Paradise Now

Poetry eludes me
I see meteor showers light
Up my inner space
I am at a beautiful place
Where I haven't been before
A new land of serenity
And acceptance.

So finding the poet at
Peace, poetry plays truant
In wily mischief,
Dear Muse do you then
Amuse yourself
With my grief?

I promise not to
Trouble you
If I can help it then,
For suddenly I spy
Hell turned upside down
Into a makeshift
Runny sunnyside
Heaven.

No pretences
As you like it
No primped up palaces
For unthawed ice maidens.
But a whimsical merry inn
On the tumbling pathway.

Beauty and not
Defences,
No barriers or absolutes
No must-haves
No bucket lists

I Have it my way,
Or like it just as it is
If I cannot love
the place I'm in
Watch me!

Strum up a soft tune
Roll out my daft drums
I'll give you a quaint beat
That will curl up
In your heart
My cozy question mark...

Make some sweet happiness
All salt and tangy
Topsy turvy stuffing
On the outside,
An outsized grin!

I won't waste my life
Or your part in mine
Building great walls of
Greedy expectations
Or
Worrying about it.

No can dos
Are cliffhangers,
Challenges
To scramble up
Sliding down
Like a charm,
No regrets if I can't handle it.

Poetry
Rides ever so high
Apocalyptic Rider in nocturnal sky
Out of sight never out of mind
I'm unafraid to leave
Your ink laden hand my unseen friend
Dips into my dozing heart
And winnows my overpacked brain.

You're just trekking up higher cooler
Slopes
Looking down at me
With mocking glimmers
Of compassion
Imagine new magic
For me, beloved dream
When I catch up with you,
For I will
Finally.

Hand in hand
We walk the halls of Paradise
Ours
Free for the taking
Willingly.

© Amrita Valan 2015

For Biley 15-07-2015

Sumit De Bhaumik

Wanted to write a few lines for you.
Just a few.

Remember childhood times
Memory rushing in
Like rays of light, through doors
And windows of my mind.

The different houses that we stayed
Bore unforgettable imprint
Of our growing days
Each house is a home that I revisit
For the joy and love we found in it.

New Alipore
Floating paper boats below with you
Mayfair road
How you draped in white bedsheets
With daddy's Eveready torches
Tried to frighten me,
And succeeded too!
How we played barbershop,
And you neatly
Removed my fringe, lingers on
And hopelessly I grin.

The balcony where we played with the "chik",
Rolling them up and down and up again
The cadbury stored in the fridge for later
Always missed by me, very soon after.

Rishra days!
And by then our world enlarged
To include so many many friends
The fun times we have had
Thanks to dear mom and dad
Growing up in a safe fairyland.

This poem is become more a roll call of events
That we both recall so here I smiling send
Happy birthday wishes dear brother again,
And May God bless,
Surround you with the love of
Family and friends.

© Amrita Valan 2015

At the Zenith of my Life

At the Zenith of My Life

When towards the end
The darkness besets me
Darkness unlike another
The womb life giving
Reminds me
Light is a blinding madness
And escape beckoning,
I am my mirror now
Knowledge reflecting,
From every pore
From every wrinkle
The crows feet, the laughter lines,
Each varicose vein
Each mark of pain
Is knowledge,
That sets me free.

It senses another light beckoning
Accross these higher levels of  darkness
I kiss the nadir of earthly dreams
To touch the feet of life with love
To say adios with gratitude
A somber delight
A lightness earned
I now reach for  its zenith

In the cries of
The gathering bereaved at departure of dear loved dream
For that's what those days now seem
Of empty yearnings and swift unraveling

I am alive in each lively spark
That tosses my shell to cinders
Watch out for the innocent lovers in the park....
None may tear sweet joy asunder.

As at a multiplex
Five different dramas and comedies and satires play
I receive funeral wreaths
And scent succulent flavors of the barbeque next door...
Party on
The night I'm gone
In unconscious
Gleeful commemoration
Of life's song.

The universe is offering alms
Sorrows expirations
And it's almost on the tip of my tongue
The frozen shower of ice cream cones that thaw in warm palms...
Expiate in exultation. ..

Remembrance is such joy
Hold it lightly, it's but a toy
New stories start every day
And the child in us must be forever gay....

Even your tears dissolve in the sea of lives
Nothing melts me
Misty eyes I see you
And again I will
include all of you who are
Present at this mourning

I'm upon mountain peaks of peace snowboarding through glacial valleys that lead on
Through this mysterious wormhole which brought me in
And will wash me out
Of Life's
Orchestral symphony.

Like tumbling waterfalls
Crystal foams
I will bubble my flecky songs
The breathtaking beauty bursting upon
One feeble breath and then it's gone
Without alas or sense of loss
Beauty up in the air
Spinning a crazy coin
For a moments delightful toss...

Believe me that body was encumbrance armor donned
in battle, diving gear to sustain unnatural breath
If you are looking for the light
Rejoice like children ...
Clap and sound applause!

I've escaped the smothering gravitational mothering
I'm in forever's empty embrace
I'm in breathtaking free falling flight...tunneling through new visions of chilling grace and space.

© Amrita Valan 2014

The Evil Plant

The Evil Plant

There was a tender stalk of green
Growing upon evil lees
Of dank dark banks
far from deep blue seas
Leaning upon the leering trees
Its roots were touched by fungus
Speckled mildew ate its leaves
It's stem so brave yet wilting
Its poisoned flowers hid in unease.

