My Legacy

Weekly Challenge

My Legacy

Let my legacy be
A quaint sea shell
In a tiny treasure chest
A drab thing of brown and pink
And no use at all to you.
Locked up with other little things
Of no account
Forgotten on the way
Let life and love occupy
Your minds
But on a rainy day
I hope when you've nothing
Better to do
An idle hour or two
Gazing at gray clouds
And heart beats like
Thunder
Pangs of memory
Like love may crackle
In your ribbed cage
Of strength
And may you remember
To take me out then
Dusty and unused
Brush off the cobwebs gentle
And kind
And let a little lustre
Shine through
Oh then remember me
My darling loves
And how much
I loved you.

I hope then for a single
Moment in time
And not as heavy baggage
For half your life
You remember me
With sweet smiling fondness
As a dream
Yet more real and true
Than the hardest facts of life
You face
And I hope it strengthens you
Hear my softest love
In loudest thunder
My dearest ones
And then
Bid me adieu.

© Amrita Valan 2015

Seperate

You are too late in bringing
Your olive branch
Too late in applying
Your healing touch
and the gentle heart you hid so long
And well
Your stony pretence carved my heart's hell
Now forever it dwells in secret places

Your concealed heart
Can't make mine its
Friend.... For it has healed
From the cards you dealt
And wounds were sealed
With suave skin shields
Smoother than a baby's skin.

The bleeding stopped long ago.
At first the scabs were tender
You left it too long to scar
But now those are silver stars
Of endurance
Angels from hell
who taught me fortitude.
And a few still remain
Deep etchings of pain
To warn my heart
May still hold some rain.

You want to pull me to you
But I have closed that door
Forever
It is an entrance
I can't define
As mine
Any longer.

But you know my mind too well
How easily it swells
Stubborn impetuous loyal
And think I will stay
And dwell
To be yours again.

You should be told
How it is my friend
How when I've drawn a line
I can't cross those borders again
Soft memories of scabs remain.
Too sore and septic
To assimilate.

Forgiving people who cannot,
Find heart to forgive anymore,
Find out that once they have
Closed a door,
A dream is gone
A world up in smoke,
Empty, devoid
Black hole
Room lost in forever,
Lies behind
Its tantalizing
keyhole.

Somehow we are together still
By some miraculous act of will
I respect a man I know
I cannot be yours
In my mind
I let you go.

You think I don't cry
Or that I have a heart of stone
To stay in our house
But not call it home.
I cry tears of rigid crystal
Deep inside my shredded heart
And they are all embedded in red flesh,
Knives digging deeper with
Every thrust.

And I had rather this worn out heart
Should jag and sliver and tear in two
Than ever I should come
Back
To that long lost softness
Past, that was
Meant for me and you.

Do not cry for me
I just know you do
The dreams are walking
Maddening
Memories in my head too.

A kindness to both of us  then
To ignore,
The walking dead
Till they walk no more.

But someday I will thank you
For being both unkind and yet so kind
Your tortuous games of mind
Will not allow me guilt
It was a crooked house you built
But as I grow older
From the sad windows of my
Empty castle
I see how you longed to be a prince
How we now occupy separate turrets
From where monarchs we survey still
Hushed independent plains
Rooms with severed views
My perspective has changed
You master your domain.

Thus far ....my story has been
Told
My years are grown up now and
old
And  I feel the safe fortress of
My doubts stronghold
I will be
Uncrowned
By your heart of gold.

© Amrita Valan 2015

Dont Give Your Heart....

Don't Give your Heart....

Don't give your heart to just a pretty face
A pretty face doesn't shine always
Swift the lucre dissolves to dirty grime
Life makes us sweat as we do our time.

And Time plays cheap tricks on easy hearts
No crime this,  but our just desserts
To be naive and a gullible fool
And just crave the glittery shine
Colored candy cotton wool.

Oh! learn to lean into the inner mind
Cherish the creases such lovely lines
That her anxious cares for you define.

