"itinerary" poems
Convoluted & Polluted
Distraught & Disjointed
Corrupted & Addicted
Emotion human condition
Toil & Deprivation
Choice & Inhibition
Arrogance & Suspicion
Make your self decision
Want & Understanding
Seek & Sophistication
Experience & Learning
All on the itinerary
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 4:20 AM UTC
*Sometime you board the wrong train
And you reach a destination, not in the itinerary
Unfamiliar passenger, whom you thought you, knew
But slowly, as the journey begins, you get lost
In the language, you usually do not speak
Unable to decipher, the inner feelings, you feel alien
Sometimes the parallel tracks look familiar
Maybe, they will lead you to your preferred destination
You so wish for the parallel journey
Willing to board the train on that track
Wishing to talk to the driver, about your feelings
If he could just bring the train to a halt
The train coming to a jolting stop
You may have to get off midway and board another train
Your train of thoughts has led you to the train
This will take you to the destination you have dreamt
With the right passenger the journey will be a breeze*
© Amitav (Radiance)
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 4:54 AM UTC
Unconstrained, Free flowing stream.
Glitters and glimmers with sunbeam.
With obstruction, blockage and dam;
How long its itinerary can they jam.
It cannot be subdued for much long.
With time it will become very strong.
One day all barriers it will surely blow.
Then the world will see its mighty flow.
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 9:49 AM UTC
It is funny to see banners wishing Happiness displayed with cinematic glamour,
the pictures and hordings of Banner heroes.
The one at Tannery Road junction was peculiar to mention.
Here it was common
The captions "Happy" used to summon names of sundry festivals-Local and national, even internstional.
What's uncommon was the bold prints
of a hero's name ARUMALAI outshining
The caption and his larger than life picture establishing the photographer's digital brushing skills.
A passer by wondered who'd be this Arumalai,
Is he so great as to be advertised in polivynil?
His glorious deeds may be what they want you to heed
Still never ever seen or heard of his manners
Anywhere than in these motley banners
Just as a function
at the Tannery road junction
Each one passed by this colossal glance attracted provoking protracted ruminance what do this expensive banners really mean?
In another occasion
the glaring glorifying picture
of ARUMALAI followed the tag
Corporator,
Below the man posing a DICTATOR.
That was a period to a period of mystery!
Banners changed with seasons
with greetings on religious occasions
Festivals of importance
Birthdays of men even
with crowded profiles of hailers
Whose unrully manners
Too clogging up the banners
Like a wanted list of jailors.
One day a strange banner
hooked by the Tannery cross over
Spooked and shocked every passer-by
There the usual banner cut out
the larger than life image blings-out
Arumalai the BBMB corporator
Posing as dictator!
There was no wish of any kind.
It was a notice startling any mind
The sad demise of ARUMALAI
The BBMB corporator
Still possed as dectator
By his living promoters.
"He was sick and the local dispensary advised a minor operation.
He was administered
the necessary treatment.
Was referred to a super-speciality
centre and was declared dead.
His sad demise was advertised, he was forty.
His chummies complained of medical negligence", was the only news summary
in major news papers...
What was the reason for the minor surgery
What're the preparations
for the corporator's operation
All are mystery for a causal itinerary
passer by crossing over the Tannery Road junction, wondering at the strange envountering with banners
that come and go
Keeping no annals
Floating on the mind for a while
Stopping at the red's knell,
Moving with the green signal
The rise and fall of heroes
As binary one and zero
The banners tell a story tertiary
Of the rise and fall of a luninary
Within a plane ofmomentary
Variation of red and green
On the Tannery road's screen.
Dec 7, 2018
Dec 7, 2018 at 5:13 AM UTC
A born salesman,
my father made all his dough
by selling wool to Fieldcrest, Woolrich and Faribo.
A born talker,
he could sell one hundred wet-down bales
of that white stuff. He could clock the miles and the sales
and make it pay.
At home each sentence he would utter
had first pleased the buyer who'd paid him off in butter.
Each word
had been tried over and over, at any rate,
on the man who was sold by the man who filled my plate.
My father hovered
over the Yorkshire pudding and the beef:
a peddler, a hawker, a merchant and an Indian chief.
Roosevelt! Willkie! and war!
How suddenly gauche I was
with my old-maid heart and my funny teenage applause.
