Tag: Spoken Word

Poem: Finding Heaven

Arshan Dhillon

Heavens and Earth rose out of chaos,

as Milton said,

prior to it, life was just existence,

plain and empty,

meaningless with nothing to aim towards,

the fruit set man free,

digesting chaos and allowing it to spill into the body, into the blood, into the heart and mind,

with it came an aim,

aim to get back to the heavens which now separated from the plain existence of old,

get back to the ideal,

now the individual actions and choices mattered,

those who made order within themselves found heaven again.

 

Yet, every day we avoid chaos,

take the easy way, the comfortable way, the known path,

avoid what is unknown,

walk within the safe bounds,

only safe risks, safe decisions, safe impulses,

but in that safe life, we set the aim only to the ground we walk upon.

 

In order to find heaven,

your hellish roots must be visible,

in that is meaning,

to face the abyss,

to stand at the edge,

to shake hands with your shadow,

to embrace the possibility of disorder for eternity,

to jump off the cliff and make the parachute on your way down,

in that is life,

in that is heaven.

 

 

Poem: Movement

Arshan Dhillon

Sprint if you can,

Jog if you must,

Sometimes you’ve just gotta walk,

One step in front of the other,

Leisurely,

Crawl if you can’t do nothing else,

inch by inch,

Onwards.

 

As both, the shadow of the rising sun and the setting sun wash upon you,

As the pale moonlight bathes you,

As complete darkness enshrouds you,

At the beginning, in the middle, at the end and beginning again,

Moving.

 

At the pace you can manage,

Every so often testing your limits,

Crawling to walking to jogging to sprinting,

The rhythmic strides and the stumbles go hand in hand,

Until the eternal stop,

The only stop,

Otherwise, life is made up of movement,

Slow and fast and the in-between,

Moving up towards the ups, moving down towards the downs, moving back up, moving back down, moving, moving,

Movement.

Poem: Is Enough

Arshan Dhillon

The flickering light of the bulb is enough,

the tiny sparkle of the star in the infinite darkness of space is enough,

the attic light,

the hallway glow,

the nightlight for kids,

the cigarette lighter for adults,

the flame that burns inside,

flamed by thoughts of success,

surrounded by thoughts failure,

no matter how weak, how brittle, how beaten it gets,

if it can give you even the slightest of warmth,

it’s enough,

if it can keep another’s light going,

it’s enough,

if it can fuse with another’s and cast a long shadow,

it’s enough,

if it keeps the body moving forward,

it’s enough,

no matter how slow, how painful, how stubborn the movement is,

it’s enough on its own,

you’re enough on your own,

the attempt to keep it going,

is enough,

for the attempt is all we have.

Poem: Ten Years

Arshan Dhillon

Ten years ago I thought I understood it all, life and everything in it, the steps in front of me felt so real, concrete-like, a path which could sustain my weight but the very first step showed the cracked foundation upon which my hopes were built on, the child-like dreams up in smoke, trying to bottle them back up in order to give it another go, happy to do so for the youth was with me, the naivety of which keeps the blood flowing and the body warm from just the possibilities,

Ten years later the same hopes rummage through my head, gluing together the wreckage of my life in order to make sense of it all otherwise, I know I’ll senselessly go down under and finally have some relief but before I can earn that, I gotta do something worthy of it and so I gathered the broken, the cracked, the splintered, the fragmented pieces of myself and form a happy, smiling face, tape it all together and show that I was here, I existed,

Ten years from now I hope that I’m not hoping any longer, that all those hopes lead somewhere, that the darkness was elevated from the light of a beacon, that the beacon wasn’t false, that the falsity didn’t break me too bad, that I still had the strength to crawl in the darkness finding the bits and pieces, that I had the courage to put it all back together and that I can take another step still.

Poem: The Death Tolls

Arshan Dhillon

There is never true silence,

always seeking some distraction,

those who seek, find it,

occupying the time with noise,

filling the head with all this junk,

so that when you do find yourself alone,

you have to sift through all this trash,

just enough time to get some noise going,

perhaps even ask someone how they’re doing.

 

While you see it’s face everywhere,

in the news,

in the movies,

in the music,

in the book,

paradoxically exposing yourself to it, and

hoping to forget it,

acting as if each movement isn’t commanded by it.

 

The fear of it,

of reality,

the unknown that lies in the core,

the gift of Adam,

the knowledge accompanied by your awakening,

the companion to your consciousness,

the one that remembers your vulnerability,

your wounds and your pains,

turn up the music so you can drown the rapidly increasing heartbeat of the counterpart to life,

known by all but kept quiet,

afraid to hear it, afraid to listen to it,

the bell tolls,

the reminder that is silenced by all the noise,

underneath the silence,

the death tolls ring.

Youtube: Learned Living

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Poem: The Many Yous

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