Crafting Poetry: A Guide to Emotional Detox

There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, yet—when stitched into words—they offer an unbounded treasure trove of literature. In many ways, literature is our greatest gift—and perhaps our truest legacy.

Words enthrall me with their power. Empires rise and fall, but the muscle of language outlives them. Words can cut deeper than daggers, spark revolutions, rally armies, and kindle love in the emptiest of hearts. They shape our deepest beliefs—and just as easily, they can shake them. They can disillusion.

To me, poetry isn’t reserved for the chosen few. We should all nurture a daily habit of writing—it offers a much-needed emotional detox; a way to unburden the mind.

Writing poetry is deeply personal. But when the work is polished, a poem becomes like a shiny apple. Who can resist it?

You offer your deepest secrets, your most vulnerable feelings—and your reader accepts it without judgment. In that quiet exchange, something meaningful passes between two strangers: a shared experience, a quiet conspiracy of love.

While there are endless technicalities to writing a good poem, the most important, in my opinion, is honesty. Being honest with yourself—and having the courage to flaunt that honesty is the hardest part of writing.

It took me ten years to write these pieces. In the last few months, I sifted through my poetry book and chose the ones that stayed with me, and polished them for appeal. The poems in this collection come straight from my heart. They are, I hope you’ll agree, almost raw in their honesty.

I hope you find a piece that resonates with you. And if you do, I invite you to take a bite.

So if you’re ready, grab your coffee, crack open a beer, or pour yourself a glass of wine—and pour into your favorite book of poems.

Spider

Spider

Eight symmetrical legs spin up a silken web,

With the dexterity of a pianist striking his keys,

back and forth and back and forth,

On the black and white keys

Weaving a breathless crescendo of perfect notes

While the audience watch in enthralled silence

until he stops.

And sits back as if to catch a breath,

And a thousand sighs escape their human chests.

Then the pianist leans back in and strikes his final note,

Just as the spider dances back and forth and back and forth,

on its Silver web lassoing its hapless prey with its sticky hooks.

A short struggle rises and then wanes as its hapless prey ceases to flutter

A thousand people rise in standing ovation.

Monday Challenge: Beguiling Poetry

On choosing a lover

photo-1447688812233-3dbfff862778 If I could chose a lover it would be

Poetry; a lonely heart’s companion.

Words would descend upon me like

vultures on a juicy carcass.

Tearing my soul like an old King’s

ravenous concubine.

Who needs the rehearsed symphony of meter?

We would be giddy on music & rhythm,

playing on words.

Flirting, laughing, holding hands

we would share a cab ride back home.

There, one by one, we will play

all the tunes of life.

Glowing in the florescent light of a

cheap white wine, we will strip

down worldly frivolities.

Bare down to our bones, to our souls.

We would dance the night away

Naked, wordless, soulful.

Grandma’s face…

Faces are like complex metaphors

to life,

Happy like a child’s

first solo bicycle ride,

Or grim like Patty the parrot

buried in the backyard,

Treacherous like frozen ice

on your doorstep,

or innocent like a ticklish cackle.

Faces are like dreams

altering reality, and

reality altering dreams.

Playing my life in reverse

I see a fanfare of

faces.

Yours is a face I see over and over.

Your skin so light as if bleached by time

And your silver hair so thin

I can feel The ebb and flow of blood

in your scalp.

In my dream you are always wobbling

toward me unsteady like a ship

wavering side to side.

School’s just out and I am running to you

with outstretched arms eager to run into your

embrace like a hungry seagull.

But then like always

I wake up.

If faces are like metaphors, then

the memory of yours is like a quilt;

warming me

with it’s comforting familiarity.

I pull it over me like a tent

and sleep in its dream-like embrace.

Spring

For years have I have been jailed,
Inside these walls of decorum & propriety,
Like an obedient wife,
Caught in the duality of desires & duties
Until the transgressing thoughts flew through,
The keyhole of these iron gates,
Breaking the darkness with their brilliant colors of the rainbow,
I jumped on the backs of one of these thoughts,
And flew out of my captivity,
Disrobing my cocoon like a butterfly,
Flying out into the eternal Spring of Creativity.

Weekly Photo challenge

Weekly Photos: Orange

What happened to Max?

She laid her claim on Max,
Eagerly pulled him off the racks,
The moment they first met, inside the underbelly of Hertie,
Mama’s favorite department store in Germany.

A white furry Teddy bear him,
And pig-tailed, brown eyed girl she,
Became best friends and buddies,
She was six and he was fresh off the racks,

He followed her everywhere,
On her Odyssey to the deep jungles of Amazon,
Shipwrecked with her on the man-eating island no other would dare,
She sowed a web of stories and he played each character with a flair.

She turned girly by thirteen,
Painted her nails and wore designer jeans,
Invited the girls to her pajama parties,
But Max was in on all her schemes.

By sixteen she drifted into a new world,
High school and boys, a new life unfurled,
Max moved into a dark closet,
His position usurped.

And the day came, when she left abroad for college,
By now Max had weathered hands of time,
Washed and dried and stitched with patches,
Max stayed behind.

She flew the world and lived her dreams,
And came back home four years later,
Midst joy and tears and crushing embraces,
By nightfall she had talked herself weary,

And retired to her room, she searched,
Inside cupboards and closets, the old attic upstairs,
but failed to find, her childhood friend and buddy,
And wondered in dismay, “Whatever happened to Max?”

Inspired by Daily Post

Reflections

Tethered to life by a flimsy lifeboat,
Like a fetus bound to the umbilical cord,
Desire to survive; to stay afloat,
Under the devouring heavens, prayers soared,

Haplessly marooned on an ocean blue,
Long nights and merciless days,
Hope wanes, life plays peekaboo,
Rations dry up, strength decays,

Left a goodbye note inside a glass bottle,
A note to loved one, an apology colossal,
“I wish I had never left you my love, for this journey ill fated,
Wish I had stayed back, in your arms satiated,
A single hope implores me on,
To see your face once more, my beautiful paragon”,

A speck of lifeboat this, lost on the farthest echelon,
Of the blue earth, slowly dwindling…until gone.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/prompt-moments-to-remember/