Every moment age is creeping up stealthily
but life, life is melting down
like a candle that is flickering around.
It incinerates, yet tries to smile
and keeps broiling, pretending to be alive
it flickers around restlessly
like a blaze of lightning flame
life is withering away, like a candle
that is melting down.
Life freezes and stiffens, if abandoned
it melts and spills, if kept burning
instead, every moment
death is shaping up slowly and quietly.
but life, life is melting down
like a candle flickering against the night.
---------------
© Suman Pokhrel
Nov 2, 2025
Nov 2, 2025 at 9:31 AM UTC
As you entered the room
stirring air with suppleness of walk
waking up the stillness with jingles of cymbals
making curtains dance to the sound of bangles
aroma wafted into air from canvas and copybooks
my paintbrush grew restless
and pen became enraptured
my eyes, hands and other parts
became electrified.
My heart spread rainbow in the room
like colours of youth and
lilts of life's melodies.
You who are sitting before me
have the power to
change my consciousness
into painting, poem, melody
or anything else!
I know you'll speak no truth at this time.
I've to be guided
solely by your silence, your eyes and
the inaudible appeals of your heart.
I've to settle before I lose the presence of mind-
whether I should use brush or pen
or my eyes, hands or something else
and create a unique
composition
all in you.
-०-
Jun 9, 2025
Jun 9, 2025 at 6:16 AM UTC
I've also felt
all windows were watching
all walls were listening,
I'd also felt at that time
streets and footpaths were speaking
and veils were lifting.
I've felt
even when I was walking
even when I was stopping
all trees and birds
sky and stars
bosoms and bangles
were seeing everything.
It's true
in that hesitation
whether to stop or proceed
get off or get over,
all roads had appeared
unfathomable.
It's true
I had also read
on the face of surroundings
some broken
some disconnected
some cracked expectations.
I've touched some sentences
and have kissed some words.
Eyes that obstruct the road can be removed
but what happens when hearts block the passage?
that's why
I've also pretended not to see
the windows and walls.
At such time
it has also seemed to me
there've been conspiracies against me,
search for instruments
to hit me in my words
has also been going on.
I've also felt
those eyes and looks
have also been sending a river
of the flowers of feelings somewhere,
raising a hill of the aromas of imagination.
And have experienced at such time
my mind sleeping in the joy of love.
and have felt some arid passion taking me somewhere
lopping off sensitive branches of life.
At such moments
felt my mind wake up with the temptation of life
gathering courage for flowering beauty
even in the desert of living.
Do not think
I've reached where I am now
by slipping like a landslide
or evaporating like a cloud.
I've climbed up here
holding the hilt of time's sword
after driving it
into my tender heart.
Whether anybody comes to convince me or not
a part of my life does always ache
arresting my chest.
-०-
Jun 9, 2025
Jun 9, 2025 at 1:12 AM UTC
Standing on top of each morning briefly
stopping by each evening shortly
unmindful, my eyes are chasing,
my eyelids are sweeping with light the sky
splattered with colours pilled out
after hitting horizon's last shore.
I am thinking
what is this crimson,
colour of lovers' hearts
torn from each other and
taking on to opposite paths,
or the reddish glow of minds
come together after
dark moments of separation?
Half of my life is soaked in colour
watching these red glows
spilled over the side-door that admits the day
and the bamboo portals
that shut out the day,
but could not understand
whether this earth and sky
part in the evening
and meet in the morning
or part in the morning
and meet in the evening!
-०-
Jun 9, 2025
Jun 9, 2025 at 1:06 AM UTC
May I splinter away from myself
break into whole units
and
live in each with perfection!
This ME
made whole by
combining countless fragments
could not live in any one part
with complete ease.
May I show a true model
of deconstruction to Derrida
by taking off parts that make up my being!
So that I would see
one man fallen off me
shambling down the street,
and continue to speak in assemblies
with full ignorance of the subject,
continue to review the news of the world
by stuffing them in his brain
and go yapping in the crowds
fully content in the perfection of
his inferior sphere.
The other one
brooding over the ledger books
and the personal files
of the employees.
May the next one always keep reading,
the other looking after children
and still another swimming
in love all his life.
May the other fragment – the ‘me’ whom I don’t like
remain shut somewhere in the room.
May one other splinter engage
in inner decoration of the house
and meet the hunger of needs.
If he cannot do so
may he fragment himself further
into contractors
supplying vegetables, miscellanies,
clothes, and fuels
and sorting out other mess.
May one other part
forgetting that he is my splinter
continue to clap on each stupid action
of his boss, shaking head, and
remain busy in his little puppet moves.
May the other take responsibility of
television, radio and newspapers.
May the other still stay repeating the news of
the relatives and acquaintances
fulfilling formalities of well-being
embroiling in the phatic-
where? what? how?
participating in all of ‘sixteen rituals’
and birthdays.
May the other one continue to repeat
the non-news of his immobility
and continue to go to places
where people gather,
and go doing something like that.
May I hold an assembly
of the proportional representation
of all my selves.
may I go out with the poet
by leaving all the others
in their chaotic meaningless arguments.
May my poet remain a poet
in its perfection
unattached to my domesticity
full of scarcities;
may he remain separate
from a job-savvy me
who has sold his self-respect.
may my poet disengage itself
from my being
swayed by my brain.
May I discard the outer cover of time
from the layers of poetry
by immersing the poet in its entirety
within me, and
dismantle geography’s barriers.
may I break the windows of consciousness,
break further the dilapidations of waking moments
and emerge into the bright world of dream.
May life remain enamored of its own charm
may the river of love always flow from its own lap
may my pain remain drunk singing its own love songs
and the dead body of agony remain asleep
resting its head on a pillow of flowers.
May I free myself from the labyrinth of knowledge
run away from the jungle of thoughts
and jump from the hill of illusion
into the mind’s speedy currents.
by stepping on this joint of time.
may I pack all inventions in burlaps
and hide them in corners of Einstein’s’ brains.
May I free myself from the ever-pressing chest
and enter the garden of imagination
by leisurely hiding brain on hill summits.
May I take off clothes covering shame at the border
leaving them hanging on dry trees of arrogance
and run by wearing the rays of the sun.
May I create plain fields by collecting clouds
and bedeck them with arching rainbows.
Playing ball of wind
reaching the other end of The Road Not Taken
may I call in Robert Frost by holding hands
and request Ginsberg to recite Howl
facing the world.
May I bet with Devkota sitting contentedly
by receiving his lord’s blessings
that you are a poet who has written epics
and win a bagful of stars.
May I exchange T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland
with the future of this earth like a lunatic’s dreams
and make one season of poetry farming
by tilling with the pen of desire.
Oh, this ME
made with so many fragments
could not make any achievements!
May I then splinter away
from myself
and live only with the poet.
०००००
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025 at 10:33 PM UTC
Fever painted me all over the body
with its warm kisses of love
for a duration unknown
Taking everything aside of my own being
it was a marvelous feel
to be cocooned into the grip
of this thin frenzy from head to toes
it was immensely ecstatic to
feel the passionate warmth over the skin
and was delirious
to be caressed by its softness beneath the shell.
I want the fever to grab me forever
and want YOU
to be MY fever.
..................................
Jun 4, 2025
Jun 4, 2025 at 10:09 PM UTC