when is a work of art not just a work of art?

at what point does it stop
being only a thing of beauty
and transform-
the self
the society
the Universe
                                                                when does it transcend the real
                                                                and become something magical
                                                               helping one fall through –
                                                               the rabbit hole
                                                                the wormhole
                                                                the black hole
                                                                                                                                      when does it become
                                                                                                                                     an unstoppable force
                                                                                                                                     and cause –
                                                                                                                                     a revolution
                                                                                                                                     an evolution
                                                                                                                                     an absolution


                              and at which moment does  it make you stop in your tracks
                                                          stop breathing and exclaim
                            “Gar Firdaus, ruhe zamin, hamin asto, hamin asto, hamin ast!”

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
   05.01.2013
  Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish,

She can be my Juliet, her heart is my prize.
Save me from myself but lead to my demise.
Ill be her Romeo, more or less I suppose.
Ill die for her, if that's the way that it goes.
Our love is forbidden, shunned by our surrounding persons.
But without my girl, the pain only worsens.
So ill take a stab, straight into my beating heart
If it means, in the end, we never see need to part.

I may seem so heavenly in all the things I say
The words that fly with silken wings may chase your gloom away
But I, in all, tell lies of love, for I've found not one that lasts
So I apologize to you for poems of the past
Tears fall continually into the pen with which I write my words
Manipulating romantic tendencies so I may somehow be heard
But even the most vile demon can speak words of honeydew
But all you'll find is with those words they run off to hell with you
So look at me beyond this shell and say those three words again
And if you find they are sincere, I will stay until the end
But until my scribblings on this paper turn to played-out verbs
Beware of me and of promises, for they may be only words...

Sometimes I drink,
to numb the pain
Or to feel something outside
of the murky, grayish
lonely ticking
That replaced my heart’s beating

But the funny thing is,
and always seems to be
When I drink to make you foggy
you just become more in focus
While your sorry, belligerent
excuses replay in my head

Over and over
until I’m forced to forget
my reasons for hating you
and join you in bed.

Oh, man how I enjoy the pain.
I'm craving the burn.
I want my turn.
Come on, put your body into it.
I want to bruise.
If not you, I'll do it myself.
These scares are so pretty.
And I am burning.
It stands for knife.
Cut deep into me.
Thank you, mind.
Thank you, life.

I manipulated hearts today-
Without guilt I was in control
and it felt good.

With my own hands
I cut them,
With my own hands
I felt them,
With my own imagination
I twisted them until they fit just right.
Just like placing stars in
the magic of the night.

I cut out paper hearts today,
Twenty four of them.
It all seemed perfect,
One heart for every hour-
In a day,
That we're apart.

I moved them,
The hearts,
And shaped them-
And spread them apart,
Like time zones between here,
And Australia.

If only there wasn't a time zone bewteen us,
If only there wasn't your destiny and mine-
If somehow these hearts could beat together;
The rhythm to a love song-
But they cannot...

They're paper thin
hoping to win,
The hands of someone
to hold them.

The sheets lay in a disarray as I attempt to make my writing real
"Like mountains," she told me, "Like the deer on those mountains gasping
for your body and his to blanket the trees during the first snow in November."
And the warmth faded over five months ago. Seven, if we're being precise.
I want my sentences to end sharply as I send you and the car over a cliff.
Put a stone on the pedal and give it a swift kick.
Stand there, wind in my hair, a smile on my lips.
Whisper while it's followed with the warmth of the breeze
singing "I'll burn it all down before everything leaves.
I'll set fire to the houses and the people and the trees."
And you. You are the flame that never burns dry,
the oxygen part of the air in the sky. You are
the water that refuses to drown me. Sung, you
are the earth under my feet.