Harpreet Chhachhia

An Urgency

There is an urgency
To late life, a calling,
A surreal falling,
Through a dark vacancy.

There is a tearing pain
Which can never be found.
You cannot make a sound
For nothing’s left to gain.

An endless fall at night.
The body caves a stop;
But all it does is drop
Through kaleidoscopic blight.

Through thought and desire,
Through future, present and past,
What you hoped would not last
Calls hope a bald liar.

Dreams shatter as you fall,
Arms flailing and legs spread.
Each shard says it’s not dead,
Your heart’s an overhaul.

You cease to think or know.
You just fall endlessly,
Through that dark vacancy,
With dead joy and dead woe.

5:00am
28th aug.

The cacophony of the soul

Is like a coin in an empty tin can,

Rattling away at the insides

Whenever shaken.

To stop this erroneous shaking,

One must be still.

Fuck up.

Being still doesn’t work with the soul,

As countless wise men have alluded.

I am guessing

Their souls had already transmigrated

Into another box.

So they could sit under trees

And smile and talk to us about their stillness.

I write poems for what lies close to my heart:

Sometimes when I’m happy, sometimes when sad,

Sometimes because loved ones have to depart

And good times are no longer to be had.

But time has its idiosyncrasies

And our past merges with the future,

Maybe fleeting moments will make us see

This leave-taking a fresh meeting nurtures.

There are many things left to do, feel, see;

But Time, it seems, has run so very short,

So I wish you many good things to be,

Many people who should love you a lot.

In time, as you look back at times we had,

Seek the Evening Star and be glad.