Glowpowrimo 30

prompt for #day30 for #glopowrimo, 

Examine the breadth of poetry you have written and find those crutches. acknowledge them, articulate their significance in your life and writing, and craft a poem using this word bank that captures the universal or meta concepts of your reasoning for writing, giving each a purpose beyond repetition.”

Exploiting all my personal weaknesses.

Big words, foreign words, Fringe science, exotic colours, hysteria the works

Rich tapestries of emotion

Woven into lavish cashmeres

Opulent Afghans 

Embroidered affectation

They're too rich

Too ornate

Yet I revel in

The medley of colours

Soft cerulean blues

Remind me of the sky over 

Dal lake

Ivory green 

Reminiscent of meadows

Of Bengal in afternoon sun

Vermilion red of wide eyed bride

Serpentine gray rivers of pensive meditation

My carpet of dreaming melancholy

Draped on Deadwood floor.

Give me another time

Another distant clime

Spacetime warped reality

Where honeycomb visions

Of mosaic dreams

Lay to rest

ghosts and apparitions.

Give birth to fecund notions.

Lolling about in green hued light

Of emerald glass

Silver sky overhead

Slate greys of deliquescent lake

Reflections of magic memories

In Calypso glades.

And le homme bleu

The ornery ghoul

From Mulholland drive

Creeps under my door tonight

Shall I be captured

Trapped in time's tinsel box

Shall magical trust in courage

My soul unlock?

All these various threads

My magic carpet weaves

Je fais rever
des rêves tels que ceux-ci.
(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glowpowrimo 30 First one

Glowpowrimo 30 :The first one that was suggested by Amit.
Shall also attempt the one Lucas  and Orooj  suggested after this one...

(4) Write a humorous poem that has serious depth.

My first love was early on
I was thirteen
Boys were Slugs.
Dirt bags.
An incomprehensible species
Who made love to cricket balls
With bats and endlessly jabbered
About scores and innings.

So when I glimpsed an
eighteen year old footballer
In black leather jacket
And happily enough, rimless glasses
I just couldn't take my eyes away.

He validated my interest.
By possessing a deep voice
And crisp clear enunciation.
That he was not just good-looking
Made me preen at my own
Perspicacity.

Oddly enough, his elegant mother
Had been my daddy's
First Love too.
Unceremoniously rejected
For an athletic type.
But. 
That's another story.

They had become good friends since.
Hence tea and breakfast at their place.

Now even funnier still,
The exact moment  I gave away my heart
Was when he looked deep into my eyes
Rimless glasses magnifying the
Intensity of  romance...
And said with utter conviction,
"Eat your omelette."

Sigh....This boy, man child kept me happily occupied in spare hours
Of my teenage life.

Though he never suspected it.
I was steadily dating him till sixteen.
In strictest secrecy, in fact,
Even without his knowledge.

In dreams fantasies and midnight confidences to a few good friends
We lived vicariously.
It was a fair exchange.

At sixteen, I heard he had got divorced.

But his dauntless brave heart was not
Stymied.
He was pursuing another.
He brought her over
For my brother and me
To appraise,
Give the once over.

That didn't work out too.

And then the next...

That's when he decided
I was old enough to be
His confidante..

At my confessional,
He professes  eternal undying love
For her.

And said,
Piping icing on the cake,
"If only you had been my girlfriend,
You would have realized what deeply
Devotion I am capable of.."

I melted into his puppy dog eyes
But my mind was aware
Of the irony...
And Flexed mental fists
At him.

The next news flash
My brother delivered
Was his second divorce.
From some would be rock chick.

"...A charming humbug..."
My brother summed up
The love of my life
With an indulgent grin.
Glib Translation:Men
Will be Men.

But Kudos to Big brother
For finally breaking us up.
In my solitary mind of course.

I pondered.. and realized
Charming humbug was just apt.
But I needed wanted
Had prayed for a hero.

Just then, our then house guest,
The charming humbug,
popped a sleek head out of
The guest bathroom.

In perfectly modulated plummy voice
He shattered my soft dreams
For good.

"...Darling would you fetch me the black collared tee with orange piping?...
It's in my overnighter."
He crooned.

Since then
I have shamelessly followed
The trail of broken hearts
He left in his wake
But steadfastly shooed him
Away from my dreams.

I couldn't afford
A wardrobe malfunction.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 29

(3) Write a poem on the theme "saudade". Saudade is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present. It is not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness. It differs from nostalgia in that one can feel saudade for something that might never have happened.

