Road to Top

Joint Poetry by Venkataraman L.N. and Joseph Kurian

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A Couple of “Aging” Limericks on My 69th Birthday

Grow old gracefully? You must be dreaming.
My Peter Pan Syndrome is teeming.
If I may be so bold,
Here’s how I’m growing old…
I’m going kicking and screaming!

Only

You are the one,

Holding key to my heart,

To break it into pieces,

Only you have the power,

With you around,

Life has beautiful meaning,

Give pain or joy,

My love won’t let you go.

Words Fail Me

Not a day for humor. Too many heartbreaking images. Too much pain.

Arrows

arrows
arrows they bled tears
thin sheets of time
split words under water
in jawless whirls
nails in clouds fill my dream

these sheets of tender ink
leave words under stones
to colour these stitches
fetch love in threads

image: pinterest.com

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Cowgirl

I encountered a young Colorado woman, once,
from a distance. Our trails crossed in our personal badlands.

A beauty, she had the raw fire of a mustang.
I caught her at a terrible time in her life.
Or should I say, she caught me.

Her marriage was coming apart,
her husband having lost interest and sunk into cruelty and betrayals.

We never met, except
as passing
electronic ghosts. She writhed and wrote of her pain,
her bruised pride and injured beauty.
She touched us with her anger and anguish,
her soul’s search for beauty nonetheless,
In that state she painted lurid images of
what she would do with me,
to me, what she wanted from me,
pinned against a wall, legs apart,
full of anger, fury, revenge.

Be the light..

Picture Courtesy: Internet

He stood there
Head down
Feeling small
Counting his uphill climb
Imagining how painful
His journey is going to be.

Promises for Life

The world is often merciless,
And loved ones dispense hate.
But you, my angel, came to me,
And I became your refugee.

Transitory

As clouds cannot one moment hold their form,
So life moves on through weariness and mirth,
And death is more significant than birth.

Reminiscence

Reminiscence,
Drug of old age.
Shackled to
Ghosts of the past,

The more I long, the more I fade…

“The last time I felt alive – I was looking into your eyes.
Breathing your air…. touching your skin…
… Saying goodbye….
The last time I felt alive…. I was dying.”

– Ranata Suzuki

Loveth hast fallen down

I dreamt, living with thee
Hast the pain not steered up.

I gaveth my heart to thee
Expecting thy loveth to beest me.

POEM: Users

crumbled parchment on the floor
words rejected now once more;

the roses you sent long dead
soft red petals hard faded;

POEM: Poverty

He stands on the median,
wearing a cardboard sign.
Politely asking strangers,
if they could just be so kind.

POEM: Halomancy

Take hold of this bottle of simple table salt,
feel the surface both solid and smooth resting in your palm,
know that this salty white chemical mix is the spark of want,
Can’t you feel the pull of desire in the looks we share?

A Dance in the Rain…

Painted by Me

When you take me in your arms, i forget all my pain

Beautiful are such times that i can’t ever complain

The Forgotten One…

Painted by me

“I feel my heart ache, but I’ve forgotten what that feeling means”

                            – Chuck Palahniuk

Tears roll down like flowers from her eyes

She must have been through a lot

What looks like bunch of flowers to you

That might be all she got…

I Can

I cannot slice the fire,

I cannot cut the air,

I cannot slit the water,

but I can wound you.

I can.

The Memory Lane…

“I wish we could choose which memories to remember and which to forget”

Deep inside my heart I was waiting for this day

Depression – 2

“Sleep isn’t just a sleep anymore, it’s an escape”

Teary eyes with Muffled cries

Strength lost and Hope dies

Fighting Depression

Painted by me

“Monsters don’t sleep under your bed, they scream inside of your head”

Why…

Image from Seema Pillay

 “In your light I learn how to love, In your beauty, I learn how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”                                                           

                                                                                               – Rumi

Those Unfulfilled Wishes…

A Painting by Me

“It isn’t hard at all to make a wish. The difficultly lies in how to make what you wish for a reality.”

                                                          – Catherine Pulsifer

State of Confusion

 

“One of the hardest decisions in life is deciding whether to walk away or try harder…”

Split wide open

I’m split wide open
for you to see
my soul is sliced in half
for you to
scrape pieces of me

I Rise Again

“How can you rise if you have never burned? Ever baked a cake?”

Off life when you take

Dreams what you make

Fears that shake

Those tears can’t be fake.

Answer Zero

Asked only
A little of life
Life offered
Myriad temptations

Pain is mine

You don’t know what I go through

and I don’t want you to know either

The pain is mine and 

The love was mine.