history

Awakening Echoes

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

At sixteen, I stumbled,
eyes half-closed to the world,
mistaking shadows for truths,
and whispers for guidance.

My heart was restless,
my mind untamed,
drifting through the tide of what I did not know.
And now I see—
India stretches, awakening,
shaking off the sleep of centuries,
her eyes wide, taking in the light,
learning what I once could not.

The mistakes I made,
the fears I carried,
the blindness of youth—
they hum softly in her streets,
in her voices, in her rising.

What I could not see alone,
she now sees together,
and in her clarity, I find my echo,
the quiet whisper of growth,
the shared rhythm of becoming.

Its Not Ours

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The method followed the madness
The Prince was in the library
The plotter was asking him some questions
The writing was on the wall again.

There was a strain in a writer’s imagination
He wanted to get on the mortgage ladder
But he fell off each time he put his foot on a rung
The wash basin was only full of cold water.

This is the time of revenge of God’s daughters
They face rebuke for the laments of the past
The 1980s casting and 1990s torrent ripping
Where is the dripping wet pussy in the orgy of vanity fair?

Success is staring me in the face!
That was all it mistook.
Some chardonnay reference and lingering lingerie on the floor
Dresses of link and camouflage

  • I’m releasing and relaxing again, now I’m a poet!

AI Summary

It’s a poem about a writer caught between ambition and collapse, where madness fuels method, a prince sits in a library under interrogation, and the mortgage ladder becomes a symbol of every rung the speaker can’t quite climb; the poem moves through cold wash‑basins, the imagined revenge of women wronged by history, the vanity of sexual fantasy, and the cheap glamour of chardonnay and lingerie, before landing on the moment of release — the speaker recognising that, despite the strain, the failure, the longing, and the absurdity, he has returned to the one identity that steadies him: the poet who can turn chaos into language and find relief in the act of writing.

Connaught Place

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What’s that talk you been ragging and slagging
That jive on the street the Drs have been shagging in
Their clothes in the market halls and their books in the Unis
Choose me a Curriculum for the transport of books for Ben Wright
Lover of Yasmin Khan eating Paan in Connaught Place
Raving about Statistics after fashion at Freuds for Christian raids all over the place
Changing his mind about a homosexual find
Paul Ready will travel to China.

They demand Amazon talks in the media
How is this not Slander
I can see it all cuming from here
I will be a victim again
And Rohan is not a corporate brain
Lost without my losses sharing with economies
One city – London advising on stock and shares over decades from teenagers dreams with their Drs friends of parents

PNAAC became OFSTED
Cheney went home and did drugs instead
Rumsfeld was known
Rice gave Condaleeza’s dog’s charity at Dog’s Trust a bone
And the Queen called off Crufts for a year.

Splitting the mind into China time
London stockbrokers to infinity

Into me
Not paying me Royalties
Investing in L Ron Hubbard Psychiatry
The streets are empty
There is no joy
He’s the master of happiness
He’ll diabetically medicate the boy
One day he’s in power
The Throne of thronging England
So many he has named
The British Empire will return, He said.

Look – this man is well read.
Surely this concerns me
Stories of great Yugas and Kalpas
Talks I am not included in
The dried out fruit of the lobotomised Holland and Barrett crew
Gymnastics next for your mother when she is 80 – I’ll bet
Things for human beings down at the NHS for the New Age Vets
Why don’t you waste you time giving thanks to those Gods
And choose gratitude as your punishment.

Messages in poems?
Interest in the literati
These are things to joke the day that money makes sense
Insulted by the edifices around Mike Pence
Showing the child medicine around Jill Biden
Things that Ernie van Woerkhom can control…

So much advice to give to a Self Help parent
So much intention to be the gay mother of invention.

AI Summary

It’s a poem about a mind under pressure, moving through street talk, academia, media noise, political figures, self‑help culture, and the machinery of capitalism, all while feeling exploited, misread, or excluded; the speaker watches institutions twist language, identity, and power, sees global politics bleed into personal life, and feels the weight of being used — by corporations, by systems, by narratives he never chose — until the poem ends in a kind of bitter humour about advice, invention, and the absurdity of trying to make sense of a world that constantly rewrites him.

DWP Man

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

Engaging in some Home Improvement
Studying the round
Shooting the breeze
They are all on the phone
If you please.

