Beautiful Erratic Crazy Life

Pinch press pare
Into perfection

Then prepare to
Slink into
That exact fit cubby hole
Designed for your soul.

By the collective wisdom
Of myths and mantras

Culled from trillion trials and errors
An erroneously blind
Hit and miss past
Blindly dictates steers and guides
Our masts.

Signs of life,
Significance?
Blink your eyes
And there's every chance
You'll miss
It.

We were not meant
For prim and proper
roles,
We were expected to
Break fabricated rules.

Rules?
And by who?
The wise Gurus
In every successive age
edit predecessors errors
Too.

Trust
the view.
Trust in you.
Every visible hue
Every audible tone
Is a tryst
With the true ruler of
Every realm,
And trust yourself
Your vagaries are
accommodated too.

Experience tells us
The heart scatters light.
Love like the sky.
Blue cerulean expansion
Infinity stretching languid
And in our front yard
Clouding earthly eyes 
Bolls and weevils spin dreams.
Fluffy white kittens
Gambolling, playful rough and tumble,
strange silhouettes carved by lightning strokes,
Majestic rumbles of God's thundering,
The drama of the universe
In microcosm.

Whoever is the creator
Did not wish to be
the controller.

Erratic beautiful crazy life
Chance and honor might survive
With love as our guide
Courage sheathed in steel knuckles
Obdurate at the sides
And kindness
the only light
Opening up our eyes.
We were never meant to be,
Automatons
Of obedience.

Now we savor with our senses
Feathery whimsical cirrus alliances
Contented curlicued cotton Cumulus
Threats impending heed the
Graying Cumulonimbus
Run for cover when what awaits us
Hard and heavy flatline Stratus.

We are all the moods
all the mindsets
All the prayers
and all the curses
All the shadows
All the loss and gain
Of every mind.
We are
The vision
The seer
And
The blind.

And so then there were none.

Rules scattered 
Rayleigh particles
Spreading love
igniting rubies in the sunset...

Myth and mantra killers,
Eros rising,
Forever expanding
exponentially.

Cages cannot contain
The soul of the thinking feeling
Beast.
All that it ever does
Is trap some meat
Carving out indolent shapes
With our cookie cutters of
Prejudices.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016

The God's must be Lobsters

When I close my eyes
Serrated rows of skull white
Tombstones march past
A silent procession
This lassitude
Won't last.

All this silliness
Silken silences
This tomfoolery
These motions
And emotions
Our fetching passes
Will melt into
Years long gone by,
Gold sutures of
Sunlight
threading absent nights.

Why?

This brief hiatus,
So brave
That men spin mythos
beauty that melts
Corrodes mere ethos
Brilliance that's borderline
Crazy
Defying notions of Logos
Craziness that stokes
Genius igniting faith,
sparks of passing
Divinity.
Borderline delusions?

Pass over.
Pass over.
We smear our heart blood
On this lovely lintel
Of longing
Mother earth
Our hearts
Bubble your song
Till last bloodied
Breath.

Life invites
Death ushers,
Tarry no more
bury your nihilism
In the graves
Of yesterday's sunlight.

Oh, how my Grandparents
Call me,
Forefathers
shriek from high heaven
These frail bones
Cannot bear the burden
I close my eyes.

Wayward winsome
Gravestones
Ardent lovers
Beckon me.

Summoned into
Existence
By summertime longings
Loving co-creators
Blueprints of longevity
Bookended between telomeres.

Immortality?
Is only for the lobsters.

Not for tenacious builders
Of Great pyramids of Giza
Or dedicated
Skyscrapers of Wall Street.
Mammoths and cetaceans
Shall dispose mighty carcasses
For desultory  crustaceans.

Divinity imaged in
Unthinking inscrutable
Crustaceans scuttling
Back and forth
glowering at our cruelty
As we boil them alive
Instantaneous immortality
On our jaded taste buds.

It's not the Gods
Who are the crazy ones
After all.
 
(c) Amrita Valan 2016

Heaven on Earth Received

When we are children swaddled by much love, governed by reason and sanity it's logical to believe in a supreme Deity, a Father figure, (prototypical of our own?),who is in charge, in complete control. Such a very calming comforting thought.
One that children need, to survive and thrive, and sleep peacefully at night.
Supremely confident that the monsters under the bed are being taken care of, by God's angels, or by the Good Lord Rama and his valiant kid brother.
Why?
For no other reason, but because, they've been good and obedient kids, and deserve to be safe and protected.