Yes, and if she cares a jot for you
And not how she has you wrapt
around her fingers,
That will  never snap,
To make you jump at her bidding
Then that face of hers is
Every inch worth your reading.

Not passive or babyish or bland visage
Not a coy plasticity of vague mirage
But a clear mirror of love light
you must understand.

Lovely is the dark shade of even most sunscorched trees
Tired wilted bowing in life's listless breeze
Shelter you craved that cradles you
so unstintingly,
Never scorn it for a youthful blossoming limb.

Hold her hands that's rough yet ready
Her blisters tattooed third degree burns
Of servitude, chiselled and branded
with the loads she undertook.

Pleasant are sugary coquettish interludes
Of  pretty flowers wilting in temptation's bough
But only love carries the magic wand somehow
Only love knows the straight yellow road
To wonderland
Where Time itself is helpless to take its toll
And stands forever transformed into stillness-Now.

Love will withstand all test of time
Make plainest eyes and gaze
A poetic charm
Of times thrice, trine
A placid lake of bottomless depth and ease
Matching your moods rhyme for rhyme.

And there's such prettifying in a loyal face
Heaven itself would fall in a daze and praise
Give all your heart to that gentle grace
And happiness on earth will blaze
Ever and ever
And all your children's race
Will imbibe the magic of your days
Of Endless love
Truer than all worlds, religions,
Faiths, true above all
Time and space.

© Amrita Valan 2015

Turn of the Road

For a long time I did what I do best
I wrote about my feelings
My happiness or
Pain.

But a turn in the road
A change in the wind
A new directive
Bends my mind
Something calls me
To challenge the waves
Too long in the darkness
In blind emotional caves
Something says that my own trivial
Troubles
Are not even worth another dust mote or bubble
I must be mindful and watchful
Revert the gaze
Too much suffering
Needs to be erased
Lack of food and shelter
Lack of time to rest
A baby ignored
While her mother slaves to death
See the resilience of the human mind
It will not back away
Everyone has a dream
And everyone hopes for a better day.
I won't cry for my troubles are the least
Lend those dreams a wing
Rise to be a human not a dumb
Insensate beast
They're angels in disguise
They flit without their wings
Shorn of their power and every material
Thing
They're test laboratories of this evolving universe
And they test what really matters
And its not atoms or molecules pulsars and quasers
Every time we lend  helping hands and everyday we are kind
We create a wealth of love and hone our human minds

We are perfection, we are all angels in disguise
When we act out of our conscience like
Cosmic Magis.
We can be God we can choose to be divine
Every time we see suffering as Ours
Not as yours or mine.
Every time you bend
to carry the cross
Your shoulders lend
To lessen another's loss
Write another poem sing another song
Not for your glory
But to lighten a load
Or right a wrong.

I am at the turnpike
There's no one here but me
But I can choose
The way I will go
The road no longer unidirectional
But bifurcated and every artery
Leads to bleeding human souls
Every story needs to be told
And I will take care
to take my turn
No longer linger
At the crossroads turn.

© Amrita Valan 2015

The Lobster and the Crab

The Lobster and the Crab

Lobby the venerable lobster
Thought he was
Master of the Universe
But he had got it all backwards
As he clawed the oceans apart!

And each time he tried to make his move,
He found himself back by another foot!

The crazy crab laughed sideways, his weird and crooked grin
But then he was most sideways in almost everything!
so he scuttled across the tepid ocean floor
Dancing and dashing busily from door to door
Neither back nor front locomoting
He was forever sidewards shunting.

But Lobby thinks he is superior because
"He never ages!"
That's right;
His body can never grow older, because it contains magic Telomerase!
So yup, he is a Swanky stinky sea God
Unless you simply caught and ate him,
like any other herring, shrimp or cod!
Or say he contracted the disease of  lobsterlivia
Which means excessive self love or megalomania!

Now Karma the crab was aggressive, he fought to win a wife
But ever after he mated, he built her a nest and guarded her eggs with his life.
A tad quarrelsome with buddies and mates
Yet socially savvy and very up to date
He lived in groups and liked to cooperate
Until death whether t'was a natural fate
Or served  as minestrone upon a soup plate.