The clouds they went by rolling
The thunder crackled deep
The lightning scorched it every night
When it couldn't sleep

Forsaken by sweet meadows
Cast off from lush gold fields
Never to touch the briny sea
But to drink from bracken deep

Oh sweet plant you're fine where you are
The night is mighty with many stars
They each shine through the thick of space
For a heavenly moment of  fleeting grace

Those balls of fire that blaze so bright
Overreaching burn out in the cold blue night
Let the bracing wind tilt up your flowered face
Let those who'll win be a part of such an empty race

The salt water of treacherous seas
Shall be drunk by them to the very lees
And you will still be affixed to backwaters brown
Where your tenderness dissolved shall drown

Let go and wave and nod and sway
The world shall deny you right of way
Fix your roots to the barren path
Smile and accept the wrath of Gods

And silenced sylvan limpid stalk
Whisper your dreams to one day walk
The will o' the wisp of wind may hear...
And carry you into hearts you hold so dear.

The search for love is lovely
The searchers often get lost
The way is forgotten
In the maze of doubts
And overwhelming costs.

The search for love is noble
fraught with loneliness
And those who obtain
It
Have shown much grace.
And
Those who obtain it
Have been given grace.

The tender stalk upon the marshy banks
Rooted to her patch of sorrow
There to finally collapse and fall
Is still in love
Lonely bitter but unafraid
with a bitter sweet tomorrow.

© Amrita Valan 2015

A Poem in my Heart

Poem In My Heart

Open roads softly
Open up to me vistas
Of wistfulness
Roads to nowhere
To unknown places.

I who have never been anywhere or seen anything
I have peeped through peeled eyes and eager palms and gentle skin of heart
felt sensations foreign to me.

I have seen a river
Broad and deep and calm with sun, setting into sinking branches dipped in it
Like fingers seeking benediction in hallowed waters...

I have had such a longing to kneel as if in church, by the grassy banks of rivers that turn and return to your  mystery....

I am  sitting in God's pews
Putty in his hand trembling upon beauty of his altar,
Where he sets his stage of splendor.

I'm in the czar's crystal palace of ice sinking shivering towards deaths chilly arms
And freezing in abandon....
Then
Thawing in release...
It  was winter,
Now its summer...

Its spring flowers upon unknown indolent  hillsides
Its haunting autumn music in mysteries of tumultuous blue skies
Its lush green reveries of silent summery twilight....

My heart beats a tremulous saga of stories I have heard of beautiful places
Where I haven't been born
Yet my soul beheld....

My evanescent soul

Which radiates infinite spokes into eternity ring of life
And spreads out in sweetheart rippples of ecstatic gratitude
in this endless cosmic pool of
Countless chances challenges and charms
Which I bathe in
Immersing never to resurface
to dive into the very depths
Of my enchanting life....

© Amrita Valan 2014

Sorry

Sorry

Sorry sorry for the dirty grime
This story was a crime to
begin.
I am confused when I remember
But mostly I'm ashamed
And sorry It began.

I am wending my way
Through prophetic blue lanes
Lonely winding skies
Patches of sweet sunshine
swirl like lovely dreams
In a mist
But now I do know
What's not for me.

Never want to be a bother
I had rather quietly disappear now
I'm not disappointed
But I know
how I wouldn't do for you.

Couldn't be the one.
The cold wind stills me inside
To a hush.
I don't exactly love you.
But oh!
How you're valued.

When love has ended
Good opinion is either mercy
Or travesty.
I don't know.
I will keep yours
If I can.

And I know I need to
Dive down deeper into me now
Where my core values are.

I need to always keep shining
My limited light.
Against the confusing majestic darkness
Be my own star.

© Amrita Valan 2015

Illusions and Delusions

On this week's topic:

Illusions and Delusions

And heaven was just a story
In her head
Ghost written by parents
Now long dead
Who wanted the best for their
Little girl
So they told her tales of
Everlasting paradise.

Shuffling on tired feet
Panting forwards, they stole
Across dark borderlands
Patrolled and guarded by
Bayonettes and mines
But the hungry don't count
The price of salvation.

They mistook the land of
Bondage and avarice
With the land of dreams
Nightmares wrought into
Flesh
By honeyed streams.

Now she sleeping dreams
On illusions and delusions
And they make her toss and
Turn
As her babies scream.

The road was a satin stretch of fast
moving cars
Each carried a wondrous portentious passenger
And her shrivelled hands stretched out
In empty hope
Perhaps an angel of mercy would notice her!

The illusion of beggar maids and beaten mendicants
Mothering dust bowls of dreams and hapless
broods
At night the stars winked and sinned against
her yet again
Conspicuous conspiracy to fuel her empty dreams.

Illusions and delusions lie dreary at death's doors by day
Hand to mouth and thirsty throaty pleas
These twin gargoyles of deception crouch to kill
By first arousing then dousing hope.

The corpses were carefully removed
one bleary winter's dawn
By municipal workers in masks and gloves
And has she finally reached her hope?
That parental fairy tale of promised paradise?

I do think illusions and delusions may abound in the
ever-after too
Oh what lies beyond the dread glooms of deepest blues?

© Amrita Valan 2015