Lockdown Licence:  https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    Sunil Bhandari
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    337
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2020 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Uncut Poetry