Octra Sasha

I know I sound cruel....but!

The octopus was breeding upon the ocean floor
The Octopus knew
Once her eggs had hatched
She would live no more.
But she shed no inky jets of tears
Coz that would be
Such a squalid bore!
Hey at least I'm a lot better off, she thought,
Than the silly squid next door!

Sasha the squid was spawning
Festooning the sea weeds with her eggs
Jet propelling back and forth
Oh! But you see, they never use their legs!

Neither did queen Octra, the nocturnal octopus
But really that's old news and nothing to make a fuss!
Meanwhile Sasha dashed about in frantic rush,
For once she had spawned
She would be "a squid who was"
She was a spunky sporty lass
Really better than deeper than thou
Miss Octra puss.

They were a pair always eying each other
With disdain writ clear in porthole eyes
Occasionally spurting out jets of ink
In a manner most unladylike!

Still Octra would live at least
to see her brood,
Willingly die .. And become
Ugh...their food!

Sasha, aah the poor silly girl
Would line up her eggs like priceless pearls
Then roll up in a curly ball
And  perform
The Mollusca Roll of honor call!
A grand finale among the ocean waves
While Octra smirked in her sea bed cave!
Though it would be only for a little while,
She would see her young uns and maybe smile
Then burst into a frothy mess,
And that would mean one octopus less.

So now do tell me really dear,
Which one of the two do you prefer?
Scalloped squids with frittered shallots
Or a eight legged Octopus in your pot?

© Amrita Valan 2015

Unedited Me

Unedited Me.

Poets are supposed to be wise creatures
Not simpletons
They are supposed to be deeply profound
Not shallow
If and when suffering tears them apart
A grave solemnity and inherent
Philosophy should assist
And keep them buoyant.

All I have are deep profound sorrows
They are my roots and beginnings
When I did not even know
It could have been better.

All I have
Is my instinct for survival.
A lunatic laughter bubbling inside
That mocks derision and sorrow
When with bleak aspect and
Blank demeanor I turn
Face to the wall
When trust thrusts
Brutal knives
And a river of thirst
Can't be quenched with tears.

All I have then is
a little voice inside
Calling"Man up sister,
and get real.
"
And that's so much more
Than all the beautiful poetry
In the world.
That's my heart which thumps
To the beat of an entire universe.

Life you're but a fading line
On my greedy palm.
Nevertheless
I never say die.

This is all
My poetry and my purpose.
Let us be sufficient
Unto ourselves.

© Amrita Valan 2015

Nursery Rhyme Weekly Challenge

Er....I got a wee bit carried away.

Nursery Rhyme for Coelacanth

The sharks swam over the typhoon
The sharks swam over the moon
The sharks shook their deadly fin
At my coffee spoon.

The dolphins were in doldrums
Because the dolphins had been barred
The dolphins wanted to see the world
But they got stuck between the stars

The mighty whale was watching
He licked his lipid lips
Let those crazy fool sharks  leap about
And those dipsy dolphins dip.

I catapult under the ocean waves
I wave my mighty belly fin
I dance above the ocean floor
Where sunlight can't enter in.

The shark licked up the coffee spoon
With a toothy sugary grin
That made the dolphins throw hula hoops
Drool dropping down their slurpy chins!

The steely shark flip flopped, baring brazen jaws
What in the world is this?
Men will be men and birds will be birds
When shall these fish be Fish?

Grr..... Bazooka, you snarky shark
First learn your biology!!
We be mammals, though of the oceans deep
And your ignorance makes us weep.
We need to be prepared ready and all
To conquer land air and stand up tall
Fin be feet and fish fingers grow
Lo and behold, the Dolphins blow!

The smarmy shark  licked his pinkish chops
By my life I have never heard such caterwauling
I'm a true fish of the ocean deep
You mammals from land came crawling...

Forgetting your roots you go woot woot woot
You forget that even the cow jumped over the moon
If you don't stop this nonsense rhyme
I will beat you with this raucous spoon.

My poetic license I stand to lose
But by this ditty true I staunchly choose
To stand by shaking in my soggy shoes...
Here the wonky whale the dolphin and the shark
Me attacked
We don't wear shoes
And have no feet that sweat
You whacky tacky
pseudopoetic poet.

© Amrita Valan 2015

New Town

New Town

New stars nibble the frosty darkness
Calm celestial countdown
Meltdowns on the
Soft carpet of green
By the balustraded boulevard
New town buses thundering by
Lazy home comers
From the IT sector, satchels slinging
The brute city, dark hearted mars humanity
Towering behemoths shrug  shoulders
with precision ease
Yet I sense the scented wind
Carrying swaying parcels of hopes
Dense in its prosaic pastel
breeze.

