Shedding

And the trees grow old
Growing leaves of gold
And the sky grows blue
Soft with eyes of dew
Shedding
It's a time of shedding
Hearts and minds and bodies
Dreams come and go
Back to picture perfect weddings
I loved you
Beyond all imagination
Wonders never cease
How the brokers
Put out their hearts on lease
Kisses gentle unto childhood
Rousing into wildest girlhood
Basking in womanhood
Miss the pictures
That scar the tissues
They break up all the strictures
Obviated social structures.

My song is not for you
My song is invisible skin
The heart encased in flimsy lace
That gentle covering
Protecting within
A typhoon a tsunami
A marooned abandonment
Wreckages of heart aches
Treasures beyond reckoning.

The trees grow old
And true
The sky glows
Into the electric indigo blue
Touching dark fabrics
Of unknown space
Fabricated universes
And all their joys and woes
Ripen crimson
And shed like phoenix feathers
Like powdery leaves
The ground floor plan
Of human happiness
The hall of eternal miseries.

I live like this.
Thank you for this mind.
Which grows alive
When eyeballs slice through blinds.
Let the blinds drop down.
Darkness engulfs all kinds.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Minutae

Minutae

I saw a ruddy ant
Brilliantly livid with venom
Climbing my son's shirt
Urgently flicked it off
While my boy oblivious
Big and beautiful,
Devoured pizza

And we watched it together
Clinging obstinately
To his green shorts
I dusted it off
With rapid precision strokes.

On the ground it ambled off
Looking for its mates
No doubt foraging fresh prey.

Now as I write
A darn mosquito
Mosaic eyes me
While foolishly injecting sofa handles
Searching for blood
In cellulose.
I eyeball it back
Warily.
Strategy perhaps to
Lull me.
Before it attacks from behind
Attaching to flesh
Whereever it is blind.

I am reminded of a pretty soap sud
At dawn
Washing up cups and dishes
Early morning song
Hummed under breath
I kept an eye on that pretty half bubble
Domed soap world
Imagining minutae
Of microscopic life
Under its fold.
Perhaps a genderless germ
Singing in undetected tones
Living life as it should
Under the hood
Anonymously, at the levels
Of tiny particles
Aroma and molecules
Of orderliness.

This universe
It strikes me
Is a wash basin of dreams
Gurgling down
The proverbial sink.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

If Saraswati

If Saraswati....

If I say
I need you now
I need to know
Can you hear me?
How?
Past lives echo
Chambers of our dissonance
While we sashay our ignorance
Parading nonchalance
Equivocal arrogance
Living it up languorous
In our fool's paradise.

The Cinderella paradox
The whole Pandora's box
Always hankering
After the afterthought
Chasing the trailing shadows
Lacing our afternoon dreams
The siesta simmering within
Putting an impossible shine
On our mendicant dreams.

I beg you.
Can you hear me now?
My voice box is shattering
My scabbarded heart
Ready to self harm
Forced to self heal.

Answer me this.
The riddle of our being
Lonely sentient things
In an universe
So vast
Blind to our brilliant
Brave thinking dust.

Answer my heart

I will fill up the vase of
My being.

With the flowers
The prettiest bouquets
Are those
Of knowledge.

Le Savoir Vivre
Save me

The final grace
Is going to my
Grave
Juggling gravitas
With relative ease

Please.
Save me.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Sorrow has no place

Sorrow has no place
In the land of grace
You must wear a pretty face
Sorrow has no place.

Sorrow has no place
It's a waste of time and space
Oh my very human heart
Sorrow has no place.

Sorrow has no place
You must gild with lace
Lips that droop eyes that seep
Oceans of solace.

The sun tells us to race
Gather kisses and embrace
Our days and dues be done
Let love light up this face

And so should sorrow overcome
Gird up your hearts and minds
Let the tremors of the heart
Be strings that tender bind

Freedom lies in yourself
Thank the Lord for your wealth
Plant sorrow in sunlit soil
Grow tall the tree of health

You will discover what you need
Once you sow this lonely seed
Love comes, to all, you'll find
Let not your sorrow blind.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Turn around

Pearls shine brighter
In golden light
This evening they glimmer
Basking in concealed
Light.

The frothy dance of lace and frills
Posies and bouquets,
Sleek corsages,
Creating crafty frisson, romantic thrills
And everyone is smiling, 
Doing face time
The pearls wink and blink
Grace aloof,
On my throat, a kiss divine.

