The very act of accepting the power of kindness is the hallmark of humanity.
During the crisis, this ethos gets subdued.
Our kaleidoscopic runway, which shapes our perspectives, ceilings,and quests is suddenly cornered.
In the COVID surreal reality, the roller coaster of our breath has
come to a screeching halt.
A blip and we became vulnerable, our rhythm and sanity dysfunctional.
The tall order of our economy is in turmoil, our physical,
mental and social health in crisis.
Solace stripped away, we feel utterly helpless and alone.
A poet and humanitarian in me firmly believes during any
time being individually and collectively kind brings
much-needed warmth and solace.
This time is no different, I implore everyone to devise an action
where our kindness shines.
Our actions will nourish our spirits and bring along a healing envelop.
On the creative side, the pause is also an opportunity for us
to poke into our deeper self, to discover beyond
the narration of portfolios and vulnerabilities
that somehow come to define us.
Take the courage from your resonating beat
and let the heart sail high and mound the unimaginable,
The hum in us is strong, kindly, tune in.
In Time & Knots, the poem Poet is the culmination of the anthology,
as well as a reflection of the poetic revolution
A Poet
is an opus of rising crests
and plunging troughs,
nodes anchoring our chain-links.
In the wave of his craft
our pulse and knots ride
beyond residue and decree
of the currents, a flag bearer of revolt.
When darkness runs roil,
his pen dismantles the illusion
and his ink an illuminance.
Within his churn,
the chapters unfold:
poet, a keeper.
Feeding the revolution –
Our team of illustrator, book designer, marketing lead, and
the poet are giving away
Two Poets
$500 boost!
To get rolling please fill this short form
Designing Time & Knots was like breaking the mold of time to create a space for a knot, The illustration and the inner composition had to complement each other. The Pitch poem and the preface for Time set the ethereal tone, but the million-dollar question was the Season that will make and break the illusion of change & us.
Initially, I had imagined to open with Spring and culminate with Winter, kind of follow a chartered course, but as my Soul become the poetic core, the journey became uncharted…
I wrote
with silence and chaos
with passion and charm
with rhythm and fall
with hunger & high.
with vulnerability & pride,
with freedom & grip
with dye & shine
with welcome and smile.
with void & bliss
with bloom & gasp
with strike & bow
with edge & infinite.
The warmth of Summer and its undying clench surfaced as the season to break open the cyclical mist.
Here is Summer, rendered in Latvian landscape by a soul that will leave you in awe & flow.
Available on Amazon
Our relationship with time is very intriguing, the very notion of being alive, and experiencing the bubbles of
our perceptions are all courtesy to the endless ocean of time.
When I first started to think about this collection, destiny had the title of the book already spinning in my soul,
I am not sure how that happened, it’s like reaching somewhere and you know you have been there countless time,
but you can’t recollect anything.
Acknowledging that ambiguity guided me to discover, explore and seek a pathway to poetic expression.
The journey of reflecting on our collective human essence, beyond the prevailing narratives and tangled space, and then harnessing that quest on pulp and ink was both liberating and kindling.
There were long moments where it felt like I was engulfed by a barrage of swinging pendulums, singing in their own rage the barriers between chaos and bliss non-existent. While the poet in me was struggling to shake off the dead weight,
the reflection had seeded the inevitable transition.
The collection pitches the unison of cosmos into the bang of fertile summer, impregnating autumn colors, that fade into the numbness of winter, blooming it shine again in spring, while majestically the void bang keeps us all on the toe.
Each poem for me had to command its own space & pause, and a link to our heart’s depths and our eternal calls.Like how we are floating in many dimensions, and still hold on to our own singularity, our dreams, and our songs.
That dip invalidates the hours and we are truly transformed.
A poet is born.
I switched my graduate school during my first week of arrival in the US, it spun an interstate journey on Greyhound Lines, crisscrossing the prairies of Kansas, the loftiness of Illinois, into the rolling scape of Michigan; Where the Autumn abloom and a receding sun, a colorful welcome for a foreign explorer.
Switching schools meant I had to wait to get on-campus job. By the onslaught of winter, I was employed as a Student Laborer for the university landscape services.
Having grown up in the Himalayas, to comprehend snow without the slope was an alien sight, the rolling glacial stains of Michigan were new to my anxious perceptions. I chose an alias name (Ken) to safeguard my real name, Taran, from tongue rolling hiccups.
At home with chill and flurry of the lake effects,
an arena for the soul
a push,
a scoop,
a metal ledge,
a sprinkle of thaw
vanishing prints
My landscape supervisor, Kim, a compassionate master gardener, She would always enquire, Ken, where are your winter gloves.
I’ll muse to myself :
‘For I want the winter to breathe through me so I can bloom in Spring.’
With a smile, an endless playground. soaking the warmth of metal and sweat.
Those years are etched in the memory lane –
the flakes of winter,
the radiance of tulips,
the unrelenting growth of sod,
the heap of leafs
The cyclical play of life at its very best!