The problem with adulthood is the scathing discovery that life isn't fair, and unjust desserts are often served, heaped upon one's plate;
(or upon one's head like coals of fire!).

Cynicism and scepticism is the adult mental landscape. Leading to paranoia instead of paradise.
From insulated innocence to  chronic insecurity.
Not surprisingly, there's a gradual erosion of rote learnt  childhood moral values.
Live long enough, see,hear and do enough, and sure enough, moral decadence at worst or sluggish apathy at best will set in.

Lead kindly light, of childhood promises kept, the sacrament of love given, wishes fulfilled and rightfully earned through appropriate conduct... and so despite all the cons, a touching sense of belief in fair play and ultimate reward remains at the back of one's mind.
Religion is reinforced by endorsement and reinforcement of those shadow beliefs. That if not in this life, a blessed afterlife, an eternal hereafter awaits where we will be rewarded for our good deeds.

Is this such a bad thing? Naive perhaps, even gullible, but endearingly innocent, if not pushed like relentless propaganda, that subtly serves to substantiate one's own faith. Denying all others.
As though a strength in numbers confer infallibility.

But there's a third stratum in the garden of human souls. Not the perpetually innocent, nor the abrasively skeptical, but a strange willy nilly growth, a flower posing as common garden weed.
The more his or her beliefs are broken in an innate sense of deserved justice, the more this kind's backbones are strengthened.
Not by faith, nor cynicism but by an iron determination to sanctify and protect the sacred garden of peace called childhood, were early on, the best values were sowed.

And which are now, all the more necessary to reap, when this world appears a barren arid wasteland, unfulfilling and holding no promise for humanity.
These strange humble wildflowers stand strong facing up to the sun always.
Looking for light, abhorring darkness and defeat.
Not because they can still in all fairness, believe in a God father, but because they cannot cede the enlightenment of happiness and grace that was once received. The tender benediction of early fair play and kind treatment, the protection of earthly parents.
That is why our earliest memories are sacred.
The happy days spent in roaming carefree green fields, sipping the crystal waters of light, reason, sanity and knowledge, climbing every mountain courageously, provides safe anchor.
Against the uncertainty of the roll of the dice  of capricious adulthood.
God is created by such acts of positive strength and goodwill.
Not by any sense of  awe, or blind faith in an unknown divinity, but by an abiding faith and trust in our humanity.

The Gods are all around us, within us and without. Imperfection perfecting itself.
Love and laughter spread into more than a billion prismatic bits, over billions of years,
each of us lie in wait, to reflect own bit of light and wisdom, our own few shades of the rainbow's spectrum.
One for all and all for one, is God's sole divine plan and there's no other, as ennobling as that.

Seek and ye shall receive. This Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016

Love and Happiness

"The decision to be happy is the only possible one. Or we die a little every day in every way."...my two lines poem.

A friend of mine says "I don't really know if I want anything other than happiness and love."

I was all smiles. Because, don't we all?
Why are these two items such highly valued commodities?  And why are they so rare?

Well unlike the laws of economics I am disinclined to think that the value of these two intangibles  is in general dependant on their rarity.

Rather these are indisputably common feel good factors, which everyone has experienced, and therein lies their value.

Simply speaking, You Feel Good.
Loving and being loved.
Giving and receiving happiness.
Even the homeless beggar or hungry street urchin has had his rare moment of love and happiness.

And yes, here conversely, the law of economics applies.
In individual instances, the rarer the occasions one has experienced happiness and love, the more one values it.

So how do we create purchase or manufacture love and happiness?
By valuing it highly of course.
Like the exorbitant prices of one tenth of a gram of gold, or ten points of a true diamond, we need to weigh and rejoice the teeniest tiniest smallest share of love or happiness that falls our way.

Value it, celebrate it, return it.
Pay it forward. Let it grow. Cultivate it.

Now sit back relax watch it multiply. Much like a few ancient loaves of bread and some long gone fish.

Love and Happiness.
Not your passive "Get". ( ☺ Using a little Pidgin English.)

Love and happiness.
Intangibles not commodities.
Love and Happiness. Acts of Will.
Love and Happiness.
Action words that need to be put into motion, and lived.

Love and happiness. Now.Smiling at you bravely.
But you're living. Breathing. Thinking. Feeling.
Being.
You're it.
Love and Happiness.
Life.
Live it, like there's no tomorrow.
See life as children do. Pots of gold at the end of every rainbow and frogs in your pocket whenever it rains.
Kiss goodbye.
To lack, want and scarcity.

