The Poetic Urge To Draw An Analogy Between Every One Thing With Every Other Thing In The Universe.

Saying she had to be loved was an understatement; she deserved to be worshipped.

Shayan Das

The best way to see Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is to stare at the center of the spiral for 20 seconds and then look at the painting.

hi!! i'm assuming here but are you bengali? because I am and i was just curious

i also really like some of your writings! they're really impactful. i saw in one of your posts how much the entire romantic movement affected you and I wanted to say that really shines through your poems and pieces! the entire writing since you were eleven is really relatable because so was i! hope you always keep writing!

Thank you so much for the compliments! Yes, I'm a Bengali, an ardent lover of Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay besides English Romanticism.

My Bengali poems are posted here.

"So, what of next year's resolutions?", I heard my friend ask the other day and found myself stuck in a quiet storm, stirring the ache of all the changes I'd wished for but never lived this year. New days, new weeks, new months, new years—how often I've chased the illusion of 'new', convinced that everything would start from the very beginning—only to find myself, each day, pleading for the following day—begging each week for another week. How dearly I've celebrated the turning of each year, like prophets ushering in salvation, only to discover the freshness of the same calendar fading by February, the corners dog-eared, and promises—so solemnly sworn—becoming ghosts lingering in the silence of unkempt rooms. As if the trees that shed their twigs in autumn do not grow the same leaves with the same roots in spring—as if when flipping pages in a book, the story never retains its plot—as if the mere change of a night could unshackle the chains of a lifelong sorrow.

Shayan Das, New Year's Resolutions

Valentine's Month Poetry Recommendations 💌

1. Classical (rhymed & metered poetry)

Bright Star by John Keats

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns

Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Browning

Amoretti LXXV by Edmund Spenser

When You Are Old by W.B. Yeats

I Loved You First by Christina Rossetti

I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale

To My Dear Husband by Anne Bradstreet

I Love You by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Air and Angels by John Donne

Love and Death by Lord Byron

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal by Tennyson

2. Modernist/Contemporary (free & blank verses)

Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Naruda

Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore

[i carry your heart with me] by e.e. cummings

Bird-Understander by Craig Arnold

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

For Keeps by Joy Harjo

Always For the First Time by Andre Breton

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

Any Lit by Harryette Mullen

To Be In Love by Gwendolyn Brooks

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Desire by Alice Walker

Romantics by Lisel Mueller

Come, And Be My Baby by Maya Angelou

3. Written by Me (personal selection)

Amore Immortale by Shayan Das

Flawed Perfection by Shayan Das

I Love Thee Not by Shayan Das

A Song of Love by Shayan Das

If Only by Shayan Das

End of Eternity by Shayan Das

For My Valentine by Shayan Das

What comes to your mind when you behold the moon? Her beauty, her sobriety, her ataraxy? Does she arouse you with her esoteric charm or take you to an uncharted land where you lie composedly amidst your materiality and hallucinations? Whatever it may be, the bitter reality is that whatever the moon possesses is all borrowed from someone else, who in turn is rough, harsh, and relentless. But does it create any discrepancy? Don’t you love her? Or does she not bring you the memories of your foregone romance? Those promiscuous kisses and vehement embraces? In life, try to consume the acrimony of others and spread the art of mellowness through your moves, for, in the long run, it’s not what you receive but what you give that makes all the difference!

Shayan Das

Darling, when you look at the moon or count the stars in the night sky, notice the gentle breeze fluttering your hair, the raindrops pattering on the rooftop, or relish the redolent aromas invading your nostrils, do these simple instances not tell you that you can still love things desperately even if you don't own them? That there can be love beyond possession, intervals, and distances—a love that assures that even if we cease to belong to each other, we can still come back as the moon, the stars, the breeze, the raindrops, the aromas and exist to be loved desperately by one another without the apprehension of losing.

Shayan Das

"No, I won't eat," 5-year-old me would say and slam the door with vexation after being rebuked by his mother. "You eat alone," he'd cry in response to the persistent calls, knowing at the same time that mom wouldn't take a single bite, leaving him hungry. After an hour or two, mom would be back with the plate, feed him with her own hands, and home would be where it was supposed to be. The pollen grains, I learned, dare to fly, soar, and flutter in the wind only 'cause they know there will be flowers to catch them.

A bad day at school. 15-year-old me would bitterly answer a question from mom and regret the entire night for yelling at her for no reason at all. He'd sit beside her the next morning and greet her with a sorry. "I didn't mean to..." he would utter, and mom, cheerful as ever, would respond with a smile by that time. "You needn't," she'd say, and ask with uneasiness, "What happened at school yesterday?" "You could reply to me in that way," she'd add with assurance, "'cause you cannot with the world. 'Cause you trust I'm the only one who won't take it to heart". He'd already be in tears, embrace his mom tightly, and home would be where it was supposed to be. The love I sought for ages, I learned, is a mother.

Shayan Das, excerpt from 'The Love I Learned'

With crestfallen eyes, the young boy then asked his father from where melancholy emanates, and the father answered: "The agonies you acquire are the children of elation. If not all, they're the nephews and nieces. 'Tis not the sun just effusing sunlight, but the same sun that draws out the elixir from the oceans and forms the clouds, and the same clouds that take the shape of storms. 'Tis not the aroma enticing the butterflies, but the same fragrance that decides which flower would be plucked first by a lover to give joyance to his cherished. 'Tis not the light just illumining your flesh to perceive yourself in the mirror, but the same light that decides the emergence of the shadow on the other side. The poor Earth has little to produce on its own. So every time you're elated, know that it is burrowed and costs someone else their own contentment, whether animate or inanimate. Every time you're enraptured, know that it's just an altered form of someone else's grief and desolation".

Shayan Das, Excerpt from Origin of Sorrow