Each night at home
my father was in love with maps
while the radio fought its battles with Nazis and ****
Except when he hid
in his bedroom on a three-day drunk,
he typed out complex itineraries, packed his trunk,
his matched luggage
and pocketed a confirmed reservation,
his heart already pushing over the red routes of the nation.
I sit at my desk
each night with no place to go,
opening thee wrinkled maps of Milwaukee and Buffalo,
the whole U.S.,
its cemeteries, its arbitrary time zones,
through routes like small veins, capitals like small stones.
He died on the road,
his heart pushed from neck to back,
his white hanky signaling from the window of the Cadillac.
My husband,
as blue-eyed as a picture book, sells wool:
boxes of card waste, laps and rovings he can pull
to the thread
and say Leicester, Rambouillet, Merino,
a half-blood, it's greasy and thick, yellow as old snow.
And when you drive off, my darling,
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! It's one for my dame,
your sample cases branded with my father's name,
your itinerary open,
its tolls ticking and greedy,
its highways built up like new loves, raw and speedy.
2.3k
This season we're going all out
And I mean ballistic
We ain't pulling no punches
Taking out all the stops
Were gonna go mad
Talk,talk ,talk
Go, go go!
I'm talking about road trips to nowhere
Bar hoping like alcoholic amphibians
Bus rides to The Big City
Cliff jumping
Hold our breaths as the fireworks launch themselves into the summer evening sky and explode
As we dance and sing of wonderful things
Debouched ***
Experimenting with sense derangement
Study the spiritual teaching from the far east
Make the suburbans myths that will never fade
Roller coaster calamities
Visit strip clubs under the unfinished highway
Lay back on a crowded beach and float in the ocean
Hike in the wilderness up a torrent mountain
And when we reach the top we'll howl at the moon in the starry midnight air
We will write compelling manifestos of freedom
And we will not sleep
We will grow stronger, wiser
And when fall comes we will be new
We'll be alive
We will have known what it means to live
Live
Live
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:42 PM UTC
I grieve for you in the cold quiet of winter
My absent child, my long lost son
Warming my hands over dying flames, frost covered smouldering clinker,
By the wood where icy streams run
Through the shrunken sedge, and barren fields
Stretching for miles, empty of meaning.
The landscape like a worn photograph yields
Your tremulous smile, then nothing.
Here, you ran with startled steps
Through the yielding sheaves, yelling with surprise,
Chasing indifferent spiders, and discomfited birds
With hatred in their pebble pool-dark eyes.
Querying awkwardly spoken words, small
Tenacious fingers that caress and clutch
Every passing object, loudly chuckling, wisely playing me for a fool
A silly father who loved too much.
On the anniversary of your leaving I required solitude
Partnered only by memory
Away from familiar crowds, the booming, barking fusillade
Of the present day commonplace urban itinerary,
Where only the crackle of snow
And the fleeting trajectory of birds
Distracts my slow
Marshalling of comforting thoughts.
The cottage where we lived haunts the shallow glade,
A shrouded ghost swaddled by the half-light,
Positioned squarely like an old man, its cladding beginning to fade,
White branches like dead-fingers that gleam in the night.
In the closet are your dust-sprinkled toys, a yellow plastic duck,
A cheap skateboard, ancient video games,
A guitar you never learnt to pluck
A chess board on which you pulverised my endgames.
In the preserved furnishings of your bedroom
Your school work gathered into stacks
Barely visible in the gloom,
Our life together in disorganised packs
Denoting year and level
Development and academic achievement,
If any, (but I mustn’t once again cavil)
Indicating, even in your earliest years, a specific bent.
Standing on the mantelpiece, propped up against the wall,
Are brightly coloured, polished pictures
Of you. Plump, blonde, agreeably small
Dancing, standing, jumping, grinning, absurdly wistful mixtures.
A bitter echo resonating from the shadows
A cold thought darkening into memory
The spectre of your voice disappearing in the meadows
Having left all of us! Having left me!
Nov 10, 2015
Nov 10, 2015 at 8:20 PM UTC
All of us are travelers lost,
out tickets arranged at cost
unknown but beyond our means.
This odd itinerary of scenes
- enigmatic, strange, unreal -
leaves us unsure how to feel.
No postmortem journey is rife
with more mystery than life.
Tremulous skeins of destiny
flutter so ethereally
around me - but then I feel
its embrace is that of steel.
On the road that I taken,
one day, walking, I awaken,
amazed to see where I have come,
where I'm going, where I'm from.
This is not the path I thought.
This is not the place I sought.
