Akshara: August 2014

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Charcoal Charms

Charcoal Charm

You think the black night frightening?

But its brightness exceeds the sun,

Daytime, we keep our eyes level,

Only the brave enough sungaze

Dare descent of blindness.

Sunsets are sad...

Theatrically the gallant god

In unembellished furious purity

Gallops away vanquished by Night.

Night is Kali eternal

Black mother goddess, tresses fanning out

To envelop a universe of pain.

Divine mysteries blinking jewels of her mane.

Wee willy winks of fate

Revelations glittery alluring day

can never show.

Uncovering obvious truisms, in darkness,

The mind freed of limitations of light.

To deeply dream

The beyond of boundaries

barriers space and time impose

The white light renders eyes wide shut .

Abre los Ojos

Open your third eye see

Gloriously.

An infinitesimal eternal sea

Baring waves incomprehensible

That carry you further away from

The shores, and then,

What is life...?

A mere dip into existence.

Scaffolded to a plane of scanty dimensions.

Where is the locus of death ...?

An advanced bungee jump

Off the cliff of life, and sentient pain

The cord pulls us back to the beyond.

The out there, the elsewhere,

Yonder beckons us, yearning to be

Understood, realised.

Shrugs cosmic shoulders of grace

If it is not your time

It is what it is. Your Now

Must also be.

Like super strings

to stellar halls of creation.

Untrammelled imagination

Sorrows stamp of constancy

Erased. Forgotten.

Realisation we borrow premises

To make sense of limited senses.

Illusions of entanglement of You

And me.

Cessation from churning cesspools of life....

We find immortal Nectar of intangible Seas...

Invincible, immaterial, and our thirst

Unquenchable, and slaked.

Floating above mother’s black veil...

Earth her hot link hyper playground

Pain mere hurdle, obstacles for the

Joy of jumping, leaping into forever.

Say yes to Desire,

Say yes to Darkness

Say yes, to the mystic mystery

Of not knowing.

Embrace knowing nothing.

Embrace nothing itself

As everything your heart desires.

You shall see.

With eyes that veil

death's designs of sadness

Welcomes pain’s madness

Deluges of rain that bring gladness.

You shall see more than this,

Such eyes of charcoal charms promise.

Nothing is delusion

Darkest thoughts are real

Freedom

A chimera...inside.

We are already liberated

Ink libre nights beckon us to write

The storm inside is what calms

Charcoal charms of our seductive

Sleeplessness...Insomniac drunk

Amnesiac gently breathe the dust mote of

Liberation....off your palms.

You are it.

Awed, bedazzled and united with

Eternal endless moonless Night

Starry bride lifting her veil

In acceptance of full stops...

New journeys begin

Forwarding our old addresses

Unto Promised lands

Avast ye Lethe, and Hades

And hell.

Non-negotiable

This, our deliverance.

Abre Los Ojos and Eyes Wide Shut names of two Hollywood movies borrowed for my poem

Friday, August 29, 2014

What's In a Name?

What's in a Name?

I think I have never been as hurt

As when laughter painted

On graphic lips caricatured

My dreams.

By each hapless acceptance

Of cruelty ladled out in measured doses

By one I thought was still my friend.

It hurt then; I cannot define absorbed pain.

Inked mockery of a name I called, then

Stonewalled. All secrecy in vain.

Is there anything at all to even hold?

Call sacred, intimate, my very own?

I threw erratic thoughts to the wind

But kept one hidden deep in my bones.

An inner brew, bewitching me,

A magic elixir...cupping my breath

Comforting blanketing name evoked

Something safe and pure invoked

Like a beloved teddy bear, divine figurine

Of Lord Krishna, so serene,

I kept it inside my very breath,

Forever stood under implied wreath

Of mistletoe under a mystic arch

The portal to my hidden heart.

Sometimes by crude coda,

A hidden jargon, lewd lexicon

Men can violate inviolate dream.

They are shrewd, woman must be

Labelled, if not understood.

Who's to know whether I lie?

Whether I vilify? Who I seek?

To glorify?

Such dreams by their nature

Cannot be caught, in finest

Cobwebbed dreamcatcher.

Dumbing down myself for you

I had tried too hard

Now, as I flew, I grew

Beyond my cage, rattled,

Fearful, shattered, split apart

Freed my shackles self-imposed.

Trying so hard not to cry

I cut off all ties with your earthly name

To fly forever, towards the sun, hoping,

Dreaming, kissing goodbye to tears streaming,

To remain alone, to be just one.

Sweet love isn’t for everyone.

Workstation BCR

WorkStation

I cannot ...This night

I wait it out, in the quiet zone

Without rest.

I am a silenced workstation

Alone in this emptied factory

Of life.

The busy productive workers sleep

Drones....but do not scorn the dutiful.

They shed their life blood for family.

And engage in no offence.

Serving a willing life sentence.

But they dream too.

Along comes a butterfly...

Anxious to try gorgeous wings

For an occasion.

But love is not apparel

To be cast aside and forgotten.

Castigate not

A once upon a Cinderella

Because she learnt to fly.

Those wings are broken

And her heart was taken in

Deception.

No lies,

Life is not an easy line

drawn upon a plane

But ups and downs and creases and folds...

No one knows if this universe is tyre

An expanding spiral or tapering cone.

And no one, who reads my verse

Will know that I have addressed all

My old ghosts thus.

I am on duty tonight

When those who've done duty, sleep

My workstation displays a silent

bleep.

It's waiting not for you or you

Or you.

It is waiting for only me

To sign in.

For its my life that I have a need to

Live.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Tornado Man

Tornado Man

I wish that I could

Weave a magic spell

Cast out your demons

Wave a magic wand

Seeing you in pain

I long to be your angel

Cover you with my wings.

Guard you from greatest sorrow

Saddest day may bring.

Protect your tender mind, so fine

So gentle, more real than all the rage

You have a power few achieve

God-given gift of empathy

You heal my broken wings...

Flying for both, such an impossible dream.

Let’s save them for a stormy day...

When flying is all that’s left

Screaming we leave our nest.