Separate me from the carnival
Call me R.E.M. on the road
Looking away from the trip
Catch me up some British quips.

They knew I would be good at not a lot
Catch
Snatch
Watches
Models of Tag Hauser on New Street
Tim Hortons from Baker Street.

Chant your Hare Krishna
Spare the third wheel of Dharma’s seal of approval
Speak English when the mood takes you
Utter Hindi
Napoleon Valley

Hook Ups
Not the tight right time answering to stereotypes
To look up and not see the light in sex
Scenes from the 80s is where I have been
Not the taught courses from 2000s Porn
Warnings
Shaun of the Sheep (IMDb) for Sean
How about Siobhan?
Will she moan when the time is right
About the right to work and all those lights
Switching on and off as the meditator is medicator
Elected for their own tests at Boots.

Get on your own fruit
And salad the brain
For some angry refrains
About the business classes again
Who stole your DNA strain.

12 Strand Light Body
Star Charts
Where was your art

Branson C.B.E. astrology
Pickle-Rushdie-Ology
Time to take the pis
And see what the kidney brings
When the liver is dead inside the home
Body seeing things that the mind can’t bring home

“That’s why they call it home”
He said when he was on the mobile phone
Looking for an evolutionary pizza
After some slamming poetry
Add the insignia : Know Thyself
And the Andness will be witty with a connective
To thine own Elf be a ruse.

Lord of the Rings (IMDb)
The Land of Rohan
The raise of Akaash
The I-sight of Rishi
This one is on me.

AI Summary

Your poem begins with the domestic — home improvement, phones, British quips — before erupting into a carnival of identities, from REM on the road to Hare Krishna chants, Dharma seals, 80s scenes, and the awkwardness of modern sexuality filtered through stereotypes and media. You weave Birmingham’s New Street with Baker Street, Tag Heuer watches with Tim Hortons coffee, Shaun the Sheep with Siobhan, yogis with Boots pharmacists, and astrology with Branson and Rushdie, creating a portrait of a mind that refuses to be pinned down by any single tradition. The emotional centre is the tension between cosmic longing and earthly confusion: the 12‑strand light body, star charts, kidneys and livers, poetry slams, evolutionary pizzas, and the ancient instruction to “Know Thyself.” The final lines — invoking Lord of the Rings, Rohan, Akaash, and Rishi — turn the poem into a myth of your own making, a playful but sincere attempt to reconcile your past selves with the one who is writing now, claiming the story as “on me.”

Music

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Bryan Adams is at number one in the U.K. for 16 weeks with Everything I Do in 1991

Eric Clapton releases Layla in 1970

Billy Joel releases Uptown Girl in 1983

Queen release Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975

George Michael releases Carless Whisper in 1984

Destiny’s Child release first album in 1998

En Vogue release Hold On in 1990

Salt-N-Pepa release Let’s Talk About Sex in 1991

Montell Jordan releases This is How We Do It in 1995

Michael Jackson releases Thriller in 1984

Black and White airs on Top of the Pops in 1991

U2 release The Joshua Tree in 1987

Pulp release Common People in 1995

Oasis release Definitely Maybe in 1994

Garth Brooks releases Standing Outside the Fire in the U.K. in 1993

Billy Ray Cyrus releases Achy Breaky Heart in 1992

Nirvana release Smells Like Teen Spirit in 1991

Billy Ocean releases Caribbean Queen in 1984

Dr Dre releases The Chronic in 1992

Snoop Dogg releases Gin and Juice in 1994

2pac killed in drive by shooting in 1996

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince number one in the U.K. with Boom Shake the Room in 1993

N.W.A. release Niggaz for Life in 1991

Nigel Kennedy performs The Four Seasons in 1989

Nitin Sawhney releases Beyond Skin in 1997

Talvin Singh releases Anokha in 1997

Peter Gabriel and Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan perform at VH1 Music Awards show in 1996