This is not the dream I bought,
just a fever of fate I've caught.
I'll change highways in a while,
at the crossroads, one more mile.
My path is lit by my own fire.
I'm going only where I desire.
On the road that I have taken,
one day, walking, I awaken.
One Day, walking, I awaken,
on the road that I have taken.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 6:17 PM UTC
Chase my voice through clouds of sulfur
convince it to let me burn it alive
parade it down broadway to light up the corners
starved of recognition
Tie anvils to the tips of my fingers
light them also on fire
it wasn't really the cigarettes
so much as the flames of sacrifice
Ignore their judging eyes
invite them into my home
whip my back until it bleeds for their religion
go to sleep with the smell of incense in my throat
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 10:42 PM UTC
Stress ticks over inside of me, as if mechanically part of me!
And these shacking hands be that of a chronometer!
How many times have i heard,
“It will all be ok!”
I think much kinder words have been spoken!
As if they hold no part of this drastic itinerary!
Then!
Mindfully i say!
COPE!
BREATHE
Smell take it all in!
Its not all decay!
There are roses too!
Listen
Oh, hear the beautifull song as the sparrow gayly chirps, his thanks to life!
Sight!
Open my eyes!
Drink in all its beauty!
Touch!
Feel the world with all my senses!
As air rushes over me!
Its all alive!
And I’m part of this great creation!
Im alive!
Oh
Thank you Jesus!
©️
Oct 25, 2018
Oct 25, 2018 at 12:51 AM UTC
I ask Trevor why he carries around his passport
from when he was 14
as his only form of government I.D.
It's for cigarettes
he says with a shrug,
and takes a drag from the passenger seat
of my car.
He reminds me of someone
who shouldn't be in this era, a misplaced Kerouac,
and at any moment
would hop a freight train
or subway car
to pass through someone else's life
in the time it takes to turn breath
into carbon.
Trevor, I say,
you know you can't get out of the country with that. It's expired.
I know,
he smirks.
I just like the illusion that
I'm going somewhere.
There's a sad sweetness in the way
he keeps his heart
in a list of area codes;
that home is synonymous
with an expired ability to leave
the way a seagull takes to ocean breeze.
I don't know what he'd do if he actually had the chance.
Trevor's passport
is nearly filled with other worlds
he prefers,
and other lives he's lived,
in only a leather jacket
and a pair of scuffed up Adidas.
I keep wondering
about the day he'll turn us
into stamps to include in the rest of his collection,
squeezed into one of the few blank spaces left
in a crowded itinerary,
(cemetery),
and then
he'll renew his passport.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 11:14 AM UTC
“What type of poem am I?”
I am as formless as the clouds,
and as elegiac as the silence,
in the itinerary of the noise.
I am not a classic
written by the author, God.
The rhythms of my verses are supplied
by the parable of their tears.
I am not in me,
though I abide within myself.
I am but a colour,
whose colours have worn away.
Maybe I was written as
an ethical effect of modern art.
Or maybe I was not written
but just replicated from the lives of others.
I wish I could read the critics’ minds.
Is it true that a poem cannot read anyone?
I loathe the way they recite me,
pretending to understand me.
Maybe I am
the monologue of my rhymes.
Or maybe I am
the narrative of my own life.
However much they hate me,
I am that poetry they can’t write.
I am the phantom of the world
crawling, with a rose in the hand
in the boulevard of the thorns.
However much they praise me,
I am only a drop of verse
drawn up by time
to become the formless clouds
in the wilderness of the literary sky.
O Poet! O my maker!
What type of poem am I?
O strangers! O my readers!
What sort of poem am I?
I wish I could read myself
and discern my spirit.
Is it true that a poem
cannot read a poem?
“Am I a poem?”
or am I just a rhymed hoax?
This cyclic curiosity goes on eternally.
I am lost in a synthesis between
the dualism of my readers
and the monism of my maker.
No one knows what it is like to be a poem.
No one knows how vague its core is.
There is nothing as genuine as me.
There is nothing as deceptive as me.
Jun 5, 2012
Jun 5, 2012 at 1:23 AM UTC
Wanda greets me with a “Hi” and a hug,
?Qué hora es el vuelo los lunes¿ she asks,
Touch-less communication is absent here,
“Ocho y media” I reply in almost Spanish,
To be sure I email my itinerary for pickup,
“Tener un buen fin de semana” she says,
As a parting hug ends the conversation,
On my visit to the right side of Hispaniola.