Wade into the crystal stream

Of clarity and confidence

Let it pour, if it never gently rains

Tornado man

Mark of Cain is terrible blessing

It cannot be erased in deluge of pain.

Your brother's keeper for his soul to save

Your troubles alone, the gifts God gave

To be most merciful, ever be alone

In storm cellars of blood, dust, and bones.

But for me you shine, such a splendid sun

Tornados are fair weather, where you reign

The vortex, the death zone where you belong.

Innermost BCR

Innermost

I am in my heart of hearts

In meditation with my soul,

I have achieved a peace tranquil,

I challenge stormy waves to roll.

I glide in and out of pain,

Bow, with grace, with elan

Make a soft painting out of pain,

When life’s toils make me wan.

How noble indeed our souls can be

God's good fishermen on life’s raging sea

Has cast a net to catch my breath

My soul is drunken to the lees

Both the nectar churned

To be immortal Gods

And the poison that guards

The precious holy thought,

Rise and ride life’s waves,

Style its simple elegance.

Cast out sin from within.

From sinner's view,

See the inner you

Shining blazing forth

Blameless dew...

What lifeless blue corpse this

Body of ours, timid,

Fearful, how we cower

Our venom contained in

Thy brave blue throat of pain

Divine nectar we seek in vain.

When inside each heart, each soul

Such sage magic wrought, of

Compassion’s noble draught,

Enough to make us whole.

Teaching to cast aside

Our plight, reach out, reach out

Beyond your lonely might

There to see, love doesn't end,

When we dive deep my friend

Beyond our depth, an act of faith

Beyond knowledge’s certitude

Reaching by instinct to be merciful

That is eternal immortal beatitude.

Repay love’s debts, accept pain

Yours, others, it matters not,

Embrace Abel’s inner Cain.

Human-divinity you have wrought.

Now, I am protection’s

Innermost sanctuary

Salvation and seeker,

Therein no quandary.

Outing pity and judgement

Dwellings of grace and mercy

We, are our own redemption,

Needing no penitent plea.

We are true immortals,

Just you, just me.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

MADONNA

M Mother of lustrous Pearl who I so adore

A Alleviating all of my hurtful sores

D Dispelling darkness of my despair

O On the cross, thy son's grief thou shares

N Noble, compassionate, merciful most

N No mother has ever paid a greater cost

A Ave Maria, in your glorious tears, all our sins forever washed.

PIETA

P Pity us dear mother in faith we pray

I Intercede for us at the end of days

E Eternal life grant at our Father's feet

T True to the trust, may our hearts ever beat

A Ave! Ave! Ave! Gentle Maria, Mother of Hearts softly weeps.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Temporal

A story. ..

Temporal

For my sister... Monali Roy Chowdhury

Temporal

There's no one at the door and never will be.
That's not even a door. ..but the suggestion of one...in the broken archway...leading to the semi demolished remains of a palatial monstrosity. ..
Some distant British Colonial's last imperial memory.

But timid mice like me at times get desperate...
They see what no one else can see and they're always greedy for something.
I can't tell you what.
But if you're a mouse you'll know it in yourself in a second...
And if you're one of the big cats you'll sense it in me ..your natural prey.

I saw a woman who was standing upon the balustrade...
She was in a far away world from my century my country...of the present.
And her world was swaying her to some gentle indecipherable music from a long time ago.
Rocking her to beats...from a past performance.

There was another performer.
A slender silky haired baby girl with her cherubic face floating in brief flashes of sunshine from window to window.....till her force was spent, diffused upon the bland chocolate faced walls...

Where through gaping cracks and brick red maws her awful blood flowed..

This compelled me in terror to stumble in through that accursed archway...

I have always been a rescuer...
Twice I have adopted birds with broken wings....
Fledgeling sparrows, that I kept in cotton ball filled shoeboxes and fed whatever I fancied through ink droppers... one flew away when the time was right...the other I delivered to its natural mamma.
Once my brother and I brought a street puppy home.

I had to go in. For assisting an unseen child...floating and flat lining like a cheshire cat in my imagination. ..a little lass in distress....an Alice in scary land...
A flower incomparable. ..

My daughter!

The last sudden revelation stunned me through time....
Whorls of temporal episodic waves whirled rotated in soft blackberry waves of motion.....

I was catapulted through spiraling tornado alleys. ..each brick of the house spinning in out through me skinning the blinds of my eyes heart and brain...

Till...
I was set down again.

On a calm green manicured lawn...a motorbike idling ...a tall stranger tipping his hat slightly as he strolled straight at me...

My eyes gazed upon my two arms and my palms eyed me back in innocence ...

I was not my race not my color nor my shape...
Two slender white wrists fine boned blue veined...not a multitude of chunky gold bracelets but a number of rings on each manicured finger...
By my feet a paisley sunshade and a guitar. ..

And oh wondrous universe!
In my mind the last song I had strummed still humming...vibrating...dilating my eyes and seranading my pulsating veins....

My tear soaked eyes saw...nothing but bright eyed Bonnie...my little lass....and the merry song I was minstrel of to my girl... for one last time.

"My bonnie lies over the ocean
My bonnie lies over the sea
Bring back o bring back
Bring back my bonnie
To me... "
....

He walked towards me like a guardian Angel. ..an angry one....
"Will" I screamed involuntarily. ..
So I knew him. Deputy comissioner of Police...DCP.
"What's the matter?, you got him to confess..?"
His face reminded me of a father whose child has been snatched from him... forever.
My daughter Bonnie was like his own...and each time he came to visit Bruce and me...he brought her a gift....which was always expensive candy and without fail handed to me.
"Bonnie....Your mamma will have to permit me first", he was very respectful. ..called me ma'am at the drop of his ready hat.
And I took the candy unsuspectingly till I deftly unwrapped the first box and discovered his loving note inside....stormily scrawled and storming into my love starved heart...

The day my husband found out. is really inconsequential. It was bound to happen... Because
I saved them...inside the guitar case....
He told me to play him a love song....and I obliged...As I played he gracefully got up and gently
brought me the guitar case and showered me with love notes from another man....and left the house forever.

I waited...I wanted...? What!
Too much love had been lost between William and me...
Bruce had become the stranger...
But he was my daughter's daddy!

