[ Poet’s Note : Companion Poem to
attenuate: Aug 26 ]
her gracile cancer ridden body disturbed soul shores, re-assimilating into ether
simultaneously
embodied light attenuated as rain sleets soaked washing trauma embedded
molecules —
shattered dreams attenuated floorboards, oregons shivering sunlight through colourful veils
meanwhile
gracile human pendants attenuated threads of Leo’s mane, gently swaying in cool breeze
…
grey matter spilled into hot black and white hands
healing —
blue veins attenuated
their hair one corn, one wavy
lips grim thick and thin
clothed in hospital tunics
spaceship hovered silver sleek
cancer attenuated —
Attenuated twilight beam in dusty dusk merging to night spreading starry tapestry..
ATTENUATE
A wee dram of malt whisky is savoured neat ~ attenuated with ice cubes for those petite.
8 / 11 / 2026.
in fading twilight’s attenuated gleam swan song resonates the waned echo of silence
although attenuated by the ravages of time the crippled, old pine tree still stands sublime
evening cicadas attenuate their song, echoing the summer I learned how to grieve.
Was it off-white?
A cavity on the hem of my socks
Undulation,but palpably grazed
like the letters you never unfastened
I set sail for my untrimmed toenails
A cavity on the edge of my nail plate
“Ma, its uneven”
Notes, chords, and bolted doors
Inaudible, I pulled more thread
Attenuated, I pulled
The darkest possible color
Reached my wavering fingers
“Ma, it wouldn’t look good”
Chortled, was something funny?
I couldn't catch it
“Ma…my needle broke”
Rainbows glimmered after a laugh
I'm thirsty
My sock is missing
Two large figures left the room
Loose clothes
And covered feet
“Ma, my thread is thin”
Spark quickly the rise,
Dilating dark with glitter stars of cats eyes.
A language we sausage use.
Clumsy myths attenuated
With parachutes of feelings mapped;
Syncopated copiously.
A door opening those parts explored, for instance.
Snail trails of shiny slime on wet pavement;
Mirrors looking backwards,
Entwining organs through time.
Primarily another path
That leads me back to you.
I want to rewind and not change,
Stay and hold on to the days when your name felt like home.
When our conversations were not careful,
When love wasn't something to be attenuated,
But something that simply was.
I'm surviving the silence you left behind,
Trying to fill the gaps with memories,
Tricking myself, saying time can walk backward,
Can undo the unraveling, and can stitch ourselves whole again.
This is not war but absence,
Not betrayal but distance,
Not anger but the quiet ache of being left behind.
I don't know where to place this longing,
The pain to return to the place that no longer exists.
But if love was once real, does it still echo?
And if I reach for you, will I only find empty air?
Arrows, what are they good for?
In an embodied dungeon very near to
my molested liver
arrows pile up, bundles of barbs,
each one a love letter
that missed its mark.
Some older ones
still drip an attenuated poison
from their blunted tips.
Yes, love can be cruel
but it is rarely accurate.
It lives only to maim you
until you know how to live
with yet deeper wounds,
those piercing near misses
lodged between heart
and hope.
Important happenstances continue to echo
in future life also.
Might be attenuated in pitch
reduced in slow decay.
being filtered with passage of time
My Dad was my Idol, Philosopher and Guide
to inspire, instruct, direct and protect me.
His advices continuously echo in my mind
on same strength without losing intensity .
'Echo Filtering Reality' at least failed in this aspect
I strictly follow all his instructions
throughout my life till date.
His blessings and affection showering me
all along echoing in my soul, just unfiltered.
The voices of my Dad to echo in my ears
not fading with Time but guarding me at every step.
Leeza, Lisa’s 14-year-old little sister, is anxious about the first day of school. She didn’t tell me that, I’m not sure 14-year-olds talk anymore.
Now that I’m almost 21, I can roll my eyes, like everyone else, and say, “Teenagers.”
Leeza’s a jingli, all-angles, taller than I am (when did THAT happen),
redhead who’s fast becoming a Lisa-like beauty.
School starts, for her, in 11 days and every piece of clothing she owns is draped across the furniture in her room, or the floor, as she organizes her skool outfits.
There’s a pile of rejected apparel in one corner - the outcasts -
and a stack of magazine cutouts showing the clothes she plans to buy.
I wondered into her room that afternoon and she watched
me suspiciously, like I might steal her nonexistent baby.
“These might go together,” I said, holding up a top and skirt as a combo.
She winced, involuntarily, as if exposed to something distasteful.
Apparently, I’m getting old and my teen-taste is attenuated or worse yet - past its expiration date.
.
.
A song for this:
Houdini by Eminem [E]
The porch-potted have attenuated
into stick insects.
Geraniums are hallowed be dark moons,
Fragility turns to desiccation.
The red tin watering can
is iced over by a fallen sun.
Of a sudden, a yawning dawn
freezes, is pinned
to a fixed grimace.
Unlock the front door,
push a grudging frosted screen.
Slipper bound toes shrink back,
blood drops through ice holes
in arterial walls.
Tropical fruits uneaten,
beds unmade and cooling,
cat hiding under a throw rug,
just its tail flicking a weather warning.
Slap and lock the door,
ignore the creaking porch
as it were a gutted grave.
Upon a kitchen wall
eyes trace a diminishing light,
a trace that once was a warming ray,
now has congealed into a fingerbone
of yesterday.
Cast of shadows, courtesy of candle,
Light fading unfolds the same tale at dusk.
Soliloquized retellings of scandal,
Lengthy but worthy, as faults to unhusk.
Memories gone cold, my table setting,
Echoing attenuated laughter.
Plates piled high with the feasts of forgetting,
Still doleful hungers linger thereafter.
The flickering cloister of flames confer,
Enkindling solace in the solitude.
Tacit acceptance, no protest to stir,
Away from the noise, alone without brood.
Resigned, I dine on the remnants of day,
Umbral asylum, narrative decay.
an attenuated tree branch reaches out to its drowning shadow in the inert millpond
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