I see that you've noticed them too
Catch you staring in the hallway mirror
Adjoining the den where the tribes have gathered
The wreaths and tiaras the brooches and clasps
The bow ties and tuxes the posh would be wasps,
Host and guests align
In primitive ritualistic tribe.
With their showcase rites
Their discreet diatribe.

My pearls are poetry
The kiss of bliss
Each reminds me
Of mystical peace
No I will not miss
The display or show
I can stand apart
Watch the eternal ebb and flow

The gilded gowns, pretty pouts
The suppressed moues and petty
Frowns
The clinking glasses the trilling lasses
I do love it this window dressing,
But these pearls are pressing
Too pure, upon my throat
Calmly aligned in chaos inchoate.

Thank you for the music
And musicians
The whole band too,
The Muse won't reside in
This merry soirée,
And so I must go.

Moonlighting porch beckons
Pearls bobble and dance madly
Releasing passion's power
Drenched in silver ivory fumes
Poetry's potent doom.

Freed afloat on wishful clouds
Wistfully I dream this night
Of immortal turn around.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

Forsooth

By the Coffee Table

The familiar side table
Bearing glass framed photographs
Root identifiers, delineating
Source and well spring
Of present company.

The mother sweet, demure, diminutive,
Chiselled elegance, undiminished with age,
The daddy so  dimpled yet majestic
Cross between Don Juan and sage

Two doe eyed sloe eyed brothers
Searing  smouldering intensity
Crackling through the frames of time
Broad shoulders and tapered torsos
Their noses,
ever so slightly aquiline.

Like twin pillars of familial gate ways,
Daddy the mighty arch,
Or they, the mighty muscled thighs
Of Colossus,
Daddy the proud head leonine,
Mummy, steadfastness sheltered
the beating heart  inside.

And then the wedding pictures
Loveliness protected, coy and shy
Graceful gazelle ready to tie the knot
Affections bondage,
Brings forth my sighs.

The groom handsome fella
Complacency sitting comfortably on his shoulders broad
The lucky guy, who got acceptance
From Father's pride and joy
The prized suitor,Prince Charming
With golden ring,
A really suitable boy.

And eyes fell in perfect harmony
On the baby photos,
In the bottom right corner's
Sweet spot...
The cornerstone of marital lore
The inevitable essential afterthought.

Baby was a bright cherubim
All rosy cheeked with love
Her doll's lashes guarding
Precocious flash of eyes
Open and trustful
Ready for her due
Adoration.
A picture perfect life.

I was no fortune teller.
But upon the coffee table
I saw bliss
A speaking tableau
Of harmony Wed
To Serendipity's kiss.

Not all families are alike.
And no two are same.
Photographs release details.
Pictures are tell tale.

Smiling my veil
Of smoky confusion
I spoke under my breath,
And so,
they lived, forsooth...

Happily ever after.
For some,
Fairytales are truth.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017

Paen to Survival

I have been told I can't write poetry by an acclaimed Indian poet. So that's one bubble burst. Nevertheless let me write. For I can truly do nothing else.

If I say I won't write
My ego's dictates
If I just mute down this
Hopeless heart aching pain
Now tell me my friends
For I hold out my pen
What purer ink shall this
Pristine sheet stain?

I promise you birdsong
If that's all you'll have
The glorious joys of
Flowers blossoming love
I shall out etch out such rainbows
Carrying all my dreams
Let each colour dress up
The theme of your schemes
Let none jag out or drizzle
The hushed pain of my scream.

I offer you the agony
Of the Other, not my own,
It does not do to dwell on,
Ones own flesh and bones.
I shall show up the cost of
such desecrated Lives
That nevertheless struggling
Survive and thrive.

For all you like is victory
The survivor's odds
The psalm you sing always
crowns the fittest of the lot.

But,
Just a quick thought
Let it also,
not be forgot.
The words Jesus brought.

The meek and the humble
The lost and the defeated
Through faith and through love
Through forgiveness and mercy,
One day,
In God's net shall be caught.

I sing you my pain
Not to ask you for alms
Look at your neighbor
Offer one your balm
Your time and your company
Not your riches and wealth
You shall resurrect Jesus again
If you nurse one soul back to health.

(c) Amrita Valan 2017