Softly treaded I to where she took her afternoon nap and strummed upon my guitar...her favorite tune...softly wept I into her blanket and kissed her tiny feet... forgiveness I dared not ask.

My girl was cold and inviolate to my guilty touch...

Her life breath had expired in the folds of my sins and the perversion of filial desire to protect...strangled by a man deranged, a daddy turned death dealer. .. in the depths of her own comforter...
A mother's sin visited upon a little baby who requested papa rock her to sleep. ..
And he did it ....forever.

The day Will brought in charges booking Bruce for murder...led him away from me...that was the day I murdered two people. ..my little family....and became survivor. ...

I went to the burial. ..in veiled black. Stony heart I was called...
Whispering taunts did nothing to taint me....I noticed nothing...the skies turned black and at midnight I returned to play to my Bonnie...to tell her everything my body and soul yelled I could not. l could never lighten this load.

I have been returned to this last day of my old life.

For a reason...I remember now. ..This was my last day in the house that murdered my child...
I set sail back to a distant future, my motherland took back to her bosom. ...an unfit daughter and mother...

So why have I returned....to this day again?
What have I to gain what treasure to reclaim the same day I renounced all as irrevocably lost? Child husband and tainted love?
The air crackling....witches cackling....
No that was my laughter!

"Bruce confessed, we hanged him you and I...what more can I offer you?"
"You're my husband's hangman!
How should I love you tell me."

"Bruce was daddy to your little girl, Abigail.That reason alone bound you to him... Didn't you guess?

What else could I do?...people suspected us because you're a naive gullible fool who wore her heart on her sleeve.

I could never...have got away...with his murder....like he can't with his daughter's.
I told Bonnie to show Bruce your guitar case...I was watching in case he harmed you...
She was dead...not by his hands...I thought he would kill you in a rage...he didn't. ..I thought he was coming for me...
He wasn't.

He thought he had put her to sleep before accosting you...
He was giving his child to you and you to me...
I brought him in with murder charges. ..

A saint, Abigail, crucifies real easy...
He couldn't prove a thing once he knew his daughter was dead. because you finally did destroy ..those letters madwoman...
But for those letters. ...I may never have played my vicious hand...the temptation to win you may have not occurred.
I have killed a little girl in
vain..."

"Do you understand? Why you and I had to come back here now?
I could not tell you then....
You would have gone mad..."

Still I was silent...a little bit longer...just a bit longer...stay your tongue woman...pleaded something within.

Let the guilty speak...

"I have been bound to come back here since that day...
You don't know how Karma works...?
I lived it for that lifetime and the next....I was hitched to you dear Abigail....third one we're having together....
Three's the charm...bound in guilt... and absolved...through confession.
Do you forgive me?
Vijaya.....Abigail can you?..."

"Or else..., do we continue our evil partnership. ..and from now on with full awareness. ..on my part as well?"

My dry scaly rasp sends shivers...deep into our hearts...

"if I cannot forgive...monster.....I cannot forgive you. ..So I must live with you?
How Many Lifetimes? ..."

They echo and reverberate. ...my screams...panic bouncing off into hysteria horror enveloping us both in a smog....evolution of evil....
A germination...of full realization.

Softly in the background. ..
A guitar starts strumming...
An angel coos ...

"Mother of all my morns and night....
You come and take my leave....
By your love release the spell you cast....
In your love I always live...
...eternally in mother's love I believe
...your presence gives me relief
...go in peace....and stay in peace..."

The singer was gone her halo ,hung upon the horrizon.
The house of horrors shimmered back into its awful shape of ruination.
...The sun light was gone. ..but in the darkness I could see him fading away....
How would I face John
/ Will when I got home back to him my husband, my daughter killer?

Bonnie forgave me....Bonnie who I did not even remember half an hour back in my current life...
Who was waiting for an eternity for one visit from her mother...
I have been forgiven....a life of rot and decay for thirty minutes of repentance....

Memories of you Bonnie...sweet memories now to be forever preserved in bitterness of rediscovered loss. ...as they rush back on raven black wings and cloud my temporal skies...
I realize what my expiation will be. ..

But what of Will?
Murderer of two....My sweet Bruce and beautiful Bonnie?

All the answers greet me at my doorstep like a terrible annunciation...
Yes.... third time was the charm..
John / Will was right.
And his little note was tucked In to a guitar on the floor. ..I had seen just an hour ago...in another lifetime. ..

His eyes were vacant bulging from the path he had taken, of asphyxiation. ..
But I first read his note before I called the police.
All it said....." My release has been obtained....She forgave me".

Monday, August 25, 2014

Apologia

A prose piece instead of a poem..

Apologia.

I am jumpstarted today...at 2 35 am...
At 2 45 I dropped back to sleep
But by 4 35 am I rose.
Obviously the ghost of something will not let me sleep...
Know something funny?
We don't have a calling bell; So late night visitors scare me silly with ominous knocking...
I hiss and push my husband to the door...
And if it's he who returns I make him identify himself at the top of his voice... Till he is roaring with impatient annoyance!
Yet I swear today at 4 35 am...the calling bell rang ..loud and clear and insistent...
Repetitively trilling repeating it's note of strange persuasion....

I got up opened the doorside window, peeked cautiously and opened the door.
And stood without a word...
Owning that I would find no one waiting outside.
Still needing to open the door.
Open that door....was the dictum.
Of my mind.

I guess morning has visited me early...so I won't be afraid any more.
Of the night.
Got another explanation?
For me this one will have to do.

Amrita Valan

Et Unum Spiritum Sanctum BCR

Et Unum Spiritum Sanctum

If I sit still

And feel my heart working

It does something strange,

It asks me to feel for it.

My heart whispers.

How long must I feel for you?

Pound for you,

Break for you?

I beat for you,

I die for you.

Take away this heaving pain

Feel sunshine again

Weave courage if only

From the warp of fantastic loneliness,

From weft of every dark cloud, wring grace.

And your sorrow?

Let it rain.

I felt howling winds of childhood once again

How it split my soul in joy that knew not pain

Those paper boats now soak in deep drains

My soggy mind accepts

It will never feel that way again...