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 9:32 AM UTC
there's no progress report for this.
no checklist, no itinerary,
no template to restore order
in the aftermath of your tornado path through my heart.
the chaos is powerful and uncontrollable;
i can only watch the person i was with you crumble away
and sweep up the dust.
sometimes i take inventory:
am i eighty-five percent guilt today,
or thirty-nine percent confusion?
or fifty-four percent loss,
or one hundred percent ache,
hot salt water springs bubbling up
from just a brush with the magma burning below the surface?
dust is beginning to settle on the box of our memories that i hid away, where the twister would never touch it.
if only there was some way to give time through an IV,
because i don't know what to do with this heart-shaped stone in my chest.
Oct 27, 2014
Oct 27, 2014 at 9:21 PM UTC
I am a sometimes sailor with many
Ports of call. I am a dreamer and
I go where I go. There are only
Dreams on my itinerary- some
More vivid; some I like not at all
Some bright are not my type and
Some though dim are very rosey.
Between my voyages I know not
No thought and when I wake I
Have no idea where I've been or
If any time has passed. I am dead.
Then I dream again waking from
The deepest sleep. That's the way
It is. Nothing lasts but the trip it-
Self. I cannot count how many
Times I have died and rose again.
As the old woman said: You call
This living! It is a sham. To which
I reply a sham for you my darling
And most becoming. She makes
No answer but I I see the a twinkle
In her eye and that for me is good
Enough; Makes all the difference.
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 10:57 AM UTC
Who is this impostor,
glimpsed with horror
in the department store window?
He apes my movements
but fails to capture
their athleticism,
spring-loaded inside an easy grace.
Ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived.
Disregard those who think they know me.
This shambling simulacrum
is not me.
Perhaps my Nobel prize
is just a might-have-been,
my endowments only imagined.
But I am who I want me to be.
All aboard for the unguided tour!
Already begun, pre-planned
by an unknown administrator,
its detailed itinerary remains unpublished.
The last stage is, they say, less delightful than the others.
It passes through the poorer districts;
one sees industrial squalor and boarded-up lives.
I can leave the tour at any time.
I am who I want me to be.
Discomfort and dissolution do not belong in my world.
I am not the kind of person to ever be distraught.
So oblivion shall not swallow my love's soul.
Not all at once,
not piece by piece.
Not even a little.
Her identity must not be corrupted.
We are who I want us to be.
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 7:00 AM UTC
Don't give me that
Smack me with a brick
before you flash that
Colgate smile
Take your eager flight
to your far off place
and leave me to
my sugar coated
shards of glass.
{Flight Departing At: 9:30AM}
Remember when we would sing
to the radio
and laugh because
we didn't
know
the lyrics?
{baggage}
or the time
{security}
{Take off shoes. Remove Belt}
you cried
in my bed?
{How many bags are you checking in today?}
we both got so
sunburned once
you had the imprint of your
tank-top
on your back and
I thought my
nose
would fall off
{Flight Itinerary}
{Drivers License}
we rushed through
sushi
and I accidentally ate
too much wasabi
{Is anyone sitting there?}
awkwardly held on to each other
on top of that concrete sculpture of a
cat
or was it a
pig?
{Airplane Mode}
ran to the
beach and climbed that really uncomfortable rock?
{sleep}
I was so
content
next to
you
{Silence}
{Fasten seat belts}
{Baggage claim}
there was a time when we made each other
happy.
you had to move.
All the way to good Ol' North Carolina.
It was a
chance we took.
What we had was only temporary
A looming date.
At some point
@ some airport in San Francisco
you would leave
me
at 9:30AM.
{gone with the clouds}
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
The nomadic mind knows no bounds
Oft it prepares to visit many places
Roaming the distant territories
The verdant valleys and the deserts
Drinking from the fresh flowing streams
Also, walking with the camels
Looking for the oasis, left with mirage
Retreating after a hectic day
Under the blue canopy and bright stars
Another journey towards the mountains
An itinerary of the nomadic mind
Yearns for more wandering adventures
Stopping at the intersections of ideas
Where meeting of the vagabond minds
Away from the permanent settlers
Living amongst nature, the nomadic mind
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 9:49 AM UTC
it's Sunday morning
which means at nine
I'll have an existential crisis
in a stranger's bed
but the most intimate
part of the morning
is when I call my father
on the walk home
in hysterics I tell him
my innocence meter ran out
and instead of tickets
on my windshield
I'm left with ***** memories
that clog the drain
I ask for a plunger
since no shower will rid me
of the awareness
that I find validation
in making eyes roll
into the back of heads
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 10:37 AM UTC
The world is full of fools’ theory
Listening to them I feel weary.
