I asked my inner writer,
Is your prose poetic?
Or your poetry prosaic?
And my inner writer asked me,
Are you traditional with modern values?
Or are you modern with traditional values?
Are you an introvert who loves to express?
Or an extravert who loves silences?
Are you an optimist who sees the clouds?
Or a pessimist who sees rainbows?
Are you thoughtful with some light-hearted ways?
Or humourous with some sober ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on it went.
I'll never ask my inner writer
About writing
Again.
-Vijayalakshmi Harish
24.09.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

I look like a badly stuffed cushion gone thread bare

as I pile on the weight and lose my hair

but as long as you love me I don't care

Greek gods arent as loved as an old teddy bear

The moon was my mistress tonight. She offered me light when it was needed, and never was it too harsh as the sun, that gaseous blimp in the morning and evening sky. His conceit to reveal his ostentatious rays were unlike the moon who looked so beautiful in her silver linen of light and her drapes of dark clouds overlapped each other in a silken pattern. Her black and silver cloth combined to create shapes of known and unknown animals.

The animals flew to cover her face momentarily covering her true beauty only to reveal that extraordinary face surrounded by sparkling gems like a goddess that could rival Aphrodite. It was not until I examined closely that I saw those few blemishes on her face. Those dark spots located in a spontaneous order, but it only added further to her beauty. It was in her imperfections that she rivaled the illusion of Aphrodite. With her flaws, she symbolized true beauty by having the ability to reveal her disfigurements and still remain the most beautiful heavenly body.

The moon’s light came down to reveal only the bare essentials of the earth. She allowed enough light to see, but not to examine the other beauties of the planet. It was almost like she demanded the attention after living in the shadow of the sun quite literally.

The sky seemed to be so dark and uninviting in comparison to the moon. It was like staring into the eyes of an apathetic killer. It held the moon gently as a father would. My mistress was suspended in the sky. She floated above the earth gracefully held by the sky’s imposing body.

The sky stood by her side as a defender, almost daring me to approach her and giving me an impending doom that would fall upon me. Perhaps, Chicken Little dared to look upon the moon and that is when the sky fell on him.

My mistress revealed the world in a monochromatic fashion allowing for fantasies of old drive-in movies and black onyx set in pearl. The trees were silent in such a night, and not a single sweep of wind came to disrupt the sleeping trees. My mistress demanded total respect for this night which only occurred every thirty days.

Her peerless body wrapped in dark silk, the moon glided across the night sky as if she had all the time in the world, and she did. She would not allow anything less from her subjects. She would not allow her few moments of glory to be taken from her.

Even the smallest of creatures honored the moon’s enchanting presence. They dared not move nor buzz nor hum. They sat and meditated on the spell that the moon had placed on them. They had desired to become as I was. They wanted to be one with the moon as I was, for she guided me in the darkest of nights, and would never forsake me when I needed her.

It was then that the sky began to ripple. The moon began to dance and the stars were a chorus line. Her face smiled at me once final time through the mirror of the water. She knew that I thought I was not worthy to see her face-to-face. The connection was finally interrupted. I had become as those small creatures and once again the wind swept through the world.

Words are a fickle thing.
They claim those faint of heart,
Destroying those heathenish men,
Who dare try to control the world
Through the power of words.
Those who try are instantly conquered
By the omniscient dictionary,
Destroyed by their constant use of a thesaurus,
And taken over by attempting mimicking another man’s voice,
Instead of trying to find their own.

They fail because they write for the wrong reasons.
They fail because of their selfishness.
They fail because they want fame.
They fail because their words are…
Lifeless….
Hopeless...
Stubborn…
Their words refuse to conform to their ideas.
Their words punish their minds with sleepless nights,
Over their horrid word choice.
Crush their dreams with metaphor upon metaphor.
Win over their imaginations by continuous simile stacking.
Imagine if you would,
Attempting to perform heart surgery,
With a sledge hammer,
While a hungry lion is in the room,
And you’re in your underpants.
That is the challenge that these miserly men face
When they sit at their desks, with their pens twirling,
And their minds racing, asking why their characters
Are like puppets with no puppeteer.
Why their poems have no reason.
Why their words truly have no power.

When you write, think not about what you want to accomplish.
Don’t think about what will make people stir.
Think about what you feel.
Feel your heart pound and your soul quake.
When your words make you want to dance,
That’s when you know that you wrote something worthwhile.
Because it made sense to you, someone else will feel it.
Someone else will know exactly what you mean.
Always remember that your first draft comes from the heart.

I see the world uninterrupted
A split second to you
Becomes years for me
I cannot blink
I see things you choose to ignore
I'm a man with no eyelids
I see things you cannot see
I can't shut out the world that disturbs me
One bad day separates you from me