Accept with courage

For this too, must be lived

In and out each and every day

Plucked from cloudy yesterday

The dreams of youthful eyes

Dulled, perhaps they died

But a fire remains.

In the embers

Of resilience

The mind, the heart, the brain

Comprise a whole,

Perhaps we call it guts? Or soul?

What matters a mere name,

When sparks ablaze, rekindled,

Softly crackles and says,

Shanti.

Et Unum Spiritum Sanctum....

Let it rain...

Some Things BCR

Some Things

There are some things in my heart

That want to leap out now

To the point of view

That's uniquely you.

My soul wants to be claimed now.

Your flagpole clinging fast to my ardent earth...

Well done my friend, though you’ve forgotten us.

The victory we planned, the war cry we raised

Against convention, insurgents uprising against control,

Yet let us own this delicious bitter sweet irony

we are not stars but rats, the laboratory control pair

Validating expectations, against which

the results are matched.

We never met...

So how do we say goodbye?

It's that kind of love, it hangs in the air

Provides atmosphere, but no earth.

You're fulcrum of my emotional seesaw

And I'm your frank plane of motion...

It’s a beautiful balance,

Ideated love without relations.

I am in glorious blossom of a

Kind that can ripen, yet

Never come to fruition

Spread out its welcome foliage

Offer shade without withering

Till the roots dry, without sustenance.

Nectar of your elegant tangerine speech

Makes fruitful magic tinctures, elixirs of eternity

Momentous seed bearers of epic enigmas.

Thus I recede on destiny’s pre-set orbital path

In retrograde motion, relive archives of past loving

Losing nothing as nothing was achieved at perihelion.

A preordained proximity, potential unrealised.

This is my grand reality, thus la dolce vita dolphin

Dreams dissolve, dive into aphelion, into certain

Dissolution, into distant dusty rings, into icy

Saturnian fortitude after Jovian folly,

Sift I in silence

Ruins of my stone fortress, held together by

Spun silk and sawdust, impudent fireflies

powdered to white lies, sweet nothings unfleshed,

Of a once feisty dream.

This love takes place in flights of fantasy, freefalling

It bows to gravity in crashlanding.

The impact born of reckless flight plan

Charting the course of devil may care caring

Stripping myelin sheaths of protective casings

Of dreams pain and emotions. Raw, unbearable to

Casual touch. No sun can replace our central premise.

We were ordained to spin around each other forever

But heads or tails my love...

This toss?

It is verily my entire life, and not,

The way I land.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Judge, Jury, Executioner BCR

Judge, Jury, Executioner

I stand up for the trial

The jury grinning, collective fox

A dozen minds made up at once

It takes each ounce of strength I've got

To not scream guilty.

This is not a mock court, a kangaroo court

This is not injustice, but justice fast tracked

To appease and soothe the masses.

A malaise of indignation, “She asked for it!”

And: “You can always tell

By her looks her dress

Her bold eyes her air

She thinks for herself, of herself,

Is that fair when all our unity

Our beliefs are at stake?”

Unfriendly looks, in no one’s good books,

I’m addicted to your approval on a hook,

That reels me in, choking on raw fleshed

Breath, anchoring my slave-hood.

From my sea of benign dreams.

“Insano...femme” ...Cries of destructive fury

Directed at my soul your verdict has its toll

My eyes too bold, blazing rage

Brittle brilliance of tears unshed

Frozen in fright at the edges

I can feel my inner frame shaking

My grief alone, I carry home.

That alone I own, I go home.

To play with my little kids

Little laughter peals of innocents,

Unaware of any looming trepidation,

My deeper bass of turgid doom, a death knell

Oh, how to flee hell! How to live well.

My sacred space has been invaded

I am scared of being torn

Apart from them.

Susceptible to your profane judgement

I show you up, my trembly lips hurt

Sometimes I hurl verbal abuse for mental misuse

Yet I long to play nice, play fair,

Tend to my dollhouse and care.

You would never know

Why she smiles so...

As if the whole world is her lover

Simple depths of immense longing

Guarded zealously, only a harlot

Or zealot of love's conflagration

Would understand this heat.

This defeat.

And tender innocent ones, will never know

Why caressing them, swimming in their

Free and generous immeasurable love

Alone begets her tears.

Fall BCR

Fall

Deep beyond the purple sky

Into the sunken sun

Where oceans hold horizons

Dwells beloved one...

I cannot see so far, I only see

Sun light glisten upon the sea

Glaring reflection of a vast

Distance that maddens me.

Even if I teeter over the edge of earth

Fall fast and hard into deep sundown

Into scarlet pools of bleeding streams

My skies bruised with your abusive frown

My love, it flayed its tender skin

Into seeping scabs of broken dreams

There's nothing I see, that you can see

Thick blind curtains curtail vision’s seams.

My inner glance, so monk like, visionary,

There you dwell, my sacrilege

My sacrifice of propriety,

Honour forsaken for you liege.

What are these thoughts, such bosom friends,

Consorts of covertness, ugly shame,

My shaking veil in stiff denial always,

And pain its constant attendant.

While morning cock crows nonchalance

While as one, we turn a stony face

Towards the lover fate allotted

Towards blank wall, hearts averted.

A stony dam of denial breeds

Breaching which is love's labour lost

And even if you were Hercules.

Our breath is still, a slack “Alas.”

Exhalation of exhaust dreams

Susurration of weary breeze

Nature's loneliest observer

Would lament woes like these.

We pin each other to the cross

We ask of love what it may not give

We are damned if we do, or don’t,

We hope the universe may forgive.

Courage evicted along with

Adam and Eve, for a contract

Of eternal damnation’s grief,

Guilty accommodation of

Non-compliant rebellious thieves.

Crucibles BCR

Crucibles

Beyond the purple twilight

Over the silken moon

My past beckons me softly

Come, visit me soon.

Marigolds light up my garden

Raising orange and yellow heads

Tucking sweet dawn into the dimness

Before they go to bed.

The scaly barks of placid trees

Looms like gigantic, scraped knees

Shaking lofty branches admonishingly

Rustling secret whispers from every leaf

At me...

