Here grows a jackfruit tree in my office’s backyard
I wish to share a memoir of my life, which was marred by depression
It was just a sapling when I had joined duty
We both forged our respective journeys into the wild.
Having started flourishing in its own way
The sapling developed branches and started bearing fruit.
In contrast, my life started shrinking with depression
Following a negative trend and became messy
With people around me considering me a burden
Having had a roller-coaster journey of living
I feel my journey to be worth narrating.
Wishing to relieve stress from someone feeling depressed
I dare to share some of my experiences coping with depression.
Prior to dealing with depression and its resolution
I just want to let you have a glimpse of my journey.
The jackfruit possesses an outer spiky peel and an inner sweet pulp
Some people who seem negative on the surface, like the jackfruit peel,
are sweet inside, like its pulp
To some extent, this holds good for me too.
Having been a topper during my school and college days
I had always been under immense pressure to perform.
A convention was held in a foreign land. Playwrights, writers and authors (young and old) were recognized for their respective works. Everybody was overwhelmed for meeting new friends, beginners and veterans in the field of prose and poetry, scriptwriting, narrating, storytelling and publication of different sorts.
When the female guest speaker ended her speech, a male writer-author was silent in many casual conversations because the topic is about success. Nevertheless, everybody else is happy during the chitchats because by majority success was defined by fame and how much money you make.
The silent writer-author sold only two books in the market, but was never ashamed of the results of his work.
A young female author asked the silent writer-author, "What is royalty?"
The silent one replied, "It is when you are included in the statistics of big earnings without earning a single cent in reality!"
Whenever I speak of you,
people think I am narrating a legend.
They don’t understand
that I am confessing a truth
too sacred for ordinary language.
In every story they hear,
I stand as Krishna,
and you rise as Radha —
a love so fierce
it survives separation,
distance,
time itself.
But Radha and Krishna
were written in longing.
Their love was divine,
yet unfinished in this world.
And I ache—
because I do not want a love
that lives only in memories and metaphors.
I want a story
that does not fade at dusk.
If destiny were merciful,
if the heavens chose completion over yearning,
then our names would not echo in separation.
They would be carved in permanence.
Then I would not be Krishna—
bound to distance—
I would be Shiva,
and you, my Parvati.
Not a love that waits.
Not a love that wonders.
But a love that meditates together,
burns together,
creates and destroys together—
two souls in divine union,
unshaken by time,
unbroken by fate.
Let the world call it a story.
I call it prayer.
I call it destiny
waiting to be fulfilled.
Where lies the loneliness of the night?
Its dark shadow stirs beneath the eyes, the mind will float aimlessly in a dreamlike state.
Beyond the window pane hides the truth
Its howls and cries muted, the beast, where mares are formed, escapes its shackled lair.
Tossing and lashing, the nocturnal wanderer lusts after its next prey.
What malevolent force walks the street each night
whilst cotton shrouds the innocence of man.
Hours chime to dawn and with it the sanctuary of morning light.
The twilight preludes the backstory of our fears that manifest to a nocturnal cycle of twists and turns wrapped in a sweated sheet. We are the authors but typecast as the protagonist of the weak, narrating each chapter from our subconscious pool where the last page is torn from the spine and the end never comes.
We rise, battered and bruised, pieces of us lie scattered about the bedroom floor. We try to remember, we try to forget in equal measure the scenes of our play for today. The cast slowly walks away, stage right to dust, and we carry on.
Show me another hand
I know you have it
Don't let me keep playing these same cards
The ones acclaimed to be the hand I am dealt
Don't let me keep sitting in this hot seat
Apparently acclaimed to be what I have
Like I need to be burned to learn
I have already learned
Now begin to show me
I am already grown
Begin to reveal to me
I am already what I need to be
Begin to guide me there
Even though I don't see the way
Don't let me live within the confines of my own mind
For what does it really know
It keeps narrating the same things
I am looking for something new
If I can't access it in my mind
Let something else move in my stead
I read a book with sharp words
Piercing deep into the muscles of the heart
Unraveling life's secrets
Detailing beyond this realm
Narrating the past with caution
Illuminating what's within the breast
Putting doubt to rest
Separating truth from the grasp of falsehood
Then I recited the book
The eyes turned watery
The reasoning humbled
From the harmony that comes from within
A true source of solace
Balancing the call to fear and hope
Thats what we are seeing.' Its going to take rank and file
Disclosure..Or maybe a recording to be found in a boot
Sale i'd hazzard' to get (a grain of fresh disclosure) from
The locked up case? Of the island predator.' Strange how
Much time this luggage has done already? Will there be a
Liable case about the case? Is it a case of its a trunk in the
Drunk tank? Sorta misplaced?? I bet some heads of states
Are sleeping a little easier.? All over the world and in stardom there heve been so few.' Movies on this.! Maybe
A feature will pop up.? Some one might screen it on a
City wall? In a very busy time ( thats the only way i''d say )
Out from the ' sound of silence?'
