Trying
I’m trying not to be mad
I’m trying not to cry
I’m trying to keep my thoughts sorted out
I’m trying to think ahead
I’m trying not to let this kill me
I’m trying not to stare at your ghost in the corner of the house I’m staying in
Hour 3 – Prompt 3 – From the view above
Hey Angel, what do you see?
Is it a world filled with only pain?
How lucky you are to escape the negative vibes?
The Angel looked longingly at something
I asked her to share what she saw
And she said, “Oh I wish, I was on Earth”
The tides so tempting, as they come and go
A dash of blue-green, with the lace of white
It teaches how to unwind and enjoy life
The sand so golden and wet, near the shore
Happy to feel the cool touch of the waves
Maintaining their identity amidst each change
The people who are out, to bask in the sun
Beneath the shade, they watch the horizon
The adventurous ones surf on the tides
The Angel’s words reminded me of small joys
That get lost in routine and hurdles of life
(c) Vijaya Gowrisankar
COMMUNITY PROPHET
and i shout:
Choose to be clear and always visible. Working within a democracy that does not work. Forcefully creating the creative who smashes the ballot-box. Abandoning commitment in favor of life. Choose this one. Abandon that one. Revolution marks the end of this study. Submitting the masses to a mass grave. Bring forth a martyr. A different kind of hero. Quietly. Ssshhh. Reading the inscription of a proper life. Erecting monuments after the brutal beaten murder of authoritarian dictators. Nazi’s unlock Auschwitz. Troops dispatched to the mass Jewish graves. Make an anarchist in adolescent years. Romanticize commitment. Structure your reaction in all forms of rejection. Absorb my spirit into myself. From the depths of steadiness I emerge to suggest an intellectual history. Or rather, HIS-story. A method of madness to be recognized. Prewar war. Post war. War, war, war! And, in this way, we record the trials to be the roots of humanity…
Eternity, Now
Exhausted from the debate
From the not-knowing
From the never knowing —
Her questions were too much
And their answers never enough.
So
She chose to enter eternity
Sooner rather than later.
Rest, my friend.
Rest now,
And for eternity.
(for my friend N)
“Three – Choose Three Important Things”
– A Lesson –
A New Parable of the Buddha
Three mornings in a row, the Buddha sat
and sipped his tea beneath the banyan tree.
He waited for the coming of the thought
that would define this way, this life. What’s more,
his expectation was that he would know
not just the answers but the questions that
had baffled men for centuries. You see
he wasn’t born with wisdom. He was not.
But nothing came and though his mind, a store
of eagerness, cried out, he’d naught to show.
Just then a child sat by him with a toy,
Though the child smiled wide, the toy was broken.
He sat it in the sage’s lap and said,
“The only questions are the words unspoken.”
#3 At the Beach
Seeking sun and sand and salty water,
wanting all three in reach.
I took a drive to the coast,
to spend a day at the beach.
Wanting time on my own, a desire to be all alone.
I grabbed a towel, took a book, packed a yogurt and a peach.
Had it all for my day at the beach.
I nestled myself in the shade, ate the small lunch I had made.
The towel kept me from the sand, the book distracted me from the water,
the rented umbrella blocked out the sun.
It seemed that life was full of avoidance tactics, choices keeping me from my stated goal.
There I sat wanting to be alone with several hundred others who may have wanted the same.
Poem 3: Firefly
Dusk fills the darkening azure sky as the sun descends behind the horizon. The girl ceases her skipping through the field. Grass comes up to her waist as she leaps. Sitting upon a log, the boy watches as she raises her enclosed fist. He tilts his head and rests his chin on his elbow. The cool breeze rustles her copper hair, but her gaze is pointed down and not at him. And then, from within her palm, deep golden light emerges. Little dots trail out from between her fingers and float towards him. He lifts one index finger to lightly tap one of the luminescent citrine spots. The tiny insect flutters away from him on delicate, filmy wings, leaving behind a zig-zag trail of gold.
Poem 3: Eternity
Some people wonder what eternity
looks like.
I have seen it:
A squat, Mission style building,
adobe red and boxy,
huddling beneath
black, fleecy Florida clouds.
Into paneless windows
and across silent halls,
palm trees sigh breaths
no lungs will ever know.
Torches seethe outside,
less tiki and more gaslight,
hissing at wandering spirits
that flicker in and out
of oily shadows.
Fat and yellow,
the moon rages,
too bright for its size,
too small for its significance,
too important for its function.
It does not know it merely reflects,
an echo of what was,
passive and impotent
like the spirits
lurching through eternity.
In response to this image:
2- Nights to Recall
This night, as the air is dark
The house sits still and I go back
I’m back on the street with you
Tears are soaking my face
You pull me in for one last kiss
And you leave.
That night, as I was alone
The house seemed to crush me, no breath
I cried you a river
Ate chocolate ice cream alone
It hits me like a wall that you’re gone
This is it.
All those nights, as I tossed and turned
The house cold and hallow, my heart pained
I wanted o forget you, yet, hold you
Everyday a struggle to keep busy
To be happy and live without you
I just can’t.
This night, as the air is dark
The house sits still and you wake me
I’m in the bed, next to you
Your heavy breath familiar and safe
I rest my head on your chest
You are mine.
Eternity Now
Eternity Now
Darkness emits its own light
Pregnant in the womb of eternity
Self-luminous life now
Traverses its destiny
Consuming time itself
Resolutely … absolutely
Death is certain
For the grassroots are ripe
And smaller hopes destroy bigger hopes.
Hour 3
@varenyas