Recalling past seasons of rain and shower

Climbing up to the roof of the water tower

Felling sweet blackberries with a broken branch

Oh purplish fleshy juices, come resurrect me!

Grooving to teen town's hypnotic beats

Music fluttered through winged vibrant feet

Muse, I solemnly believed in you

The earth and sky bore witness true.

No one can hurt me; such is this power

I am the child of my past golden hours

Nursed on joy’s tender innocent bower

And if you haven't had such sweet beginnings

I forgive thee.

Colour me violet’s humbled grace

Yellow in sun’s optimistic face

Pacific heart nestling blue ocean peace

Colour me rose, I blush to please

When in love's ardour, my love starts

To tease...Let my steel grey armour

Seek no more to protect, but release

Secure and chaste in memories.

Keep me fresh and lissom evergreen

Tender stalks for blossoming buds

If I break in pain still, I thank,

That I can feel...so let me hurt.

Oh, let me hurt within sweetly,

My softness only swells and grows,

Liquid avalanche of untainted snow

The payment of mercy’s tender price.

Flagellation by your gentle lies

Mist of pain, love’s exquisite fee,

Sorrow is healing’s sweet cocoon

Shielding nakedness from discovery.

Wrath strips stainless sheath defending soul

Rage shames our serene grace away

Hidden costs is our forever loss

Of fragrance from folds of introverted rose.

Only a scent of sorrow left behind

Ashen velvet folds in static pose.

Water with tears and it may unfold

Heart of gold and face the sun of life

Willingly it withers, time’s till emptied,

Courage untold kisses dirt and dies,

Never to blossom, graceful girl,

From stoic childhood’s austere womb.

Not of gold nor gems or precious stone

Nature’s maid made of flesh, blood, and bone

In transition, moults, sheds grief and loss,

Rising resplendent from every tomb.

Keep spirit vital, till life itself dies

Play love’s lute. Sing psalms with Lenten eyes,

Cup love’s chalice in palms, warm holy grail

At crossroads, abjure pain’s scourging trail.

Forever, that brooding ghost is spiritus animus

Of every happiness known to Adam’s line,

The hidden costs of a universe made from love

Joy baptised with dew of pain’s holy most wine.

Fleeting

I am slow to get it

Now for the moment

You have stopped me

By a hello, prolonged into

Let us know each other,

A bit more. Flitting around the

Modest wall flower, like a

Curious feisty bumblebee.

As slowly it grew slightly beyond that.

Well beyond for the introverted bud,

Whose petals quivered, could not open.

It’s alright to have a thick skin, turtles

Carrying shell houses on shoulders,

But I live within a quivering carapace

Velveteen silk and paper-thin pain

Your attentions little needles teasing

Fresh tattoo piercings, when withdrawn

Even for an hour, or nightmarish day

Unbearable to withstand its negation.

Now take pictures of me, in this state

I am drawn in invisible ink, only

The acid test of your curious persistence

Reveals me true. Take your pick

Of my papyrus soul, ancient as a new-born

Baby, fresh from horrific travails of labour

And a hundred lifetimes, writ in rueful pain

Creasing parchment face. I wonder if a

Pincushion could feel, would it be mine?

Doppelgänger, or soulmate?

The tears are old, years sodden in my pillow,

From loneliness, and bereavement.

I cried hard when my great aunt died,

Burying my head on daddy's desk

Yet it was not the first death

That etched my adult heart...

My beloved soul guide, an aunt, who passed

When I was nineteen, brought no tears. Yet

Passage of a great uncle, touchy and stiff

Sank me to the floor in despair

...I wonder why? Survivor guilt?

Remorse for not loving enough?

And why do you leave me so alive

So quivering with life?

So choked up with grieving questions?

Burning flame upon my eyes? Why?

Is the reason......too much love to bear?

Will I, if you cease to care, never again hold dear?

The price paid at the gate, of the carnival.

Choosing to enter, to ride the carousel,

Maybe I am the funniest clown onstage. ...

Because I don't know that I am, the joker.

The wild card entrance, that you didn’t reckon

Would enter your world.

Maybe none of us can ever be,

Our own objective audience,

Till second childhood descends

To observe in impartial neutrality

Subjective reins handed to descendants

Regard despair with detached amity.

My god! Too many balloons,

Too many curve balls up in the air

I can't juggle them all, one by one

They like pebbles fall.

Timekeeper....Observe, on watch tower,

Watch out for these grains of sand,

These minute spheres

They each hold an ocean of tears.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Cupboard of Secrets

Akshara
I am akshara -The written letter - and i believe that the pen is mightier than the sword..
Thursday, January 17, 2008

Cupboard of Secrets

And then there was none, is the story of my life rather like Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

I was a kid when I came across sad sack cartoons and immediately felt a bond of kinship.

I understand losing well. I identify with it. I expectantly dread it. I guess that's how I woo it.

I start by doubting myself. I think I am the direct descendant of the original doubting Thomas.

I lose at card games and board games regularly, unfailingly, with mathematical precision. Rounders in table tennis and badminton too, yet to win once. In schooldays, I could serve drop dead aces and win games for my partner but never any glory for myself. So, I was often instructed by my partner to serve and then go “stand in the box! Just leave the rest of the game to me, ok?”

It's been a long and winding road since those befuddled breathless childhood years. I am kind of winded, rushed and sort of wishing all this effort of living would wind up someplace meaningful, or just kind of wind down quietly and quickly, with some dignity.

But life is like a dosa hot and crispy near the edges and soft and delicate in the middle.

While you see your hopes burning and fading out of vision, your insides still churn with a softness. Notions perch like birds at the back of your head.

Ever seen butter sizzle in the middle of a heated pan? That's exactly how evanescent ideas in the brain vaporize before you can grasp them. The thing is you have to know what you want. I am only good at recognizing what I don’t have.

I don’t have children yet. I don’t have strong feelings about motherhood either. I am like an old grandma, I think, my head twisted like an observant owl, this sun bright Chennai afternoon. In a breezy chiffon peaches-silver and saffron sari I perch, still slender at 34. Swinging idly on my sister in law’s porch, on her white cane swing. Idly ruminating.

