The Lion in Winter

~ tannishaavarrsekar ~ Leave a comment

What a dreadful feeling,
Waking up in the morning
Knowing the storm is coming
If you make it through the day.

Should we be ashamed?
Or should we walk tall through the rain?
Hoping we’ll be too cold to break
When it’s time to double down or raise the stakes.

Nothing less is apparently something more
So after we drown maybe we’ll wade ashore?
If we force our hearts and minds to hold on
Maybe someone could put the lights back on?

Only a couple lifetimes of struggling casually,
Of looking perfect while devastated internally.
Strutting through life with massive chips on our shoulders,
With hearts that weep, but eyes that smoulder.

Caged by the trappings of our charmed existence
Standing side by side with acres of distance.
If only love and money mended prejudice and pride,
Wouldn’t have been such a hell of a roller coaster ride.

After years of sighing instead of crying
Thinking about our lives and their secret colours
It seems there is no more use in running
This is the reality we survived others to weather.

But a serendipitous chance nonetheless
To discover true friends and the tipping point of sanity,
Acquire all the experiences of biographic interest,
And challenge substance dependency.

The cruelty of making us undo everything we’ve done,
Shielding reputation once dignity’s undone,
Like playing russian roulette with that loaded gun,
Trying to forget all the battles we fought and won.

The tragedy of knowing the truths that we conceal
Even Achilles got shot at the heel
“As if it matters how we fall down…”
“When the fall’s all that’s left, oh it matters a great deal.”

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

The River

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a midnight blue brocade saree waving in the wind
smothering something prodding at the surface from within
that eerie presence in the black of the night quieter than your conscience

I couldn’t get over the canvas-like impermanence of history’s faithful witness
how easy it was to love these currents without knowing their origins
how little the water could do for my thirst even if I drowned in it

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

The Judgment of Paris

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To all the Gods that hear me now-
Watch the fate that you allowed.
Spurned boons maketh a cursed life.
The desired fruit gotten uninvited Strife.

***

Nepotism threatens even the God of Gods-
An unnerving wife and the girls he begot.
Any disposition could put him in the folly,
Morally wrong and definitely sorry.

***

Vainglory and extraordinary ego at stake,
To stir up a Goddess, what does it really take?
This wrong you already know, it’s the heart’s fault,
Alas no matter who loses, only Paris will fall.

***

Wisdom and war come together in a body,
Both grace and fierceness she doth embody.
Intelligent composure soon turn into feral rage
To bring her satisfaction, the war will be waged.

***

Ironically she be the Goddess of marriage,
Displease the splenetic, call for carnage.
Unlike the others the glow of good nature she lack,
Vex the nefarious and in the worst marriage be trapped.

***

The world not seen such heavenly beauty,
Charm be irresistible is her duty.
How can one not love, Love herself?
In the game she made, how she not be deft?

***

Beauty is skin-deep, is that really so?
If she was most intelligent, would he be lucky more?
A happy marriage with an ugly fool, not fine?
Between the greatest of blessings, how does one be inclined?

***

Zeus’s hopes of objectivity, completely destroyed.
Of loyalty, Paris’s marriage now be void.
A venal man, fell for manipulation coy.
A small mistake then becomes the war of Troy.


-Tannisha Avarrsekar

2020

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I have lived whole years in a year
And months in months
And sometimes even lifetimes between sunsets and moonrises

And I don’t have much to say or show for it
Aside from faith in faith 
And a struggle for meaning and words 
To encompass the quietness and music of being frighteningly happy with life as it is

Music that sometimes plays even when it doesn’t
And shares the painful joy of finding that someone somewhere has been as lost
The glorious genius of knowing without telling and expressing without speaking
Springing from the wings to enliven and entrench a moment in the theatre of thoughts

Of a one-man show meandering through genres
Of lessons learnt and forgone
Of acceptance of risk factors unknown 
Of kisses of life and death and deliciously dangerous habits.

I now know that eyes can thirst 
For scenes and spaces that writing can do no justice to

Like summery British afternoons with a cinematic breeze as cool as cucumbers in a good gin and tonic
And green coves over turquoise waters embellished with champa flowers.

I now know a little about the commonality of the human experience:
The underrated joy of simply breathing easy,
But also of taking the inroad instead of the highway, rereading favourite poetry,
A hearty meal, a listening ear, and a familiar story. 

I now know how much I appreciate daylight when it’s about to be nighttime 
And how there’s nothing quite like the fear of death to ignite the fire to be alive. 

It took a while to get here,
But I think I like these people,
And I definitely like this place,
Even if a glass of rosé is the closest it gets to a quantum of solace. 

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

This is how I remember London…

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This is how I remember London, brooding, and mysterious, and overcast, and quiet. A city where even the skies are too dignified to show too much emotion. Like those elegant, middle-aged women at tube stations, standing tall in a trench coat, boots and pearl earrings. Purse in one hand, umbrella in the other, and hair in a French bun. Head held high in thought albeit not rudely.
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This is how I remember London, with light snow fall during intellectual debates at dimly lit restaurants with wooden interiors. Playing cards in familiar sweaters at familiar spots with a pipe in one hand. Smiling smugly inside with the satisfaction of such warm company and hearty breakfasts. The beauty of the world’s biggest metropolis hidden in short, wall to wall houses and quaint lanes. Throbbing, white city lights embellished with church tops blending neatly into pink skies. A home that houses the appearance of cities, ranging from Honk Kong to Edinburgh.
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Indeed, there is so much without being too much that one is driven to creativity. Life seems to be lived with a background of classical music, which makes everything function with a combination of passion and restraint in this heaven of candles, chandelier and marble.

