Hinduism...

Mulling over a friend's post which eulogizes Hinduism, from the point of view of a westerner.
And the immediate vituperative response it elicits from, how shall I say it, Hinduism bashers?
Hindus are dictated, to go read their own Vedas and other ancient/holy texts.
Why?
Not to glean the best of their essence, but so that we can hang our heads in shame.
And be ashamed of our roots.

To such I would say, stop with your well oiled,(as in well financed),  vastly powerful proselytizing machinery and machinations.
And hang your own heads in shame.
Books are storehouses of knowledge, treasure from another time and place.
However flawed they may be, if your only purpose in reading them is to negate, disprove and mock, (After carefully culling out a chosen section, then parading it out of context), then you're lettered yet illiterate.
You're homo sapiens but not human.
And baby however religious and pious you are,
You're neither Spiritual nor a Humanist.

A footnote:
I find parts of The Holy Bible, "tripping the light and the fantastic", but my Hindu upbringing has taught me, to revere and extract its core of goodness. Not Mock and bash up a book.

I teach my sons from it, quote it, and shed my tears at the feet of the Madonna and her son.
And I challenge all who proselytize, if I meet him, He won't deny me, even if I'm in saffron garbs and rudraksha.

People

You were around fifteen
When I was born
An young girl
And it was your time to shine
Bright as a moonbeam
Wild black mane
And lucent eyes
My baby self held in tenderness
For the first time

I never knew you
Except through photographs
So beautiful and so inaccessible
Easy to touch your glossy skin
Between my admiring fingers
But the person as distant
As a lost dream
Forgotten in the veils of night.

It's hard to put a finger on
The sense of people
Passing ships in the night
And the connections we make.
Sometimes all the feelings
Are imaginary.
A heroine build up from fantastic
Castles in your head.

A Globetrotter
A traveller
Versed in many tongues
Who charmed
One in a foreign land
And built her best
On the sea shore
Of a distant land.

From where she would fly
Desperately high
To claw at the branches that
Gave her a watchtower view
Of forgotten land and sky.

I was eighteen
When I faced this paragon
Turning into a mild parody
By slow dying degrees.
Which I defied
Deified with my
Need to dream.
She had lost her sheen
And was a plump homing pigeon
I was still enamoured
By her grace
And those deep lantern eyes.

So I made believe
She still carried starlight in them
And saw crystal fountains spring
Flowers from her smile.

Froth and lace
Woven elegance
Fake rainbows
And prismatic tricks
But eighteen is tender
To hallowed Madonna's
Of three and thirty years

I was thirsty
For her friendship.

For a sign
That I was significant.

I wasn't even sure
If she thought
I was human.
I was indulged
As one would
A kid.

I am standing now
On the rooftop
Of my liberation
To connect redeem myself
By offerings of Libation
To grace
On the cusp of 45
I no longer need
The same validation
Of my existence.

I spy her face
On Facebook
And think
God! She must be sixty.
How?
This was my leading lady
Ever nubile graceful doe.
Why?
Svelte figure soft face
Love lit intelligence
And grace
Nowhere near this tired
Weariness.
When?

Now I realise
Worship
Is an act
Of initiation
Into Time's
Erosion
Of values
Borrowed.
One metamorphosizes
Flies out on
Wings of fatality
With a prayer on the lips
of faith.

Values grow
Into features
And rewrites the face.

On the hour-glass of
Time
We gradually drift in and
Out of shape
Pouring ourselves grain
By grain
Towards tomorrow
Inexorably
Forever we fall
Till the Maker
Forgets
To turn over
Life's urn again.

Tomorrow
My sixty year old face
Will fearfully fascinate
Someone else
Dew in her gentle eyes
Treading water
Gingerly
On the quicksands
Of middle age.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

Tears of Purgatory

You want to know what tears are?
What do they mean at all?
Sorrow hurt grief mourning
Or shed over
Simplest of things
Sweet nothings
Dreams memories requiem
Or hunger for what could've been
Yet will never be.

Have you felt pulled apart
By forces beyond control
Human fragility
Fear and prejudice
The mean and petty
The shallow betrayals
That nevertheless rankle
Hurt in your dreams
Make ears ring with screams
Agony that makes ni sense
The monstrous moments
Of feeling
A failure a wreck an oddity
A naked being
Exposed
In utter loneliness
Wretched condemned
Daily exhorted
"Be brave, Go on.
The extra mile"
When strength fails
Bones flail
Eye sockets ache
With the weight
Of dreams slashed
And mangled
Torn beyond
Even your own
Recognition
Heavy water pumped up
By an emotional purgatory.

Are these liquid details
Enough
To earn a tear
On your lashes?

Put it on my palm.
I will accept it
As Holy water.
And annoint me
And other unwanted souls.

Your compassion
Is church
And temple enough
For me.

A simple child dwells
And she is ready to
Smile with glee.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

I'm a poetess

Cursing the Auto driver whose jerky bumpy morning ride, lost me the 2 verses that were key to this poem. But here's the best I could do from memory.
It never comes the same way twice.
(If a poetess may pout, now would be a good time.)

I'm not a pretty face
But I am your poetess
Unutterable your hurt
I heal with words
Your truth within my blood
Makes inroads.