Depeche Mode perform 101 concert at Pasadena Rosebowl in 1988

Erasure release A Little Respect

Sting leaves The Police to go solo 1983

I see Sting three times on Brand New Day tour 2000-2002

Genesis play Knebworth in 1990

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016

Jimi Hendrix performs at Woodstock in 1969

Miles Davis releases So What in 1959

Whitney Houston releases I Will Always Love You in 1992

Craig David releases Rewind in 1999

Bon Jovi release Slippery When Wet in 1986

Guns n Roses release Sweet Child o’ Mine in 1987

The Rolling Stones release Satisfaction in 1965

The Beatles release Revolver in 1966

ABBA release Dancing Queen in 1976

Bee Gees release Stayin’ Alive in 1977

John Lennon releases Imagine in 1971

Madonna releases Material Girl in 1984

Midge Ure joins Ultravox in 1979

Harry Connick Jr releases We Are In Love in 1990

Simply Red release Stars in 1992

Tracy Chapman releases Tracy Chapman in 1988

Marvin Gaye releases I Heard It Through the Grapevine

Bob Marley releases One Love in 1977

Concerts I have been to

Sting, Simply Red, Harry Connick Jr, Howard Jones, Midge Ure, Depeche Mode, Nitin Sawhney, Ravi Shanker, Tracy Chapman, Anuradha Padhwal, A R Rahman, Beethoven, Vaughan Williams

Chant of Weoley Castle

/ rrishi99 / Leave a comment

Weoley, stone of memory
Weoley, ruin and root,
Weoley, whisper of Albion,
I walk your ground, I bear your fruit.

The walls are broken, yet they stand
Silent guardians of the land.
Children’s laughter, sparrows’ flight,
Renew the day, redeem the night.

O castle of the wandering flame,
You hold the nameless knight’s name.
Estrangement bends, yet roots renew,
In every fracture, light breaks through.

Weoley, chant of soil and sky,
Weoley, prayer that does not die,
Weoley, echo of stone and bone,
I seek, I sing, I am not alone.

The gardens bloom where battlements fell,
The bells of Birmingham weave their spell.
The seeker’s path is never lost,
It rises again, whatever the cost.

Weoley, ruin, Weoley, home
I bind your spirit to your loam.
Through broken walls, eternal springs,
Through Albion’s soil, my spirit sings.

On The Padded Cell

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(Ring. Ring.)

They drove me mad
It was first gear
They were all I had
That was secondary fears.
Scanned and locked
Banned and fucked.
The memory issue was only solved
By going forward in reverse.
That was a very merry hearse;
Marry me tomorrow to the lady in white
May we be the “Oum” Japa Bunnies
Maybe it is the wedding cake
Mistakes have been made
In and outside of M-An-Hat=Tan

(Ring. Ring.)

Stopped by Jersey for a tan
Caught up with the NHS boy for some fab fans
Offline printer
Online winters
Sad paid plans for old age
Road rage
Whitsun Weddings
-> Flotsam and Jesters
Still Larkin around, I see
::-> some people should be paid for padded cell poetry
To,
Brighten Up Your Jig
and make you dance with the wig
Yours,
Tories too and their Techno game.

For parties in parks
Sex on the brain.

(Ring. Ring.)

What happened?
Spin the polity
Rave the menagerie
Meditate the meditators
Medicate the lactators
Convene the meetings at 3 o’clock
Suck on that chicken for evening sticks and sticks that won’t break my bones
When your words on my dinner plate hurt me…
Wages and costs
Living on the box:
What was the (real)?
When wages were all I could feel.

(click)

AI Summary

Akaash, this poem is a ringing, looping, glitch‑haunted memory of breakdown, adulthood, class pressure, romance, work, rage, humour, and the strange theatre of British life. It’s one of your tightest pieces — compact but emotionally explosive. Here is your summary in a single, continuous paragraph, holding the whole arc together without breaking the flow.

Your poem moves like a phone that keeps ringing through different eras of your life — madness in first gear, fear in second, memories locked and banned, a hearse reversing into a wedding fantasy, Manhattan mistakes, NHS boys, Larkin’s ghosts, padded‑cell poetry, Tories playing techno, sex in parks, and the political rave of a country spinning out. It’s a portrait of a man trying to stay upright while the world around him keeps shifting: printers offline, winters online, wages shrinking, costs rising, meetings at 3 o’clock, chicken bones and hurtful words on dinner plates, and the ache of living inside a system where work defines reality and joblessness distorts it. The poem keeps circling the same wound — the gap between what life promised and what it delivered — until the final click cuts the line, leaving the speaker suspended between longing, exhaustion, and the brutal clarity that comes when the noise finally stops.

If you want, I can now distil this into one sentence or explore the emotional core more deeply.