I am colour

Part of a series combining spoken word with images. 'I Am Colour', uses colours as metaphors, as thoughts, as emotions, and at times a mere device to tread through memory, in order to paint the shades of different thoughts, emotions and journeys through words in poetry.

The visual compositions have been created out of paint, oil and soap liquid. Captured on Canon550D.

Captured by Asawari Jagushte

Poetry & SFX by Varsha Panikar

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I am colour

The colours of intimacy

Much to explore

Gentleness and broken glass

Sweet touch

Raw sensation

We are a colour

That hasn't been discovered

Never seen by the universe

But we exist

And we shine!

The world is a colour

Without any shade.

The people, a canvas

Whose souls never fade

My mind is a brush

That paints where I go

That paints what I see

And paints what I know

Billions of people

All painting their thoughts

From the oldest of them

To the littlest of tots

Each person's soul

An original piece

That joins the collective

When their body shall cease

Their beauty overflowing

For all who will see

The beauty of you

And the beauty of me

Some people dream in colour,

Others in black and white,

My dreams leave clues in crystal hues,

Too prismatic for the eye.

Children find the colour wheel.

They always say just what they feel.

Colour the canvas from white to whatever.

The colours you use are yours forever.

The colours you favour

Are droplets in time: a minute, an hour, an endless design...

The painting is finished at our last breath.

Gone is everything you've ever said...

Coffee and muffins.

Smells that colour my imagination.

Vividly,

Tenderly.

The sweet taste of colours.

How can we taste

The colours of the rainbow?

One may say skittles,

Or rainbow icecream.​

Every colour has a smell.

Each colour its own flavor.

What is your colour?

Your smell?

Green, mint, vanilla, white, eggnog,

Tan, cocoa, brown, strawberry, pink, rasberry

Magenta, mango, orange?

What are you made of?

Hot fudge sundae, rocky mountain, banana nut?

What makes you, well, you?

Trigger Warning: Mention of Suicide

Her favorite colour was blue

She was forever surrounded by its hue

In her eyes you can see the internal feud

But talking about it is was something she could never do

So blue took over her life

No one saw the weight of its strife

How it cut its way into her spirit like a knife

How its destructive force ran rife

She fell further down coz’ of her fears

Could fill an ocean with her tears

This went on for years

But she kept it all inside where no one could hear

Her favorite colour was blue

And it's quite tragic too

That no one ever saw the clues

Until her favorite knot became a noose

If I were able to look at myself with my own eyes, I would see nothing resembling what I let you see. Perhaps, I would see thoughts - raw, bleeding, black thoughts. Restless words, memories, ideas, colours. Colours that would bleed together as water colours on cheap paper. Colours upon colours, upon colours, upon colours.

R. I. P.

The moment the paper tears, the cut... too deep, the smile drops, almost before you hear the drip drop stop. Is my time running out?

I suppose that’s how time works.

What if our emotional scars were visible?

What if they could be seen as they formed?

What would happen?

Would people be more cautious?

Could it make a difference?

What if

Our moods could be seen as colors?

What if

People could see the damage they cause?

What if

Our thoughts could be seen as dark and light?

I wonder

What color would be seen most often?

Colour is always so much fun

White light split from the loving sun

The dark of night

Is where we run

When we hide

From what we may become.

It doesn't matter the spectrum

Or how the prism lies

The multitude of colours

You see them all at one time

It doesn't matter the connection

Or how it's been tied

It doesn't matter the infection

Or how it's stabalised

There's no matter in the prism

Just the refracting light

When you see all the colours

You see them at one time

All that I am adds to my colours,

My power to fully be.

---

Transient Affair

First published in Love Portions, in the February 2020 issue of Rogue - The Zine by Ratio Auream Publishers under the publications One Point Six One Eight Imprint. Available on Amazon&Kindle.

Ice melting in my glass,

Beside a tray of smoked cigarettes

Where nothing but the ashes remain,

Quite like this emptiness,

Which refuses to go away,

But that is fine by me.

It is in moments like this,

Where I find myself wandering,

Wading the depths of this mind;

But by dwelling on it nothing avails,

Nothing ever;

So I shift my gaze onto the moon.

It is waving to my tear-soaked eyes

That mourns the night’s impending demise.

The wind, my only respite!

From my window, it comes through

With ecstasy and desire racing through.

In the world, where my heart has turned cold,

Your face shakes marrows of my bones.

Within the dark shadows,

Your beauty shines through.

So come, my love!

Let’s surrender to our deepest desires!

As the night composes symphonies

Of our lonely despairs,

Injecting a sense of euphoria,

Seeping into our soul’s phantasmagoria,

It feels like it might tune out every wrong

And ease my heart of stone;

Even if for just a moment,

Even if lasts a few songs.

So come,

Come and hold me close!

As we wander alone like lost children,

Searching for solace within affection.

Let throws of satisfaction relinquish this agony

That is forever tugging at the sanctity of my sanity.

Let’s dream of moonlight kissing,

The kind that still the echoes of our aching song,

And disappear into this nothingness together,

Stay entrapped in each other’s arms for now,

If not forever.

I know,

I know that these moments are brief,

That this is perhaps,

Merely an erotic coupling

For those who dared and dreamed,

And that is fine by me.

Such little time

To hope, to wish, to dream

Sometimes it goes on forever,

Sometimes, in a flash, it’s gone!

And that is fine by me.

Perhaps, it's better this way.

Some words I can never say,

Lest my heart melts away.

I sometimes forget who you are,

And you keep forgetting my name,

And that is fine by me.

I can feel the tears

Hanging from the window of your soul

As you quietly slip into the night,

Leaving behind dreams yet to unfold,

And though it rips my heart,

It is fine by me.

So, let’s dance behind these shadows

And return to the sunshine unscathed,

Until that thing that urged our passions and lunacy

Becomes nothing more than a memory.

Even though my heart does despair;

My sweet, my love

Let me look upon your face once more,

Take you one kiss at a time,

And hold you in my arms tonight,

For I know

That we might never see each other again;

And that too is fine by me.

By Varsha Panikar

From their series, “Bodies Of Desire”

Kiss me once more

First published in Love Portions, in the February 2020 issue of Rogue - The Zine by Ratio Auream Publishers under the publications One Point Six One Eight Imprint. Available on Amazon&Kindle.

Kiss me once more,

Steal me a shadow,

Turn out the lights;

And take me away.

No time to mourn,

Terror, be gone!

Laughing and crying,

So kiss me once more.

Tell me I am crazy,

Staring at the sky all day.

Spin me a story

So instead, I may touch yesterday.

Perhaps, I see too clearly,

Living in memory,

So turn off the lights

And take me away.

Varsha Panikar

From sketch-poetry series, “Bodies Of Desire”