Such egoistic heads tell not to worry
And at our back talk oscillatory
Bad about us, creating a crematory
Where they bury their own glory.
They have a bad attitude of sanatory
Coward, showy, deceitful, predatory.
The world is full of fools’ theory
Listening to them I feel weary.
I too had such a mad hoary
Who was ready with an itinerary,
Where all bad & deceit come corollary
As she had a base habit of obfuscatory.
She knew less concepts contemporary
And thought herself vital primary.
The world is full of fools’ theory
Listening to them I feel weary.
Would always ask if I hunky-dory?
We knew those emotions were vapory –
Happy, then sad, angry then nugatory!
Her emotions changed as witch’s allegory,
Hate, spurn, prune are her favourite mandatory:
Now singly fights with colleagues hortatory;
Alas! Does not know her faults & category.
Listening to them I feel weary.
Would always ask if hunky-dory?
At first I tried to be a promontory
So that I can save her crematory;
Blind with pride, less corroboratory,
She spurned me having derogatory.
Now also I pity her as she is a hoary
But wish she improves her oratory.
Apr 19, 2018
Apr 19, 2018 at 8:52 PM UTC
Head to toe,
All the places, I wish to go,
Exploring every inch of your skin,
Flesh, Heart, Mind and deep within.
North to south, east to west,
in this journey, your whole, my quest.
A passage to the secret chamber,
Will unlock for me, a true lover.
Will crawl through my lips,
With a break at your hips.
Every part of you is a bliss,
I would never want to miss.
Attractive mountains filled with nectar,
The sweetest, I have tasted ever.
In mammary glands, a treasure stored,
nutrition for newborns, un-compared.
A joyful and wildest ride,
To reach & delve in the site you hide.
To get drenched in a river that flows,
Where life evolves and only one knows.
Want to seize, fresh blooming flower,
**** out all the honey, I will devour.
Want to make you feel,
That heaven is for real.
Scrolling, tip to toe, with my touches,
Covering your whole, with my smooches.
For breakfast, lunch and dinner,
My apatite, you are my platter.
Sweat from your warm body,
Beautifully resides, tidy
on your skin, each drop
Like a fresh morning dewdrop.
Providing ultimate pleasure,
With intense pressure,
And my naughty gesture,
Will lead you to heights, I assure.
Up and down I travel,
Every stop is a marvel.
A miraculous place, your navel,
Beneath which, next wonder, another level.
Some time on top,
and at time down I drop.
Emotion's playful game, one on one,
At the end both will win.
I want you to feel me in your nerves,
When I journey through the curves.
Pouring my love without any measure,
Moments together, we shall treasure.
I'll dive into places dark & deepest,
Thoughts of you makes me, a craziest,
Yet an act, sacred and purest,
For soul partners, not for tourists.
Your every touch, Electrifies my veins,
Powers up, propelling the plains.
Heavy Storms and thunders,
Leading to heavy cloudy rains.
My love for you, always pure,
Will retain this forever, I'm sure.
A journey that I want to cherish,
Until the day I perish.
By
Sanji-Paul Arvind
Apr 25, 2025
Apr 25, 2025 at 12:39 AM UTC
there are no more words to speak
she is everything, i could ever need
poetess perplex me
with complex inflections, i don’t dare speak
you utter lightly
and parts of me alight, blindly
she sings in memories,
broken symphonies
she writes in lucid dreams,
her inner meanderings
she dances in emptiness,
the space between realities
the face that nature gave her
the eyes that hold untold favors
sweet scent of honeysuckle
light is her medicine bundle
she says:
use your head to live
use your heart to be happy
firelight swimming
amidst a sacred poison
i fear nothing so i run
come be one with me
its our only itinerary
which needs no reiteration
when love is cheering you on
cherish the dance alone
forms are swiftly forming
remove the stones from your imagination
you are not too far away from home
comb the shores of our emancipation
lies are abundant in these hills
and jobs are more scarce than sheep
but its still the thrill that turns me on
you come home and wipe your feet
and leave the dirt out in the street
life is without a center really, she said
come home, i've made you something warm to eat
Sep 6, 2018
Sep 6, 2018 at 2:06 PM UTC