Five Poems by Amrita Valan

 

Come late Though It Is

 

Come late though it is,

October becomes me.

Ice drifts 

On 

Creamy skin 

Flaking 

Chipping away

Chiselled holdings.

 

I am mould. 

Mildewed tanned gold.

 Remoulding

To build a new me.

Again.

 

Seasonal change 

Clarity on crystal rocks 

Shining lichen engraved. 

My castle stands on these.

Foundation rock mine.

Airy aspirations yours.

 

Woven green longings. 

Winter withheld.

Cast away. Denied 

Reclusive autumn hides.

 

Brilliant blood strewn

Red leaf soggy mud. 

Leaves huddle

Trampled paste 

Of  sin sodden souls

Fermented fecundity. 

 

Saddened 

Dead-end dreams.

Desiccation of grey desolation. 

 

 

 

Autumnal Hangover

 

Crunch

Absolution 

Munches

Lunchbox of leftovers

Titbits from carnal feast 

cornucopia of youthful

transgressions and

excesses.

 

Fast is purification. 

Cleansing underfeet 

Jettison mud caked

Boots 

Upon doormat

slushy trash.

 

Purge. 

Insert catheters of catharsis.

IV drips of reflections.

Be bland. Carefree. 

 

A happy nude Botticelli.

Footloose fornicates. 

Onlookers at 

Autumnal fair

At apex of Ferris

wheel.

 

The Carnival 

consummates 

Popcorn longings.

 

Fairground clodded 

With hard heeled boots

Tramp! Slosh! 

Trap.

 

Goose Stepping over

Ruts and ravines.

 

Shell boiled peanuts,

Candy floss and popcorn.

Suck on the sauce dripping

from crisp Spring rolls.

 

Nap on the merry go round

Oblivious.

Carousels, horse stalls.

Hidden signs. 

Show and tell,

Blatant.Bodacious. 

 

Atoms of me 

Wade and drown,

Drown and wake,

In

Waves of ubiquity. 

Oblivious to opinions

Obvious in the 

Mona Lisa 

Face Of mystery.

 

No one can cure me

Of 

Autumnal hangover.

 

 

 

I Stand By Me

 

My world spun, word song 

My Götterdämmerung is

Spent yarn. 

Fun stranded shrapnels

broken beer bottles on

Empty salacious beach.

Starved seashells gaunt

Haunt curvilinear doom.

 

Panic rooms recessive dooms

Ravenous looms thread life

yarns swapping a tale or

Two, a weft here,

A warp there,

Or a solitary woof.

 

Echoing sea wind caverns

Salt drenched brine,

Declare fossil records.

Death imminent.

Immanent.

Come on. Declare.

 

Wait is done. Dare to deceive 

The big reveal.

Else I-alone. 

Then-this universe. 

Shams shamrock. Maya.

Netted nifty cast of

Master illusionist.

November throbs in my blood 

Money clanks in till.

Closed cash register. 

Going home.

Far away from here and dear.

Unknown yet.

Own.

 

Beetroots soup

Up stagnant blood. Carnal

Scarlet eye. Harlot desire.

I hold out. Wanton still against 

Frightening December chill.

I rummage. Feral ferret inside.

I desecrate pillows. Make

Love to myself. Hasty chaste

Wasted. Want not.

Gratuitous grace.

 

 

I have dug in my heels 

To be alone.To connect. 

To confirm my business.

Slippery wet Is-ness.

In this last dug out 

I take the final stand. 

 

 

 

Beginning to Like It Alone

 

To be alone is to begin.

To be alone is everything.

Everyone is vaguely me.

Everywhere is internalized.

Inside my hollow curved spaces.

I fill up with my longing. 

Me touching,

You loving.

 

Screams scrolled tight

Translucent sea shell screen.
Keening skin. 

River pierce pores.

Being beautiful is exhausting.

 

Refuel on poetry.

I read. Religious tracts.