Coup de Théâtre

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Love, like a floundering swan
With fumbling confidence
Is forlorn.

A dying peacock
Is still beautiful,
Words poignant
No matter how truthful.

The tide doesn’t matter
When the winds have flooded the shore
It’s wide open but
I can’t get myself to, walk out the door.

Who knew life was like a game of poker
Times change fast,
Ask the amused ides of October.

Your smile is a Lethe like symphony
You dimple at me, and I don’t need an apology
I plead temporary insanity.
How else will we overcome the dishonesty?

We shall continue this celestial fight
Until the wrong still feels right.
I may pretend, I’m out of mind
Unfortunately, I’m painfully aware, I’m lying.

But there is no escaping
The helpless humiliation of knowing

I love you

And

Sometimes,
You love me too.

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

Underneath

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Under the dark starless sky,
They all step out of their grand four-wheeled boxes,
In their sleek stilettos, which keep them well above the ground.
Walk into a sprawling room,
Lit by the same color as the champagne being served
And give air kisses to all the familiar but unknown faces.
They look aesthetic in their red dresses and black tuxedos,
Their impeccable make-up and inconspicuous Botox takes care of that.
They all look perfect until you look into their eyes.
Beneath the floating whispers, petty conversations, and hollow laughter,
Delicate music plays,
Charming the shallow and the Dionysian,
All of them loners.
All of them tied up in each other’s haloes.
They nurture someone’s ego,
Just to keep them from shattering theirs.                                       
Desperation and vainglory is all mixed together,
With their perfume and the air.
They cross lines with no consequences,
Forgetting that scandal always has collateral damage.

Under the Italian marble,
Secrets lie like dormant volcanoes.
The sixty-year-old man is just as sick as the thirty-year-old seductress.
But you can’t blame them,
They’re all just empty puppets, chess pieces
What glitters is not always gold…

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

Mono no aware

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We ambled up Inveraray Castle and my Hart had a harrowing vision of its own
Staggered by the view from atop waiting on the grandest members of my home
The sun smiled softly at the moon before tipping his hat to the bird
It soon bowed out of the horizon and the hues of the brooding sky stirred
A floundering swan with fumbling confidence swam in a Lethe-like symphony
Sadness swept over me like rushing wind and rustled the leaves of my memory

The edifice stood tall though hunching a little in front of large hills made of sand
You panted and stalled- tired. And unconsciously I offered you my hand
Your palms were warm and dry as they gently clasped mine with gratitude
My heart felt heavy knowing yours was weak and I choked on my imminent solitude
You were larger-than-life though not literally and now your hair had become thinner
You sighed as your thin lips curled with child-like joy but I noticed that slight shiver

And suddenly I found myself thinking of the ghosts I might someday hope to see
With a lump in my throat because of a sweet sillage of moringa and sour cherry
I wanted to plead the fibers of your tendons to not give into the bludgeonings of age
In the elision of the moment when the delicate, silk threads of fate inevitably break
I wanted to make an heirloom of my prayers and make you wear it like an amulet
For my mind was already misty with nostalgia for a time that wasn’t even over yet

It was no comfort that the cruelty of nature’s give-and-take escaped no one
If only your lullabies could shoo these nightmares away like they used to once
Bold colors were becoming powdered but really the end was just of the holiday
There were other treasures and traps our moist eyes would have to hide away
After all, there was some inexplicable grace in the watering away of this sight
And yet, my God, how I wanted to rage against the dying of the light.

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

With no due respect

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Her value is not a composite of
The number of wrinkles on her face
And the height of her stilettos
Or the inches of her waist
And the circumference of her butt
Or the number of men she took to bed
And the number of men she didn’t.

She knows exactly what she wants,
And she refuses to give a fuck.
She is a whispered fervor
Whose body is a temple,
Who is neither to be “had”
Nor requires to be “protected.”

She is a composite of contradictions
The gentle warmth of the fire
And it’s burning intensity
The softness of water
And the violent lashing of the sea

She’s so much more than just “pretty”
(To begin with, pretty is such an ugly word.)
She is one of the illusive Goddesses
Who you named hurricanes after,
Who can be homemakers and ego-wreckers,
Who can instill both fear and compassion in your heart,
Who always know the truth much before they decide to ask,
Whose politeness will often come with intelligent irony underneath
(Alas, all well-behaved bitches also have teeth),
And who despite generations of you trying
Will always be too multitudinous for your simplified stereotyping.

And who the hell are you
To give her the right to choose, which she was born with
Or wolf-whistle at her
When you’re more of a paltry mouse than a wolf
Or to say she needs a man,
When god knows, she’s more complete than you’ll ever be.

Oh, and if you think her mouth is made for kissing
You’re dangerously wrong, my friend.
It’s made for articulate revolutions of passion
Which will one day change the way even you look at the world.

-Tannisha Avarrsekar

The train

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There’s something about trains and planes
Which move faster than time
That remind me how much of our journey
                Like the warm beams of a setting sun
Are so blissfully alone

Even though the eerie hush between these rainfalls
And the distance between our pillows
Has been teaching me a little about liminality’s throes
I still live for the exquisite pain of those sitar crescendos
And I’m so curious to reach the coming house of tomorrow

Built with firewood I so passionately polished
Holding the bittersweet smell of old roses on a breeze
And dew trickling down slower than my tears now streak
Knowing, the beginning of the end wasn’t far away
And my last first-time in that beloved prison would be walking away

Maybe I did get on the wrong train…
But once I got on I couldn’t get off
Because if I got off then I might never be able to get back on.

-Tannisha Avarrsekar