I found that the Portuguese actually celebrate Saudade day on 30 January.

My kind of people.

Shy sweet diffident

Caring and pure

Sensitive ever aware

She was loved yet, 

Somewhat closer to the door

Than the inner chambers

Of our blessed family circle.

Why?

Fatherless at thirteen,

flawless beauty

A tad too well educated

For her designated duty

A middle class Bengali

Bride to be

As soon as her widowed  mother

Could find a suitable boy.

We don't have debutante balls

At least not back then

When we only aped the west

In baking cakes and puddings.

More's the pity, law of nature dictates

A pretty face is coveted, suitors abounded, her beauty was just budding.

Things didn't end so prettily for her.

She hadn't been brought up to bend

Her instrument was deemed too fine

Strung up taut

Like her violin or sitar.

So humble in self assessment

So proud in dignity and family heritage.

The boy's mother declined.

The suitor honour bound  pressed his suit,

A tad lukewarm. 

She shivered in disgust

Her fine antennae shuddered in mistrust.

Not until your mother accepts

She checked out of his life.

She left.

 To meet her 

One true love

Her Father.

The only man

Who kept the faith.

She was my beautiful aunt.

She was and is

My visceral saudade.

I keep seeing her shadow

Cross me by

In corners of 

Ancient heartbreak.

Like light borne

On luminiferous ether..

And my oh my

How I smile 

Like I could die

Teeth gnashing the skulls

Of agony

Whiplashing my cheeks

For being a thoughtless

Child.

Remembering the memories

Our childish parodies

Of serious Tagore songs

How we would choke back giggles

Tears running down our eyes

You don't know the gift you had

Till it's gone.

She is Alone.

Knowing her, she is 

Stuck at the threshold of

Heaven's door 

Waiting for a sign.

I hope my grandfather

Holds her in his arms

Clasps the gem

He treasured.

Sweet dreams 

Pretty lady

Though on hard floor 

You made your bed

Pillaged your own beauty

With pills your pain allayed.

Three days your rotting corpse

Closed doors and windows

Alone surveyed

Aunty too hard...

That last lonely bed.

Come back as 

Loving daughter

Or a vivacious niece

Though in this life

You're cold instead.

My eyes that were

Too hard and dry

You gifted them tears by and by

You shattered my

World of cold intellect

My pride in utter self containment

You proved to me the lie

My austere refusal to cry.

 Missing you 

Memories old and blue

And memories new 

That would never be made

Wondering what may have been

If an aunty adored could have 

Found in me, a friend?

...

But no, 

Your gift was to die.

Your gift was goodbye.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 28 revised.

Glopowrimo 28
(2) Take a line or two from your favourite work and write a poem of your own continuing from there. After you finish the poem, rewrite the opening lines on your own.

For in and out, above, about, below,
Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Played in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

Omar Khayyam

"....For in and out, above, about, below,
Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Played in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go..."

Our parents strangers and birth but a dream
A forced descent as we arrive with a scream, 
Life a controlled trajectory around the sun
Glued to Earth, the vale of tearful streams

Caged and aged by gravity,  our eyes
Turn their gaze
Oh to be free of Time's tyranny in an infinite space,
Duties and responsibilities tasks and travails
Earth is a hard relentless place.

Trapped in a globe with opaque skies
Our dreams portend blind reality's lies
We are fish in a stagnant bowl
Round and round we. swim but no shore espy.

The mind seeks answers the heart holds hope
Towards truth we ever blindly grope
Alas today's truth is but tomorrow's lie
Divine purpose beyond our narrow human scope.

Oh to travel close to the speed of light
In a nanosecond see day change to night
To connect the farthest points of emptiness
To know tis all but a cunning trick of sight.

For...in and out....above...about...below
Blindsided by daylight's dazzling show
Played in an universe which outraces light
No Meaning, No Salvation, no Creator takes our bow.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 16

Day16 April16th #GloPoWriMo
Prompt: take a part of you that died,walk us through how it came to be,and left you.mourn it,miss it,write it back into your existence.

Nothing ever really dies
For everything
Comes out of nothing.

Nothingness
Is potential
And potential sets this stage.

Action
Inaction.

Imagination
Reality

Action Reaction.

Growth isn't progress.

Capacity to absorb
Assimilate
Failure is.

We can tweak it around
So much so
The world hails it as success.

