Singed, brilliant crimson

Conflict, as our reality
‘The outside world turned inwards’
like crimson as our river’s natural tint
like debilitating ache, as our everyday
like all our senses, overwhelmed
by deathly stillness

Tears, as our cover art of life
‘It is being hollowed. Scraped out.
As if saturated with a secret
that must only pour from eyes.’
Something, before ‘Aftermath’
where breath still equated, worth

Poet’s straining to encapsulate wordlessness
‘There is no syntax or simile
to do justice to this. No metaphor.’
So we break free, rub clean
that blank canvas and reach.

There’s more sincerity, in an ounce
of our mourning, than in a decade’s
ephemeral experience of happiness.
Loss, tragedy, death
all – a thread’s width of distance
from everlasting peace
yet anchored, to that thread of chaos
we call existence.

Singed, brilliant crimson

Statuesque, vermillion
arms wide and hefting high
humanity’s once Olympic ideal’s
mountain peak, perch
stained, as red as those rivers of blood

and as steadfast
that surface level, ideal
its reflection
beneath water’s veracity
wilts, indecently.

Chained linkings, to our suffering
in those stressed plot twists of life
war and malevolence
goodness and hope
they each strive, to influence
what we can’t, comprehend.

We relate, to pain
like nothing else in imagination
we see red, staining everything
from insomnia’s bloodshot eyes
to ketchup-soaked film sets
with murderous, live rounds
or
a gathering of Brilliant Crimson Pulses
outreaching, their helping hands
to sift through society’s gutters
and save, just one more life
only, to have that same person

Singed, brilliant crimson

reward them with a knife
to their hope fuelled, lungs…

Wordlessness, is a state
not a description
or a feeling to emote.

There are no words, for life’s
callous indifference
to all that cruelty, we face daily.

Yet, those
who somehow, survive
that debilitating strife of grief
in all its insidious forms
long enough, to distil
something, anything

should all author
their ‘Aftermath’ of defiance
like Preti Taneja!

As every new butterfly, needs
a guide
to Phoenix, treacherous destiny
into inked, legacy
so that all our martyred, Cherished
can live-on, within
pages, that still yearn to do good
to help

Singed, brilliant crimson

bravely, encourage
a poetic Resolve
so we may, all
overcome, our life’s
crimson singed, ill-fate.