Collect a pebble or climb a mountain.
There you have it!
Panting exhausted thirsty and joyful.
Happiness flowing in unstoppable liquid crystal from a waterfall.
Quench your sweet thirst.
And lovingly hug whoever stayed by your side, and  bravely scaled the rock face with you.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016.

Responsibility

Responsibility. Comes from two words. Response and Ability.
We have to hone our ability to respond to every situation appropriately.
Life comes to us with prizes worth winning.
With the obligation to work hard, fulfill duties and obligations, before the fun part.

When we respond to our duties to the best of our abilities we become pillars, our friends and family and society may lean on.
When we put our long term purpose before our short term pleasure we enhance the quality of our life. More meaningful, rich and varied open to fresh experience and challenge.
Play hard. Work harder. Till work becomes child's play.
How about that folks?

(c) Amrita Valan 2016

Weekly Challenge Independance Promote Relief

Admins please note.
Posted this an hour back. Technically yesterday according to India time. Reposting as weirdly my post has disappeared. Not sunk to the bottom because there aren't that many new comments on other pieces. Just gone without a trace. I scrolled way down to make sure. And I commented on Rekha and Lee challenge pieces one hour ago, they're not there as well. Puzzling fb glitches.
So here goes...

Your tried and tested methods of
Oppression
Are subtle suggestions
That made my heart falter
And I lost confidence
And I lost love
The power eluded
Slowly I lost myself.

Even then
My Inner self was not lost
I was not yet your conquest
For I was unwary,
Unconscious  of being the prey.

When I ceded my Independence
It was neither announced
Nor promoted
Relief was not sought
In ignorance of my state.

I wore the handcuffs of dependence
Tight broadband cuffs that
Smartly announced my every move
Stripped of mystery
I was not a woman
But a seductive blip
In your global positioning system.

I was unaware.
It was unacceptable.
The day I found our status quo
and discovered
I could never change it.

Then the shackles of iron
Rusted red rimmed
Upon my wrists
bloating my flesh
Into rude
Bracelets.

Independence,
Cannot flourish
In timorous wasteland
Where hearts  wither
Love cannot nourish
Or promote succour or relief
When courage dithers.

Bound by invisible
Ley lines
Traced in quicksand
I pay homage to your desecration
Daily.

May the words
Be monuments
That trace the exact pattern
of my degradation

Tide and time
Will track you down
always.

When satellites sleep
God's dreaming eye
Opens.

Be seen.
For what you are.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016

What's going on tonight? Half an hour after reposting my challenge piece, I see that the old one has popped right back up. Yet it wasn't there and I know coz i scrolled for donkeys years. Admins this is too weird.
David Hall Judith Jp Parsons Cynthia Ferguson-Morris Hana Shishiny
Now I'm confused.

Ode to Calcutta

I wish I weren't in this cold city
this city of coded bricks and listless roads
Ablaze under a brisk
Business like sun
Shiny without relief
Warm without succour

Energy devouring energy
Under melanin shields.

And I wish
I could dance dripping dreams,
Dazed in the rain,
Glistening in it's manna dew
When it comes.

But it pelts
Loud and arrogant
The drops downing no sorrow
But dousing acid regrets.
No nonsense, it slants
Sounding and pounding
Stab wounds of sarcasm.
No withheld melancholy
That cleanses grief
Gurgling down the drains...
No empty headed giggling
Girls skipping puddles
Irate maidens sidestepping
Splasher bys...
No placid grannies smiling like
Rainbows
No release of bitter sweet
Pungent dreams
Or breath taking beauty
In perceived calm...
After ablutions.

This city is an arrow to the
Next destination
Straight and narrow
A waiting room of
Suppressed narratives
And repressed desires.

I wish I were deeply embedded
In fertile soil
Black sweet fecundity
Kali's spell of mystery showers
Pouring off my tresses
My elbows hips and knees
Sinking
Under the weight
Of my desires
sweet soul's release
an escape
Of some morbidity
A few lies
and a little peace
Wrung out
in quiet aftermath
Of torrential
Downpour.
Unpretentious
Uninhibited
Brutally beautiful.

Eastwards ho
where the sun shines
Pink gold froth
And smiles benediction
On our purest supplication.

My birth place calls
my name on the lips
Of avian troubadours
serenade sweet heartbreak
And endlessly bill and coo
lovebirds of my loneliness
Upon soft sunlit windowpanes
urgent with longings.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016