The gold aureole of impotent streetlamps
Carve impossible pi dreams.
From heaven to earth
A natal jolt backwards
Through time
Reaffirms astral chords.
I smell the salty fried offerings
Hawked by vendors
Spring rolls and corn on cobs
Go by jauntily
Hand in hand.
New lovers fresh as spanking
Summer lullaby.

My mind haunts the dark crevices of
Our tiny bedroom
In our tiny flat
Where cars scrawl love notes
In bold zebra bars upon
ceilings of domestic heavens
In reverent reveries
I turn my eyes inwards
To violet dreams.
Singing to my children
Of the sparkle...of
Ancestral dreams.

© Amrita Valan 2015

We The Livng

We The Living

We don't die. We don't go away. We don't even disappear into the wings or backstage for a change of costume.
We the living seamlessly occupy the fabric of an entire universe, recycling through time and space, without waste.

Pure energy, pure Ecstasy, We cannot be destroyed.
Then when our body falls onstage where does our soul
go?

Does the soul mean an unity, or an unified entity of the universe in entirety?
A mosaic of multitudinous spirits inhabit me, some harmonious, some conflicting, some dominant some subjugated.

We are rather like our own genome. The phenotypical expression is not our genotypical range, and like shifting expressions on our face a plethora peoples us.

Turn, turn, turn, as seasons shift under the sun, as we age and ripen and mellow... run, run, run.

Seamlessly we release old personas like cellulose masks that dissolve, and don the novus spiritus that animates the moment.

Our babies are nascence rejuvenated from our old corporeal flesh. They're temples housing spirits of the old, all of our infinite pasts. And so that the laughing menagerie of voices don't drown each other out, the somnolent ones await their own seasons of awakening.

And in my mirror, my eyes mirror a mystery that passeth understanding.
My grandmothers don't leave me. I see one in my eyes.
The other dances upon the lips in a smile.
My forefathers sit upon my forehead and my soul sings not with one voice, but a single unified song.
We who are the Living, are All the lives that have come to be.
And all the lives that are. And all of the lives yet to be.
We the living, don't wait backstage, for a chance entry.
We are here in spirit, and in my insular singularity, is the multiplicity of many spirits, an universe called into being.

The stars look at us. And in wonder. For the immensity they bridge exists in each soul.  Interchangeable yet unique...
One body....housing the spirits of the universe.

© Amrita Valan 2015

Universe and I

I'm part of everything else and everything else is a part of me. Life is about discovering some of the connections.
The universe is the sum of the living and non living, all of us, the parts. Yet each part contains the whole in a microcosm.
Its because the sum is greater than the whole we perceive it as the visible universe.

Love made visible, is life.
Visible, tactile, audible, gustatory, olfactory and rational, these are just the overpowering perceptible facets of love and life.
Though this sensory feast threatens to overwhelm, we must manifest much greater miracles.
They are ours for the asking, but we must forsake petty ends and gains.
Sear the sunlight with visionary dreams, walk in intoxication, let life addict.
Seek salvation not for self but as the balm you apply to saddened hearts.
Reap real rewards of gratitude good will and joy.
The ancient unit of currency was significantly called talent. An apt metaphor for the real wealth inside, one that is to be shared benevolently symbiotically.
You will be returned in kind and not cash. And there's no better gain than that.
Be human, be love.
Life is not a downwards slide to the grave. It is a catapult to the stars.

Weekly Challenge Slop Sully Precipitate Metronome

Sully my dull metronome moments
With abject precipitate
Pure and copious
Let dullness be relegated
To monarchs
And this beggar maid
Follow the arrhythmia
Of her heart.

Nothing lost
In slice of time
Irrelevant
You chase success
Over such impossible
Mountains
I watch my eggs
overdone easy
Run over our
Daily bread,
Oftentimes
My prayers said
Are sweet nothings
To four winds instead,
The incensed heart
Rages
And longs to sully
Itself
Sin and shame
Were never
A heritage
But accrued
Precipitate
Just the same beats of variations
Changing my poem
Of a thousand
Metronomes
Just my mundane life
Making up for
Lost moments...

I get it,
This sunny drawing room moment
When sparrows fight over
Crumbs of my broken bread

But lying in yesterday's unmade
Bed
I cry in syncopated sobs
In my maddening head

The crests and troughs undulate
But refuse to pause
Or understand.

© Amrita Valan 2015