SHAAN SOOD - POEMS

Shaan Sood lives in Oakland California with two dogs. In his free time he enjoys reading and writing, as well as talking with his friends. He explores many different types of writing, including prose and poetry. 

We Should Have Let Go: ​

Behind our blue skies 
A photograph faded from touch 
Its incandescent glow of before 
Hidden 
Oh, forgotten 
Holding grains of sand 
That were filled with the words 
Said through murky water 
We should have held tighter 
We should have let go 
A flower pressed in the cover of a book That came from the beds that used to grow And now it’s broken and browned and frayed We should have held tighter 
We should have let go 
Museum exhibits of lives 
Indelible thoughts, words 
Perforations in our minds 
We should have held tighter 
We should have let go 
Bagged up and locked 
Our past made of gold 
Slipping from us 
We should have held tighter 
We should have let go
Staring lackadaisically 
At what was falling in our thoughts 
Wishing, watching, waiting. 
We should have held tighter 
We should have let go 
We should have held tighter 
We should have let go. ​

Lies From the Sky: ​

Did you know 
That once, 
I had wings? 
They had long feathers 
That spanned through 
Miles and miles 
Of sunlight and blue sky. 
And then my wings turned black. 
Their feathers shined 
Gold like the sun it touched 
But clouds exist, my friend. 
I used to fly 
But only rarely, 
Because I did not understand 
That my wings, one day 
Would turn black. 
But I thought that eventually, the sun was supposed to shine through clouds. Perhaps that’s the first lie I was ever told by the sky. 
Wings aren’t all golden. 
They can get caught
In fallen breaths. 
They can be captured 
In cut off words 
And they can lose their golden feathers. 
Dust storms and snowfalls are made of broken golden feathers that can never make it onto wings. 
I used to fly 
Now I sit 
Writing a song 
To my wings 
Because 
Once…Sunlight turned me gold. 

Silver Paths Diverged ​

Prismatic sculptures 
Of unendurable light 
And broken syllables 
Is it lost on you 
That our forgotten words 
Are made up of sharply edged triangles 
Yearning to tumble down a ceaseless mountain 
And we’ll all be falling and whispering unknown songs 
And I’ll be on the edge of the precipice, sharpening my pencil 
Waiting to write into the rigid stone the songs that we never heard 
Our silver paths diverged 
And we're locked into paper 
Yelling lonely poetry to the stars
And then we all fell 
I gaze indirectly..alone, 
With an assassin’s smile 
Weakening, staring 
And when does the light finally collapse into the solitude of the night