Glopowrimo 13 Petrichor

Glopowrimo 13 Petrichor

Annual homecoming, a tedious affair
Packing the right clothes books and toys
Making allowances for Calcutta weather
Hot and humid, dry in April
Bit of Ozone crackling in the air
At cusp of  May
Soon cool breezes and darkening skies at four
Presage monsoon's advent at our door.

Lightning slashing our skies  apart
Thunderbolts incessant, stop and start.

We came equipped with singlets and shorts
Then brought out hoodies, and canvas flip flops
For my dear daredevils to dance in the rain
As dry grounds slaked their parched up pain
Quenched their thirst and soaked in luscious  fat drops
Pitter patter, as they pelted non stop!

And what a lovely parting gift from the gentle earth
The wet rocks and clay soil  opened up their veins
fragrant fluids and oils oozed upwards from nature's heart.

My boys sniffed in the petrichor
Dubious faces unsure, I smiled
To see how new things are received
By the youngest denizens of earth...

At first not so pleasing but incrementally
Over our life span,
Somethings become a fundamental need
This recurrent reassurance of
Continuity,
Life goes on in contiguity,
Completing the circle of life,
Every thing in nature harmonized.

Arousing fishes in the river the petrichor scents
Reminds them how now is it's time to procreate
How it guides the thirsty camel to divine desert oases
Subtlest fragrance for their eager noses

And I bend to scoop the mud in my revering palms
Touching my ancestors in moist mingled  balm.

Petrichor... Soul sap of the Gods
Petrified scents set in stone cellars
Reminder of life juices permeating
Our fragile flesh and bones.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 10 Darkening Bright

Glopowrimo 10 Darkening Bright

Oh tender child of mine
Care of my autumn life
Sum of my entire life
Late arrival
Precious guest
Heart's beloved mine.

I remember every sunny day
Clear in memory's haze
Your toothless chuckles
Coos and gurgles
Your balled up fists
Your winning lisp
Your cozy snuggles.

My cute hooded clown
On skates you race around
Now you skitter off on your bike
And I'm left all alone
Lost in the
Darkening bright.

I have no blindfolds
No rosy glasses
These days of gaietys'
Sunny classes
Wil fade away
To obscure wonderlands
Inexorably, the Age fairy
Waves her magic Wand.

The rooms will fall silent
The windows close in at dusk
Without merry faces popping in
Like sunny corn from its tender husk...

And all I am left with
Are memory's silken awn
To thread my spare autumnal loom

But for now
This glorious morn,
Blessed reprieve,
My children's laughter
Splashes in the breeze
And their bright eyes
Bring in such dazzling light
May this brightness never cease.

But already alas
There's a soft tint to the light
Subtlest hint of predator night
I feel the fuzz on my neck
Stand upright
Sombre Premonitions
Heralding silent nights...

Hark now, my Muse
Pay heed
To the darkening bright.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo prompt 8 Trees are Saints in Disguise

Glopowrimo prompt 8
Trees are Saints in Disguise

Just a momentary glimpse
Into an alternate universe
Populated solely by trees
I felt palm leaves
Fan my face
And the broad dry red leaves
Fall from grace
Ashoka trees
Peepals
And Mango trees
They were like people.
All alike
Slightly different.

Each leaf shape
Spelt character.

They fanned caressed spread out
Offerings of breeze and shade

Each branch bowed
Under the collateral burden
Of its weight
Like dutiful householder.

Or reached up to the sun
Supplicant for all our
Collective fates

Sometimes I swore they reached
Out in mute tenderness
Offering benediction
And grace.

If trees are not the
Intended sole occupants
Of this, my universe
Where humans seemingly reign
Top of the food chain...
A quiet suspicion
Something's not in place..
The more I look
At trees...
I see how they both outrace
And embrace
The Human race.

Trees are signifiers
Dignified serenity's sage
They stand up in place
Static, rooted...
Even as they succumb to old age.

I feel flash forward
images...
Concentric circles
Like rings on the trees
Constancy, faith, endurance
Acceptance, submission, patience
Steadfastness, Aspirations
Of reaching high places
Without desertion of roots
Home bound always..
With every year
A new aspect permeates

Such is their beautiful wisdom
In their silent sacred days.

Trees are saints in disguise
If we only unmask our face.

(c)  Amrita Valan 2018

Savage

Savage

Savage mutilated
Abandoned
Gashed up Geisha dolls
Slashed up rag dolls
Hacked up stacked up,
Resurrected hash tags.

Poor souls
Abandoned
By Guardians
Of girlhood
Protectors of falsehoods
Covering up savagery
In veils of silence.

Savage hands held them
Barely out of their cradles
Shared and shredded innocents
Satanic rituals of horror
God's natural order perverted.

Meanwhile
False souls murmured
Rueful utterances
Doling out solace
Alas! Such
Deceitful regrets
When punitive measures
Are strictly prohibited.

