Poem: Soft Secrets ( Chinese Whispers)
There is something about secrets. Secrets need two people. What if those two people end up writing verses, which then are read by others? Well, let us figure them out.
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl
I love secrets and miracles. My very existence is a miracle, and this world is yet to see the best of mine — that is the secret. But for now, let us look at it as a simple exchange of sweet nothings between two well-versed souls — Priya and me.
I blame Priya for this. She started it.
Poem: Soft Secrets
I woke up this morning
with you tickling me;
not the usual way
with fingertips,
but still soft, like a feather
with sounds like hmmmm
and ahh and layered words
that made me smile
all morning long
How sweet it is to feel again,
and to smile again
with secrets that
only you and I know …~ © Priya July 14, 23
The ‘hmms’, the ‘ahh’s, and the layered words … were the cues for me to respond. The Chinese Whispers… here I come. But I did not have a plan…
Poem: Chinese Whispers
Ah, I did not have a plan
To hold a secret
Just when I walked home
I saw the stars wink at me
Not once, but many times over
Ah, the secrets of the night
Hiding behind the hmms and the ahhs..
The night long conversation
Soaked in the nectar of love
Hidden beneath the sheets
Wrapped in sugar-coats
You smile on and on
And play along…
Till the stars aren’t winking any more
And disappear in the first rays of dawn
There is no more secret to wrap
Your smile deciphered it all
It feels sweet to play the Chinese whispers
In a long night of love.~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
Priya picked on the cue of ‘Chinese Whispers’. This is one of her favorite topics, mind you.
We speak of whispers and secrets
and coyish smiles;
each in our own world
You, lost perhaps in the
on and off winks of the stars
and I, in the flirting words
tickling me as I awake with smiles
We are kids at times,
looking for rainbow bridges
to take us to a land of fantasy
I reach for your hand sometimes
across the oceans
through the clouds
and the Chinese whispers,
hoping to catch you smile~ © Priya July 14, 23
She knew my ‘Rainbow Bridge’ Project. Only Priya can bring different aspects of our conversations into such a beautiful tangle. So, I respond thus. Chinese whispers can get lost in messengers, right?
What is a secret
After it’s told
It’s the fun of decoding
The game of smokes and mirrors
Played with fun and love
Separated by the distance
Carried by the clouds and breeze
Questions to the stars
Answered by the sunWould the rainbow here
End, somewhere there?
For we climb on one slide
And slide on the other
So the Chinese whispers
Of the naughty breeze
And the winking mischief of the stars
Don’t mess with our fun.~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
Priya concluded thus:
‘I like how ours ended. That was a fun collaboration’
We barely keep our secrets. We whisper verses and believe in miracles. That is what our poetry is all about.
“With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants
The secret is not the point. It is still about the secrets. Huh!
~Ashok Subramanian with Priya Patel © 2023