This sister in law, younger by six years, ,married with two boys, her first child born the same year she married is devout. Both sisters in law are, but the elder one is prayerful, rosary counting and reserved. The younger one is, more, proclamatory, I suppose, in an innocent sort of way. She has done up her home with bright and garish Jesus and Mary placards...

On a wall it states in a righteous manner:

"If the Lord be with you who can be against you..and if the Lord be against you who can be for you?"

LORD is somehow capitalized in my mind. Like Lord and Master, ordaining my fate to which I am blind.

Nisi Dominus Frustra..a terse pithy epigrammatic mouthful. But it does strike dread and awe in my mind!

Far more dramatic than the English attempt to strike awe in the readers hearts.

Indeed ..Scoff not! Nothing belongs to you, that you deserve permanently.

He can take it all away. These lazy sunny afternoons, this peaceful interlude, between wifedom (almost as stately as queendom) and motherhood. Anything suffixed by hood sounds crazily shady to me by the way.

This placid sojourning on the borders of girlhood and womanhood. Hood again! When I am a mother what will I be raising ? Thugs goondas or brothers under the hood ?

There I go! Observing, measuring, contemplating, mocking, not living life.

There is a cute plaster owl on the wall. I adore it with a strange fierce devotion. Which the Mother Mary and Joseph posters and bleeding Sacred Heart of Jesus posters miss by a mile.

We, Owl and I, size up this alien place we are in, soak in the over the top ambience of piety and devoutness. Sniff the faintest whiff of conformity, and an overt aura of complacency.

I have a Hindu family with tons of garish pictures of our brave monkey God Hanuman, our Valiant Maryada Purush, (The Ideal Man), Lord Rama, The blue God Lord Krishna, and the elephant God Ganesh, Black Mother Kali and Blue throated ash smeared Lord Shiva on the walls. But no proclamation, of any supreme God, who is mightier than the rest, nor any covert or overt competition or one upmanship. So it is rather like a convention of trekkies, and superheroes, a family picnic of gods. No statutory warning about false gods, or idolatry. The more the merrier, all are welcome. In fact Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus Come would not be amiss. We are easy fodder for conversion, without strictures and warnings vis a vis apostasy, blasphemy or heresy. I like it. It is more chilled out to state it simply.

Like a soul hungry for happiness, I search for the essence of religion, both mine and theirs, (my Christian Roman Catholic in laws), as in both I spy that which has eluded me and that which I have been denied. There is a peace in their holy communion, their sense of community, charity and helpfulness towards the unfortunate. But it is confined to either within their community, or extended with attached subtle strings, of attendance to their retreats, and as an incentive towards eventual conversion. I have faced this umpteen times, so I kid you not. At parks, with Christian mothers of my sons’ schoolmates, at a tea shop once, and even at a BPO I once worked in. There is an incentive for adding new souls to the flock, it is a preached imperative duty. I wish it was not, as then we could truly integrate in harmony that is richer for the differences, and not aspire to a plastic similitude.

Done already grandma? Enough ruminating, I berate myself. I pause, bitter about my childlessness, self-imposed, from a sense of indignity at the lack of volition in this most important decision of maternity. I had wanted kids, in 1999, the year I had married and joked to my then affianced, that next year we will be shopping for onesies. He was dead serious about the impossibility of it, since his family had two sisters to marry off, then. I was hurt, and protested, I can wait for the elder one, but both of them? The younger one is six years my junior, I will become old by then! Well here I was, I have worked in two BPOs, remained childless, rebelling against my MIL’s injunction to promptly deliver a baby, the moment this younger sister in law got hitched in 2004. “Are we still without child? Isn’t Amrita going to the hospital yet?’ This within two months of her youngest daughter’s marriage. I was no longer very interested in becoming mom, not quite thirty five but adamantine about a career that was also not successful; I suppose my naïve girlishness had hardened itself.

How soon will you learn to fly? Perched like an owl you hoot and you decry pain. Every sorrow every shame every defeat leaves you clenched but still chained. Much too fearful to gain. Yes, in my mind, lamentations sound like weird poetry, they echo in rhyme.

How soon your time will fly the cage, I recite to myself in a daze. You have pecked open the door but are afraid to test the air with your wings. Is it the owl speaking or me? The wise owl, The snow white owl, mount of Holy Mother Laxmi, Hindu goddess of prosperity, not the screech owl or eerie barn owls of Halloween and witches. My mother recalled how a beautiful snow white owl glided to our window cornice, and stayed there regarding her, on the eve of my birth. It was considered auspicious, however, I am skeptical. It only means that I am the bearer of wealth, but not wealthy.

Still afraid to tread emptiness and glide through opening space. Still afraid to walk over water

Though waters close over your head. Time to tread out, trade off cold security and freedom taste.

I am going strong, self-flagellation on, full steam, Grandma gulp some fresh air in it will not be the kiss of death. Or sit rock and swing it out, alone and angry with this pathetic childish grasp of adulthood. Be a wooden doll that adorns the walls, totter along on fattening thighs and pigeon feet. Sling out your sluggish barren belly in full frontal reverse, you hunch backed Notre dame. But know that you visited this, upon yourself and know this too:

All god ever wished for you was, “Belief in yourself.”

Nisi dominus frustra

look sadly at the placards

claiming, who can be for you

If the lord be against you,

and fail to see it the other way,

if not with the lord then

All is in vain.

But the lord is with me every day

Who can defeat me? None I say.

Pray baby pray, the lord is with you

the lord is with you, the lord is with you

I still do.

I do love children, I discovered, once both my sister in laws kids became toddlers, I especially loved four year old Jose Marshall. And I was still terrified of holding babies, when my Luke was born in 2008. I thought they might break, looking so delicate and fragile.

But the Lord, and all my gods was with me, and he grew taller than me, in 2023.

All things work together for Good as the Bible says.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Quiet Winter's Afternoon/Painting With Words

Dizain ababb ccdcd

Quiet winter's afternoon by the windowsill
The children gone out to enjoy the cold
A silver hue of molten salt so still
The lake on which the sun sheds soft gold
I try to paint in words nature's beauty bold.