Medieval acts. 

Barbarous facts.

New age tact.

Politically correct

Post-modernist sacrilegious pacts.

 

Frustrated profane. 

Pre menopausal acts.

Crisis of midlife blasphemes. 

 

Hilarity peaks

Passion beaten to stiff crests.

Troughs realize infolded longings.

Stamina wanes.

Chilled ardour absinthe taste.

Noir Crème de menthe. 

 

I sing like a siren banshee 

Ushering shipwrecked riches

Beyond enjoyment. 

Lighthouse conductor of seminal

Orchestra.

 

Femme fatale Mata Hari Casandra

Not Helen of Troy.

Agent and spy, No passive

Paramour or toy.

 

Lightning strikes flash floods 

Of 

Divination. Orchestration.

I am indeed

All that I can be

I am.

 

 

Heisenberg’s Autumn

 

Uncertainty is a sandwich, stale 

Meat, cradled lust  in crusty 

carbohydrate comfort. 

 

Hoarding memories. 

Honey jars

Last three thousand years

If untouched.

 

If you didn’t observe it

It didn’t happen.

 

And Light moved faster than 

thought 

both as wave

And particles.

Only 

You never knew 

which happened

Or When.

 

Dragon’s eggs lie fecund

For a millennium.

 

Money stashed in stoles and 

Shawls, saris for a 

Rainy day.

That ever comes.

 

The Squirrel gathers nuts

Forgets where it hides. 

 

Transactions Past. 

Declining  Present 

Reclining. in

Future. 

Fissile.

 

Life lingers, yearns

To be spent. 

To be exhausted.

No nest eggs for new morrows.

How much shall we borrow?

 

Time

Knight skeletal, grins,

Will tomorrow come?

Can the morning make

It on time? 

 

Meanwhile.

 

We make robust love.

Clinking in dry armoury

Skulls cascade, bones ripple 

chalk white calcium oceans, 

An arsenal.

Adonis is adored.

Helen feted.

 

For mourning's sake, rejoice. 

Awake and sashay around brutal

Palace of Sol. 

Dream-time bound duties. 

Chime on and off the hour. 

 

My hours eaten up.

My hours melting ether. 

 

Radioactivate. 

My hours, countable nouns. 

 

Let me go through the arc. 

Let me breach sunshine. 

Lathered in puerile photons

Cascaded packet of energy 

Peeling kernel from innards.

 

Those chewy residual bits

Retort.

Hell spewed shells.Bomb shelters. 

 

This is a Halloween mass,

A pumpkin eaters caveat. 

 

My hours are long due. 

Mi Casa. Su Casa now.

 

Happy hours spent. 

Protons prurient seeded 

Deeds. 

Growth and evaluation 

Structured self needs.

Amrita Valan is a writer from Bangalore, India and has a master’s degree in English Literature. She has worked in various professions, ranging from the hospitality industry, BPOs and as content creator in deductive logic and reasoning in English.

She is currently a stay-at-home mom to her two boys.

Her work has been published in many anthologies and online journals. The anthologies include, Poetica 2 and 3, To Be or Not To Be a Writer, The Poet’s Christmas Childhood and Faith anthologies, Divided: A Poet’s Stance, The Ink and the Sword, Down the Rabbit Hole, Fire and Ice, Earth Wind Rain and Fire Anthology, The ImpSpired Vol 7& 8 Anthology, The Alien Buddha Wears a Black Bandanna  among others. Her poems and stories Have featured in Spillwords, Café Lit, Café Dissensus, Shot glass Journal, Oddball magazine, Modern Literature, Indian Periodical, Potato Soup Journal, Literary Yard, Poetryand Places,  LothLorien poetry Journal and Portland Metrozine among many others.

Arrivederci, (Goodbye till we meet again),  her debut collection of fifty poems about arrivals and departures, farewells and hopes of reunion, love loss grief and recollection is published on Amazon as of  7 May 2021.