Tag: postaday

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 14, 202410:21 am

Cacophony

I exit Jama Masjid’s exquisite tranquil beauty
Take a moment outside on the steps
To put on my shoes
Before stepping down
Into the cacophony of civilization

I was told, by many people
India would be a game-changer
Would alter my understanding of everything
In ways that could not be described
Only experienced

But I’d already spent 6 months
Bicycling across China
How much more
Could my understanding
Be altered?

More than I can describe
To those who have not shared
The experience of India
More than I can even describe
To myself

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 13, 202410:05 pm

Distorted Beauty

Lines and curves
Simply and exquisitely executed
Create a harmony in form
Unparalleled

While the prisms and lenses of my culture
Cut and polished from fear and ignorance
Distort the culture that created this beauty
Into twisted paroxysms of ugliness

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 12, 20249:55 am

Reach

Reach for the heavens
Beyond sky’s meagre limit
Stay grounded to Earth

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 10, 20248:00 am

Contrasts at Dawn, Chandi Chowk and Red Fort (old Delhi), New Delhi, India

Contrast in Wan Light

Sol yet plays coy with leaden horizon
But there is enough magic
In dawn’s wan light
To illumine the contrast
Of ancient glory
Astride modern poverty
While camera and I
Find beauty in both

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 9, 20247:00 am

You With The Sad Eyes, Motorcycle Rickshaw Driver, Chandni Chowk Market, New Delhi, India

Half a World Away

You with those sad eyes
In the sallow light
Backdropped by electric blue

And me with the glass eye
Recorder of moments
Context only by supposition

I could not ask you then
What countenanced such sorrow
Or was it just an unguarded moment

Emotion apparent in an unintended gesture

I am left only with guesses
While you cannot even know
Someone reflects on this moment

From half a world away

Poetry by Patrick JenningsMar 8, 20247:00 am

Existential Parade

This parade of life
This hubbub of trade
Of needs
Of desires
This chaos of order
And community

And here am I
Amid the throng
In the moments between
Want and have
In the choices between
Necessity and pleasure

This is existential quandary
Alone in my thoughts
In a sea of solitary moments
Each a universe
Borne from a solitary mind
Known only to itself

These in parallel all
With the essentials
Of desire
And necessity
A flurry of universes
Sharing a single dimension

While in my universe
The bodies of a thousand strangers
Dance in cadence
With the flow of trade
A performance at once
Exquisitely mundane and beautiful