Savage lies
Savage ties
Blindfolded tender marionettes
In a savage world they die
In pools of blood to lie.

Our bright little baby girls
Lie in recumbent poses
In soft frozen despair.
Savaged by beasts
In stasis forever.

... Meanwhile
Those cold ugly beasts
Politicized ape-kind,
Goliaths and  goons,
Who let them loose
From their polarized lairs?

They
Who did....
Must not be named.

They're the ones
Most frightening
Smooth polished toffs
Thugs with agendas
Mouthing concerns
Sheer propaganda

Most heinous false souls
Self designated protectors
Guardianship betrayed
Womankind beware.

Mothers, wives and sisters
Daughters
No Girl child spared
For in this savage garden
Lust uncoiled and erected
Hisses, and unchecked,
Fanged, venomous,
His head rears.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 11 Scattering

Glopowrimo 11 Scattering

Sorry. I have gone a bit weird from sci fi to esoteria 😃

The magus
You

Spellbound, enthralled,
I

You waved your hand
I heard the swish
Of an invisible wand

Whipped me into
Loose confetti
Dispersed my remains.

Was It still me?
This loose
Scattering
Of atoms and molecules
That vacated my selfhood
To fly every which were?

Or
Was I the insipid
Vacuum
Left behind
In my shape?

My love agape tumbled
Through multiple universes
My senses still bound
To this indifferent landscape.

I moved worlds apart
Turned oceans and continents
Upside down
To regain my bearings
To
Reconnect..

Whoosh...
I am still
Scattering
Spellbound
And lost

At the whim
Of your idle evil wand.

The only difference
Is I know now

I am not here,
Nowhere am I
Till I recall
Myself correctly.

Black Jedi knight
Master Mage
When I have
Gathered myself...

My core

Will crumble
Your essence.

For my soul
Is
Indestructible
Indivisible

Though for now
Worlds
Flow in between.

You will find me
At your gravestone
Placing flowers
By your head.

Shredded petals
He loved me...
He loved me not...

Not.

Answers like old sins
come home to roost
When we choose
Rebirth from
Forbidden Ashes.

Dispersed throughout the
Cosmos
My causality
My soul scattering
Shall converge again,

To annul
Your displacement.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 2 Sonnet Colours

Glopowrimo prompt 2
Sonnet colours

It's long overdue. Missed this one.. sorry.

The first flush that mounts your ivory cheeks
Delicate rose tinged on saffron cream
Demure downcast ebony lashes speak
More prolific than all my  poems in reams.

On sudden impulse when thus you tilt your gaze
Steering eyes of becalming lucent jet
My heart skips a beat lost in blissful maze
I am putty in your hands my fate.

When in simplest movement your pearly hips undulate
I thank God, in a fervour all His creation praise
I wince in pain, because this dire thirst to satiate
Myself, like Lazarus a thousand times, He would need to raise.

Colouring my pages of untouched pristine white
Lady you usher in snowy sunlit dawn and darkling night.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Lately...Death

Lately...Death

Death has been occupying me of late.
Befriending me
At my own behest.
In a way I'm not sorry
One likes to keep track
Of destination's
Due date.

Souls keep checking out
Of Hotel earth
From suites hyperborean
Or down under
From the big fat
Equatorial belt
Bulging with excess.
Relentless release
From hyperbaric chambers
Enriched with compressed
Oxygen
Relevance immaterial.

But life breath
Isn't soul food.
Sometimes a vital bit
Is missing.

Sometimes the earth
Is just hungry for brute
Ablutions in blood.

Sometimes the tension between air
And ground snaps
And tears off the wings
Of Icarus
Metallic birds plunge into
Gorges
Flesh rips off
The soul.

And they're set free
To fly.

Even if fragile and fay
They don't know
How or where.

I'm running a list
In my mind

How Many Ways
Are there for
Us to die.

This is
Deathwatch.

Social media has a way
Of bumping into us
With death notices
Suddenly
The living page
Turns obituary

Time frozen
Left like a grain
Of sand
For sea to wash away.

The brain humps down
To a piece of meat
Inanimate unappetizing
It never says
I was once capable
Of twisted turns and convolutions
Of coursing through neuro synapses
To create a palpable
Network teleological
And taut
Integrating fact with feeling.

It never iterates
Its erstwhile capacity
Of thought or love
Greater than yours.

It never demonstrates
The demons wrestled down
The indelible mark of hurt.

The brain hunkers down
Like a grainy grey pretzel
And blandly eyeballs us
From formaldehyde jar.

I cannot hold the heights
I was aware of.

I cannot preserve the depths
Of mysteries I
Wallowed in.

Why I cannot even hold
The love I felt within.

The most profound
Inner part of me

Now has become the wind.

I
Am
Death's head
Doorway to
Gehenna
Entry to
Hades.

Friendship with me
Is not an option.

We are blood brothers
Life and I

The day we are born
We cry...

An oath
Is uttered.

And it will
Be honored.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018