A monster of cookies and a man of spiders
Lie in a stilted plastic embrace
On the floor of my shower
Waiting for my sleepy naked foot
Like a soapy cartoon landmine
In the semi darkness
Where I don’t expect to face my mortality
By way of a crushed skull
From a forgotten toy
Regardless of how well it would fit
With the rest of the story
These aren’t the assassins
That I once thought that I would face
Although I do revile the blue one’s
Wanton destruction of innocent pastries
I had conceived of my enemies
In grander terms
Back when my super powers
Were just in front of me
And I was the small naked hero
Narrating the struggle for the world
In the shampoo rain while my father
Far above and far away
Presumably kept score and kept mumbling
Something about something
And the bruises
On his feet
Cultural Reverence / Cultural Fiesta ekphrastic poetry competition:
facebook.com/share/p/EbeMGVKgPZnjyA31/
Thank you, Sukanto Roy and CULTURAL FIESTA
Photography titled : Dawn Of New Hope.
Photography taken by Kavitha Ramamoorthy,
India.
Published in the June 2023 edition of Cultural Reverence.
All rights reserved to the Artist.
Poetry submission: Michelle Morris, England, UK
phototopoetry
The dawn of new hope
By Michelle Morris
05/08/2024
Hark, the dawn breaks
See the blushing of the horizon
Being revealed slowly and deliberately
Caressed and worshipped and adored
Hear the birds sing sweetly
A tribute to her beauty
That golden orb rises
Like a man in his prime walks tall
Every single atom and wave in this Universe
Converges on this moment
The dawn of new hope
As Nature leads humanity forward
© Michelle Morris, 2024
"An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning."
beta.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/ekphrasis
On a vacation trip to the Susunia hills
Green paddy fields smiling outside
Trees happy in the robes of silk
Sun in the game of seek and hide
Quite a long pine standing in front
Light green looks like in your eyes
Great banyan tree from a deep bough
looking at me, in wonder-struck eyes
Before our eyes the hills slowly move out
narrating the stories of dense green curves
In the sky graze the white lambs and cows
In the branches, galore of whistling birds
Fleeting sparks, from our petals and thorns
Ephemeral light in the wings of herons
I woke up in the middle of the night,
looking around to see anything bright.
I started walking towards a door,
barefoot on a slippery floor.
I walk towards a locked room,
a void so dark felt like doom.
Inside sat a girl, with expressions so pale,
Eyes so dreamy, like narrating a tale.
She sat there staring at the stars beneath the cloud,
with a face shouting for help out loud.
I glanced closely at her mundane face,
Oh, that was me admiring the other side with grace.
She had a tale hidden in her lips,
maybe her life fell in between the tips.
I wonder why she sat here,
locked herself for a reason so mere.
Then I heard the door open,
this wasn't heard so often.
Entered a divine light,
and I disappeared in a might.
My soul has embedded your name,
And within this heart's rhythm, it finds its tune.
I pledge my heart's sanctuary, to you alone,
And if i can not reach you,
Then i will pursue till the ends of this earth.
If so I find that you not lie here,
I'll traverse the realms, calling upon your name.
No regrets for encountering love so profound.
And words may fail to capture what I felt,
Yet, I'll write of you ceaselessly,
And when my hands grow frail, unable to write,
I’ll find my self narrating stories,
Tales of the day I found what it meant to be loved discoverer.
All of the people passing by;
Watching, narrating like it’s a show.
"ode to Odorono"
have you ever thought
you were stuck in
a half ass
movie with
Morgan Freeman
narrating your every god
given
move
but then you
quietly try
going
going to
the bath
yes the
bath
room
totally in
every way
everything
has
changed
and will remain so
just
don't
forget to
remember to
wipe your **** with
PoetrySoup
Approved
organic
tiss
ues
We turned the pages of our lives, from the beginning
I wonder why I had to live with those humiliations again
Yet his constant voice urging me to continue the narration
Pretending that he was detrimental
To narrate it to someone uncommitted
Those pains were a minute ago
For validation as worthy, perhaps
Yet I was soiling and dishonouring my name to someone who never cared
So he left, without comforting me
Neither narrating his story
I had to heal from the monster in me
With those delicate parts yet so golden,
So I sang my favourite songs to heal again
This time, the lesson was profoundly engraved.
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