Hope died
When I gave up
On life.

Wasn't the other way around.

Stealthy sure footed thief
Ambition
Detested my Pollyanna notions.

Took away a few things
Somethings nothings
Everything.

It's inner space that counts.

Inside me
Matter annihilated
By anti matter.
Worth by
Banality.

Funny how things just
Pop in vacuum.

Bubble universes
Tawdry dreams
Tepid tragedies
Noone can see.

Strangest of all
A time, a season for
Everything.

A few decades later
I pulled myself up
By my bootstraps.

Deciding
If Hope
Was not to be
I take thee
Anti hope,
Despair.

And weave out
Cautionary tales
Snake ladders
To survival.

Since then
Nothing much has happened.

A few broken sparrows adopted
Christened, iin due course
set free.

To fly out of my ken
Put my lack of wings
To shame.

But when wings were broken
Beating hearts brought
Beaten wings
To my window.

Beaten by life.
Transformed.

Broken hearts,
Broken wings
Are  the same
Beautiful things.

Fragile porcelain
Treasures.
Glued together with love.

Nectar churned out
From poison
Beyond measure.

Yes.
Something came out
Of my nothingness.
My defeat.
Loss of courage
Loss of hope
Loss of self esteem
Vision and confidence.

Acceptance.
Indomitable steel.
Zest.
Existence.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

The Sea

The sea.
(pardon my weird poems)

The sea is saffron
Like blood sacrifice
The sky blue sky
Makes me wanna die
The wind is chilled
Like soda pop
Let curtain death
Upon me drop.

The ground is glass
It's grounded glass
It cuts the strings of my shoes
And heart.
The road is a mirror
Of metallic blue
It tells me what I gotta do
Crash me darling
Into absinthe crimson hues.

The sun is sparkly
Like a chortling babe
CeeBeebee days
Are back again

In the night garden
Of this cosmic dream
I hear unpetalled flowers scream
Turns out they're stars
Binary beings!

The radio blossoms
It croons and moans
Like a bakelite flower
in an appliance store
it sings Lady Gaga
walk out the pretty
swing doors.
Its Eden on earth
its yesterday once more.

The coffin crumbles
wafer of ashes and earth
my brittle body now
smells like dirt.
my tongue elongates
like Kali's Shame
feet first I lie
The china rose sighs
mother
when shall I see you again?

in a dream
a broadcast requiem
i hear replies
of ghosts in the wind
i hear melodies elegaic refrain
we will meet
again
only
I will be the flower in
ypur pretty bower
and you Will be
a rosy maiden
for an hour.

we flit and float and fly.
Till in ashen dust we lie.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 9 Calm before the storm

Glopowrimo 9

Calm before the Storm

Quiet sober and silent
I'm waiting working out
Things in my head
Trying for solutions
To your decision
To non cooperate.

I who used to raise hell
Bite off the heads of  bullies
Am silenced by your sluggishness
Your apathetic matter of fact venom.

Your bite is fatal

Your bark is subtle.

I am defeated by oblique ambushes
Grinning guerilla warfare.

I wait.

I maintain calm.

I pray.

I cry.

I meditate.

I die.

Each day.
A bit of me
In the gutters
And cesspools of
Self esteem lies

And my confidence,
Daily dies.

But I'm not sure why
I am still alive.

I'm not sure why.
A defiant damsel inside me
Says I must try.

I just cannot die.

I will not.
Tolerate your lies.

Not anymore
Will you prick out
My  hapless gore.

I am now the eye of a
Ominous Tsunami
I am Ill fated
Untimely
But I will strike
Your shores
When you least
Expect me.

Perhaps you're swatting
Ants at the picnic
On your pristine plot
Of private beach
Full of pride
In property and righteous
Piety.

But you don't know
The calm deception
I have kept frozen
In chilled larders of revenge,
For your sweet consumption.

Doled it out daily
In bitter doses
With eyes glazed, open,
Staring like sin
Full of faux contrition.

Now bow low and deep and pray
A calm before the storm
Were your Glory days
Of crushing me
Like an ant at
Your picnic.

Before this night is out
My fury will take you
You won't get a second chance
Save your last tarantula dance
Three flashing strikes
Like lightning bolt
I will smite.

Annihilation
Total Destruction
Your extinction
The end of this game
My stormy signature
Underneath your name.

(c) Amrita Valan 2018

Glopowrimo 9 Calm before the storm