Garden of Life

Let me write you
From the back halls
of my in-dwelling mind
The recesses of fond memories
Ever serene dimmed verandahs
Silent static films
Still my heart
Hushing it with poignant peace.

Let she or he who can decipher
Of who I speak.
Know all who feel something
In these lines
The words belong to you
If in them
Your worlds you find.

You are my garden.
My ugly octopus garden.
You are my stately reverent park.
You are my darling darkling lake
Of delirious desires
You are my photoshopped images
Fragrant posies
Of culled roses.

You're my mirror
And my reality
You're my skin
And my skinned sensation
You're my realization
Beyond reason.
You're loyalty
Betrayed beyond treason.

You're my emptied
Perfume bottle
Where lingers the scent
Of sweet insanity.

You're my poison
My purest portion
My lily flower
Of brutal power.

Brother, sister
Friend or lover.
Loving parent
Birth or foster
Wicked step mother
Ogre father.

You're my best
And worst belief
You are Cruelty
And its
Kind relief.

With such deep regards
I hold my dear
My precious breath
My eye's last tear
That scorns the shedding
Whilst holding your image
The name never whispered
Which parched lips  do sear.

Now you may
Make belief
Those who are my readers!
Beware now,
Read more than my
Thoughts!

Fly fast away
On your own
Gruesome steeds,
Or
Take care as you
Walk down that crazy
Garden path
Which your mind
Tends with flagstones
Beyond your flesh and bones.

What was sown

Shall come to pass

Reap then the words

In joy or pain alas...

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Awake in the morning

Turn the page
Shift your gaze
Move ahead
These are different days
And oh so same.

I wake up
It's four am.
Insects crawling in my throat
Sand paper parched
Blisters hurt
I swallow dry hurt
Brooding over the past

Like a nest egg
Which on a rainy day
Could perhaps have helped
If I had only learnt
To part
To do without
If I could have only earned
My pass to
Better freedom days.

It's not all over
It's not all done
And some things
will never be begun
i will not ride that scooter
on an expressway
i will not learn to delegate
my endless pain.

somedays
i feel will i always
wake up at 4 am?
to dance through
my tears
to remembered rain?

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

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