Lobby unless reduced to thermidor, or
Boiled alive by greedy humans in a jar
Preferred a hermit life by the ocean's floor
Eating the yucky skin he shed
Or even another lobster's flesh
Quite in a waste-not want-not way!

I think I prefer Karma and his simpler caramel soul
And oh he is sooo tasty in stews and
casseroles!
Mouthwatering in crabmeat  curries too
And patties and crab cakes of heavenly hue!

As for Lobby the lobster, though he is far costlier
To eat something that could have perhaps lasted forever!
Phew !
To tuck into an insect that eats the dead skin it moults
And thinks of itself as a marine God,
Well to even marinate it, my heart revolts...

So- gruesome Lobby pink red and gorgeous
I prefer the crab clad in
steely grey and slimy green and black
And rather dolorous and totally drab
But to me, the colorful canny lobster
Seems a creepy cannibal mobster
I suspect that he or she could be a tough
Gobstopper...
So I shall pass this dish, would you like to have her?

Oops! Him.

© Amrita Valan 2015

The Dolphin's Tale

Another one for the kids...

The Dolphin's Tale

The  shark was eating cornflakes
He preferred them with milk and honey
The dolphin showed up to wag a beak
And told him it was funny

A change from pure protein then
Asked the dolphin in eager vein
The shark choked in rage and lashed his tail
Oh if you're going to sulk, then very well!

The dolphin dived away and did a few somersaults
But to the shattered shark he had put a halt
Who could not down another spoon
And swam off in grave depression

Meeting with a wily whale
Sharkey happened to relate his tale
Together the decided to do him in
Stop the dolphin's wagging chin

So they artfully pursued the playful dilettante
Who was performing mid air stunts
Going round and round in mid air
Stopping only to see them stare

Howdy shark and wassup whale
The elegant dolphin greeted well
Shark shook a fin whale gave a vacuous grin
Asked the dolphin to join in a meal

Mullet mackerel herring cod and squid
They offered him mixed with chewy weeds
They politely asked to chew well before he gulped and swallowed
As those were the table manners to be followed

The dolphin tried his best to nibble with his teeth
But soon the whale offered some serious meat
upon Dolly's unwary plate
A sea lion with salmon in its mouth as bait

Poor dolly choked and churned up the stuff
And warbled away in a most shameful huff
To see sharky shake  and sweetly laugh
As Willy the whale made mocking Poofs!

So be very careful not to mock jeer and laugh
At the diets of others even if its just a fad
I think the dolphin's tale has made that clear
If not,
May we serve you a honeyed bear?

© Amrita Valan 2015

Sunlight

Sophia up on high
Resolution of all doubts
Focusing all our dreams
Mitigating our fear.

There's a blind spot in my eye
And however hard I try
I will never know every how or why
Of the factorials of my life

The sun messages us through rays
Warmth from its core of strength,
Emulate me, no longer to yourself lie,
I too, have blind spots in my lucent eye.

Those dark sunspots that cave you in
Are just blemishes on the skin
The surface of the dream.

I feed your flaming heart
Dark coals glow in mirth
Reach out your sunflower stalk
Heads high, forever walk

The trail blazers are ever lonely
They speak to a silence only,
Weaving dreams upon the air
Sun gazing without a fear.

To be the white dwarf of distant afterlife
I will explode, light up the skies
Giant supernova, that no living man will see
Yet floating around on eternal cosmic sea
My light caught in the lens of alien heroes,
Forever and ever will be.

Perhaps you will stare again at me
Through strange eyes of future telescopes
Tell me please then why,
Don't you dare,
To burn and embrace black space
Into  blazing promise of hope?

Mankind you're my seed
My sunflower deeds of days of youth
I lend you sunlit hands as golden safety rope
May you forever dare to grope...
Through weary veils of murky darkness
And be my distant starlit hope.