Come lend me the glory let the tale unfold
Let me receive the sacred words untold
I am a mere poetess on ivory tower
No seer no muse guides me through the cold
Wonderstruck by the beauty of your power.

Love Without Armor BCR

My love is warm ardour

From candle’s shivering flame

Kindled by kind words

blown out of existence.

My love is song sonorous

Crooning in absence

A treasury of hopes

Sung into silence.

My love is wordless prayers

countless reveries

Infinite beads on

Endless rosaries.

My love is softness without

Armour, yours defencelessly

Hours without numbers

Pleated ceaselessly.

My love is a stand upon dream’s quicksand

Drowning softly in the spiralling mire

Your hand withdrawn I won’t walk on

Seductive pulls your gyre.

My love gave up expectations

of even a grain of honour

Without your acknowledgement

Or respect

Love beats in cowardly tremors

Love is facing fading hopes

With tears within

Smiles without

A smouldering heart discarding armour

And choosing not to doubt.

Love is walking away

Without needing to turn around

Because looking back at the bend

is not allowed

He follows you not,

But you are not alone

Your love stays the course

being both your caul and shroud.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

At The Zenith Of My Life

At the Zenith of My Life

When towards the end

Darkness besets me

Darkness unlike another

The womb life giving

Reminds me of

Light’s blinding madness

Escape beckoning.

I am my mirror now

Knowledge reflecting,

From every pore

From every wrinkle

Crows’ feet, laughter lines,

Each varicose vein

Each mark of pain

Is knowledge gained,

And it sets me free.

Sensing another light

Beckoning across

Higher levels of darkness

I kiss the nadir ardently

Of my earthly dreams,

To touch the feet of life

With love. To say adios

With deep gratitude.

A sombre delight

A sweet lightness earned

I now reach for zenith.

In the gathering, below,

Cries of bereaved heard,

At departure of a beloved,

Now dear loved dream, for

That's what those days seem

Empty yearnings, swift unravelling.

I am alive in each

Lively spark that tosses

Only my shell to cinders

Watch out for the innocent

Lovers in the park,

None may tear their

Sweet joy asunder.

As at a multiplex

Five different dramas,

Comedies and satires play

I receive funeral wreaths

Scent succulent flavours

From barbeque next door.

Party on, this night

I'm gone, unconscious

In commemoration

Of life's gleeful song.

The universe open palmed

Is offering alms

Sorrows expirations

As the living’s balm

Rejoice without guilt

And,

And it's almost on my tongue!

Frozen shower of icicles

Cream cones thaw in your

Warm palms. I leap in

Asteroid belts shower

Meteor dust, the night

Expiates in exultation.

Remembrance is such joy

Hold lightly, it's a toy

New stories start each day

Immortal inner child

Be forever gay.

Even your tears dissolve

In salt sea of lives

Nothing melts me now.

Your misty eyes I see

And again I will be

Included among

All of you who are

Present at my mourning.

Now let me visit stars

On galleys of galaxies

Let me freely soar

Ardent evergreen

Inspiration of God.

I'm upon mountain peaks

Peace snowboarding through

Glacial valleys that lead on

Through mysterious wormhole

Which brought me in

It will wash me out

Of Life's great choirs, its

Orchestral symphony.

Like tumbling waterfalls

Crystal palindrome foams

I mirror myself inside out

Bubbly flecks my songs

Reflect, breath taking

Beauty bursting upon

One feeble breath and then

A world, is gone!

Without alas or sense of loss

Beauty’s fountain foams

Flips up, falling towers

Showers of light ethereal

Cascades in air.

Spinning this crazy coin

Moment’s delightful toss...

Believe me that body

Was encumbrance

Armour donned in battle,

Diving gear to sustain

Unnatural breath, till death.

If you seek true light

Rejoice like children ...

Clap and sound applause!

Death is deliverance.

I've escaped smothering

Gravitational mothering

In forever's empty embrace

I'm in breath taking

Free falling flight,

Tunnelling through new visions

Gigantic kaleidoscopic sights,

Flame of a mighty frame of

Time outside time and

Chilling grace and space.

©Amrita Valan 2014

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Blind Angel

Blinded by love staggering,

My heartbroken self I steered

Upon your fallacious trail.

I failed to see the gaping hole

That you dug up, I tumbled in

To conditions and temptations,

Headlong inside deep dark well

Down, down, and lower still I fell

Into pitch black zones of hell.

My feathers tarred and pitched, mud

Caked, I wasn't able to raise my head.

The thoughts... oh only such thoughts

As the very demons dread.

You, the hunter who had

Set a trap which had not failed

You stood tall astride the mouth

Stared down on me with victor's swell.

I wanted so much to free

My gross body, my soul of dross

To rise above you and forget loss

Find my wings, fight to fly above

To touch the tip of your head

With an angel’s pure love.

To become an angel, yours.

An angel is born from pity’s sake

Opportunity a human takes

An angel is born from calling

A human decides to make

His avocation. Mine, you.

I move heaven and earth enter hell

To earn angel stripes or wings

Free from fear of pain, or loss or gain

Angel hearts don't sing in vain

Your loss forfeit, the defeat holy

As much as the grail, my feat,

The crusade that was my tale.

Forfeiture 's Dissolution

Forfeiture’s Dissolution

If I write terribly excuse me

My pain won't let me be

Inking my self-exorcism daily

Driving out demons I cannot see

I have to pen it....on pain of death

Everything melts away, softness

disintegrates face, eyes, tears, gaze

I cannot see, think clearly.

I haven't a backbone it seems I am

Invertebrate. Slimy feelings

Coordinate my articulation.

And they're not getting anywhere

They have dethroned my head,

Brain’s mush jelly abdicated in dread

Perhaps recognizing instinct of loving

As the greatest truth and duty

self-preservation has lost its simpler beauty.

My future is forfeiture, self-willed sacrifice

I am a lie I lead calling it life,

I the decisive link, weakness the abiding plot,

Theme of my chain of events...

And the plot is lost.

I wonder...

How much longer can this and I last?

The only answer my brain

murmurs inside

There isn't much else.

From now to nowhere

It's all getting over fast.

