"upbraided" poems
You have no idea
What it's like, to be a woman
Everyday is a baptism by fire
As she walks on the street
Hundred hands appear
From nowhere, as if conjured
By a deft flick
Of a magician's wand
A magician who sends chills
Down the length of her spine
Chills that surpass even those
On a wintry night in Antarctica
Leaving her frozen
Till every bone stands still
As she is stripped of her dignity
Reduced to a shadow of her self
She strains every sinew in her throat
As she sends out a distress signal
Which fails to be intercepted
As the people look on
Some with fear
Some with sheer indifference
Some with a perverse interest
But none answer the call of duty
The call which is as basic
As the need for oxygen
You have no idea
What it's like, to be a woman
As she heads home
Seeking much needed solace
She is instead upbraided
For wearing a short skirt
For walking alone in the night
For not being a lady
As she fails to get support
From the family she holds dear
As a shipwreck survivor
Barely floating in freezing waters
Clings on to that piece of wood
Her self-esteem nosedives
Like that fateful Air India flight
That crashed at Mangalore
And shifts the blame onto herself
For not understanding the men
Who've brought her to this state
And succumbs to Stockholm Syndrome
Completing a vicious circle
Leaving men and the patriarchy winners
Winners who deserve the title
As much as a student
Who clears his trimesters
Using bits of paper
Tucked neatly inside his shoes
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 1:20 AM UTC
A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom,
And we clasped, and almost kissed;
But she was not the woman whom
I had promised to meet in the thawing brume
On that harbour-bridge; nor was I he of her tryst.
So loosening from me swift she said:
“O why, why feign to be
The one I had meant—to whom I have sped
To fly with, being so sorrily wed,”
’Twas thus and thus that she upbraided me.
My assignation had struck upon
Some others’ like it, I found.
And her lover rose on the night anon;
And then her husband entered on
The lamplit, snowflaked, sloppiness around.
“Take her and welcome, man!” he cried:
“I wash my hands of her.
I’ll find me twice as good a bride!”
—All this to me, whom he had eyed,
Plainly, as his wife’s planned deliverer.
And next the lover: “Little I knew,
Madam, you had a third!
Kissing here in my very view!”
—Husband and lover then withdrew.
I let them; and I told them not they erred.
Why not? Well, there faced she and I—
Two strangers who’d kissed, or near,
Chancewise. To see stand weeping by
A woman once embraced, will try
The tension of a man the most austere.
So it began; and I was young,
She pretty, by the lamp,
As flakes came waltzing down among
The waves of her clinging hair, that hung
Heavily on her temples, dark and damp.
And there alone still stood we two;
She once cast off for me,
Or so it seemed: while night ondrew,
Forcing a parley what should do
We twain hearts caught in one catastrophe.
In stranded souls a common strait
Wakes latencies unknown,
Whose impulse may precipitate
A life-long leap. The hour was late,
And there was the Jersey boat with its funnel agroan.
“Is wary walking worth much pother?”
It grunted, as still it stayed.
“One pairing is as good as another
Where is all venture! Take each other,
And scrap the oaths that you have aforetime made.”
—Of the four involved there walks but one
On earth at this late day.
And what of the chapter so begun?
In that odd complex what was done?
Well; happiness comes in full to none:
Let peace lie on lulled lips: I will not say.
1.5k
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BACK BEHIND THE LINE!
Appropriating an arsenal of verbal weaponry
Feb 27, 2014
Feb 27, 2014 at 6:14 PM UTC
Lifelong song
Sung .....
From innocence
Into efflorescence
subtlety with ease elevated me
I gravitated to her temptation
As natural as falling into destiny
The essence of my enchantress
Enamoring nuances.
Left me defenseless.
Intoxicated with sundry pangs felt in crushed velvet magenta saturated with indigo blue
Beguiled she held me still deliberately
Euphoric glistening tears flowed
so slowly and satisfying her eyes closed .
Even slower the fear of death came and went .........
Loosed her grip slowly squeezed my chest
And with
a sweet
Seductive
Suction
Still deeper into my heart
her fangs sunk in
pains so succulent
I languished in sensual Sickening
agony
Leaving my thirst for her
Unquenchable......
First Love-bite ........
..
the venom is irreversible. ....
It's like being resurrected ....
A cocktail confected from your finest chemicals upbraided into
An attractive macrame ....of attraction
The ultimate inflicted reaction from an infection that causes sexiness and intimate ,
Instant
Addiction ...
Once her teeth sank untill
Her lips touched wet with mine
I lost trust in my mind,
And I knew that only insanity would follow,
And also I know
I cainst let them withdrawal ....
She left me at an intersection
With countless directions
Which lead to any and everywhere.....
And yet for me it's a one way .
And it still feels consensual....
Karma my Queen
You put the hurt on me . .
And love is like the fall
When you learn to fly
Feels like the first time
Everytime I fall in
I love love. .... as much as falling in love.
But
It's the fall I crave ... And I'm a slave to it . It's the sudden stop at the end that I'm afraid of ..
More than anything.
Yet.............it....
Hasn't
stopped me yet
Nov 25, 2021
Nov 25, 2021 at 3:03 PM UTC