The pain you feel
I must reveal
My antennae
Shudders and
Against all demons
Words stand guard.

I write the way
You make me feel
I compose you,
To feel
You're real.

Against all odds
And the apparent front
You put up
To make a spirited show,

But I see only shredded
spots of light
Shining through chinks
In the armour
Of your affectation.

Don't try to fool
A poet
Don't try to earn her
Trust.
Don't try at all
For she's all pen and ink
Ready to spear your sorrows
And speak your sword.

And her blood so muddied
All blue and black
Her mind travels
Through hell to
Watch your back.

And she's there
Ever there for you
Not in flesh
But her words
Will always do.

For she's not real
She's not her own
She is only
there to feel
The ache and sorrow
Burning in
Your bones.

Gnarled ashes
Of your pain
Her poetry is
Your remains.

Her blood pounds
Under the pressure of
Your bones crushing weight
She is the speaking picture
Of your fate.

She's in your head
A scheming witch
She's the blessing
That you'll seek.

I'm a poetess
An auror
A conjuror
A mirror.

To my subject
I become
A siamese twin
A chimera
That lives within

Till the end.
I will not deserve
Your love
Nor shall I
Desert you,

The one
I befriend.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

Surrealistic Dawn

I ain't no fool.

If you're
Seeking absolution
It's not mine to give
Any sort of satisfaction
Ask yourself
Will you feel
Better
If I grant your
Pleas?

Listen close to your heart
Forgive yourself first
Absolution isn't mine
To bequeath.

If you want
A friend on a cold day
To listen
And if you want understanding
I'm ok with that
If I say it real crisp
And clear
You've got nothing to fear!
If only you can learn
To forgive yourself
And earn your gaze
Much needed rest
Some earnest inward looking
Self interest.

Don't spend yourself
Fretting what could've been
Yet never was,
Not knowing you
Was never your problem
But someone else's loss.

Not your circus
Not your monkeys
For you were never
Meant to be
A stranger to your self
Haunted by
What Ifs.

So go on
Open up your doors
And walk right in.
Take no prisoners
Take no one in.

Don't forget to take
That crazy path
Down left of the middle
Right to the centre
Of the crooked heart,
So lop sided
With loneliness,
It could survive only
so many days
For one glimpse
Of her hungry gaze.

Trying to
Dial our souls
We don't Ever hang up
Speed dialling the self
Is an unknown art.

You're gonna need
That operator
She'll (smooth and easy),
Join the parts
Transfer your hidden urgency
And make the
Connection last.

And it's all conundrums and riddles
Yes it's so
Because no one can
Read yourself like you
So don't try
To explain why
Expose yourself
Now,
To your naked eye.

Someday we will
Earn our lives
By learning to
Forgive the truth
And erase the lies.

Don't want you to be hurting.
The pain can only be healed

When you
Touch your lonely self
With love.

Share it
If you want my care.

But truth is
Always
The best dare

Look into the insanity
For the calm eye
And Hold on
To it.

Hold tight
When waves crash
Chopping into your night

Washed ashore at
Surrealistic Dawn

Surrender
Make a new world
This morn.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

Thank You

No poetry for the wicked

The mind needs to rest.

Thoughts buzzing on the double

Create a vacuum in my soul.

Magdeburg brain

Leave my heart alone

To feel my feelings

And craft my life

Out of the words

I come alive

Render my dreams real

Tender my apologies

And reapply

For

Another secret rendezvous

Grappling with the wonder

And the mystique

Of the eternal question

Why?

I will I will

My atoms and molecules thrill

With the dare of the unknown

Crown our weary bones.

Star dwellers

We wordsmiths are

Leaving in Lands afar

On borrowed future Time

That curves a smile

Upon a rhyme

Till past meets present

In longing's kiss

And the sum total is this,

A dream
                Of Future's
Joyful Bliss...

I meet my  arrows

Verses fitted upon

My span, my allotted arch of time

A long bow so supine

It's
Stretchy and sublime.

I will bow to none

But all alone

The one

Who guides my hands

Thank you

For this release

Into eternal

Wonderlands.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

Feast Of Five Senses

Heaven is in your eyes
When you know it not
And just whisk the day up
Into a froth
Of fancy and dreams
Gentle as a patchwork quilt
Worn through by a child's
Hands
Clutching it to his soul
In sequined night.

The water rushed through
Fierce angry backbone
Of  Leviathan in the night
Coursing sleek black
Muscled waves
Like feral force
Cascading to corner the foe
Inexorable oily might.

The rain was like
Incessant canta libre
Alternating moody minstrel
And shimmering castanets
Weaving dark matter
Wooing midnight.

The woods were
Frozen attrition
With grief rolling in rivulets
Remorseful penance
Until baptismal dawn.

In the morning
I woke up
With Midnight's memoirs intact.

Heaven wept into
My heart freely
Till my eyes shone
Lucid as lamps
Lambent prayers.

The outside world
Was now dry.

If I could
I would hold this daylight
A filtered torch
Lit by thousand lamps
Of memories
And
Nostalgic sunlight.

Thank you
For this feast
Of five senses
Fill up
My heart and mind.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017