Friday, August 08, 2014

Sujon Bondhu baiya Naw

I wished to add the lyrics but couldn't find subtitles...
Please forgive this attempt at translation direct from YouTube to Facebook. One line at a time ...so my friends without knowing the language can still enjoy....a pure folk song of undivided Bengal. ..the love and passion of bengali women are same both sides of the border.

O please return
To the banks of the River Surma
How long must I wait
For arrival
Of your boat
O my friend staying far away
You stay inside these songs about the river
And our boatsmen ("Bhatiali" folk songs)

They're making my heart crazed in longing

Dearmost friend row by
Anchor your boat if only ever so briefly
Say only a few words, a word only
And have this betel leaf prepared lovingly by my hands.... :)

Red betel leaves on ruby lips
Colors life in spring 's evergreen
Your smile soothes my heart
please accept dearest friend.

I am waiting by the riverbanks ... in hope of your return friend
In the hope of you...
Months rush... and years pass
The friend of my very life does not come
My dearest life does not return to me
My golden skins burns to brown
Such is departed love's frown
O Sing "Bhatiali" songs of the river
And calm your scalded heart
And cool your burning heart

His Voice as a memory:
Precious dearmost friend
Precious friend of mine
Dearmost. ....

English translation from Bengali Bhatiali song by Mzahirul Shaheen

By
All rights reserved
(c)
Amrita Valan 2014

Amai Dubaili Re

Aathaali paathaali buk amaar
Mone je nai shukh re
(Amai dubaili re
Amai bhashaili re
Akul doriai bujhi kul nai re)-3
Kul nai sheema nai othoi doriai paani
Diboshe nishithe daake diya haath chhaani re
Akul doriai bujhi kul nai re
Ch
Paansha joler shaai bhaashale sagorero paane
Aami jiboner bhela bhaashailaam keu na ta jaane re
Akul doriai bujhi kul nai re
Ch..
Aathaan chaahe doria paane
Doria aathaan paane
Diboshe nishithe daake diya haath chhaani re
Akul doriai bujhi kul nai re
Ch

Kul nai sheema nai
Nai re
Aar lokkhyo bocchhor paar hoilo
Aar lokjhyo bochhor paar hoilo keu ta na jaane re
Akul doriai bujhi kul nai re
Ch...
Kul nai sheema nai othoi doriai paani

Wrenching waves in my heart
Without ease of joy

Chorus: (Thrice)
O you've carried me away far from shores
O you've swamped and drowned me in your depths
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach

No shores no limitations
Bottomless depths of water
Day and night summons me
alluringly beckoning
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach
Chorus

In muddied waters you've launched your boat towards the heart of oceans
But that I launched my boat of life in your deep waters
Not even a single soul knows
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach

Chorus

Shore and Sea face off each other gazing in longing
Day and night summons me
alluringly beckoning
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach

No shores no limitations
Out of reach forevermore
And that one hundred thousand
years pass by
And that a hundred thousand years pass by
O no one has even noticed
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach
Chorus
O you've carried me away far from shores
O you've swamped and drowned me in your depths
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach

Second Version:

Runa Laila singer from Bangladesh croons heartbreakingly...

Also adding my own attempt at a translation.

Wrenching waves in my heart
Without ease of joy

Chorus: (Thrice)
O you've carried me away far from shores
O you've swamped and drowned me in your depths
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach

No shores no limitations
Bottomless depths of water
Day and night summons me
alluringly beckoning
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach
Chorus

Shore and Sea face off each other gazing in longing
Day and night summons me
alluringly beckoning
In such limitless tides I guess shore is forever out of reach

English translation from the Bengali folk song by

Sob Sokhire Paar Korite

I haven't been very successful in doing justice to yet another amazing "Bhatiali" (folk music of the riversides of Bengal) boat song, simple yet divinely profound!!
Enjoy my friends! I hope my crude translation helps! :)

I will take my due from each fair maid who I ferry accross the river
But from you I will take only the gold adorning your ears
O dearmost maid

(Indicating romantic interest as gold is exchanged in marriage)

I am boatman bridging the two banks of love
From you I can accept no other payment.

O precious maiden
there is no bargaining at the crossings of the banks of love
Love is the only exchange
only two hearts need to be exchanged

Girl's Voice:
"Neither am I aware of what love
is
Nor do I engage in transaction of hearts
Take if you will a coin for ferrying me accross"

Stay then in my debt I dear maiden
And Keep your coin
and my services as obligation precious one
I'm boatman on the banks of love
I cannot sustain my life without love.

Chorus: from each fair maid I ferry accross the river will I take my due
But from you I will take only the gold adorning your ears o
dearmost maid

(Indicating romantic interest through token gold exchanged in marriage)

I am boatman bridging the banks of love
From you I can accept no other payment.

Girl's Voice:
"O boatman skirting our banks!
Such divine words of love on your ghostlike lips don't suit
Have some shame take care for proprieties!"

I haven't knowledge of either Gods
Nor do I know where Devils reside
But I know this
Precious maid I wish to take you home to reside with me

Girl's Voice:
"O you impudent boatman to be a dwarf and reach for the moon in vain
For
I am the flower of my lineage
Do not aspire Boatman you overreach yourself"

O precious most maiden
There is no value attached to family name or dynastic pride in the transactions made on these banks of love
Our two hearts are the only valid tokens of transaction

Girl's Voice:

"A heart worth the exchanging O boatman is too much of a risk
For hearts can be just as false
As they're true"

Take any measures dearmost maiden
And measure the truth of this heart
Test it any way you please my precious one
A boatman ferrying these banks of love
will never capsize your boat in mid rivers

Chorus:
I will take my due from each fair maid who I ferry accross the river
But from you I will take only the gold adorning your ears
O dearmost maid

(Indicating romantic interest gold is exchanged in marriage)

I am boatman bridging the banks of love
From you I can accept no other payment.

Second Version:

I haven't been very successful in doing justice to yet another amazing "Bhatiali" (folk music of the riversides of Bengsl) boat song, simple yet divinely profound!!
Enjoy my friends! I hope my crude translation helps! :)