pain
is
an
unusual
gift –
it
helps
appreciate
pleasure
better -
i
hope
for
healing

-Vijayalakshmi Harish
   03.01.2013
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

the night is my truest love
come to life. The lullabies
soothe like the shallow stream
rounds the sharp pebbles
therapeutically. Your mouth
now the extension of the curve
that begins on my own and
then becomes aflame.
i am not yet dead and cold –
but I am steeled
the darkness is the furnace
that has forged me.  the floor
a peaceful mother of pearl.
the silence a lover
that appeases my nerves.

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
   03.01.2013
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

and the poet said to the mountaineer
don’t look at the peak
as a goal to be conquered
look at it instead
as a loved one to be adored
and explored
and it shall be yours
forever

- 03.01.2013
        Vijayalakshmi Harish
       Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

distended the pearls are red and uncovered
upon my mistakes. erasure taunts.

something stirs unbidden strangely
familiarity dissolves in tears

suddenly distant the sun streaks
through the black waves

nothing works anymore

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
         02.01.2013
        Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

the night has spurned me
the moonlight descends
in a mockery
of tones unheard
voices whisper in my head
they float as comic bubbles
over the sleepy town
your mouth opens
in a yawn and ends
as a chasm into which I fall
the darkness is a refrigerator
freezing everything still
the whiteness of the floor
a jarring ice. I cannot
put my foot down
the silence so heavy
it drags my eyelids

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
02.01.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

using the ink of experience means
leaning on what is known
building on what has been done before-
but what of those things
that move in the realms of the unknown?

The Inuit’s tongue speaks
A hundred words for snow
as in the midst of it
they live and grow

if that is true
for the words we speak
wouldn’t it also flow
that for the passions we most feel
our inner vocabulary is more?

for sure I’ve known
loss and pain
with morbidity had
a mild flirtation
sadness has been a bedfellow
I’ve played with jealousy
and envied greed
with vanity I often meet
I’ve been intimate with fear
fought with guilt
and broken up with anger

with love I’m best friends
happiness smiles at me
in solitude i am at my best
with mirth and joy
i search for peace
abundance and acceptance
are welcome guests
and enthusiasm brings me
the gift of zest

and so on and so forth
i’ve known them all
for better or for worse
but what of those
i know not yet
far away on some distant shore

i do not even know their names
so clueless as to their identity
can’t put a face to any of them
unaware of their personalities
strangers they are
and so will they be
until someday they find me

the only question that is left to be answered -

will I know them when we meet?

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
01.01.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

The conch poked and prodded bursts
Into multicolored fragments
Startling the gulls into
Bewildered flight

The beach cakes my insides
Hand and foot and head and heart
In the sun’s heat it turns to glass
Splinters tear my mask

Loneliness fits like a glove
It rubs like sandpaper
On my sense of self and us
Gradually we erode

Ideas like octopus arms
Multitudinous waves forth
But are concealed by
their own black inky mist

the waves rise and fall
unaware and unconcerned
but we too frail too unimportant
in the larger scheme of things

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
01.01.2013
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish