"metamorphose" poems
Familiar voices blur
and dissolve
In the cauldron of time.
Distant and Distorted
the fumes rise
and metamorphose into
Animals with Masks.
Pull them off! Rip them!
Expose their naked monstrous faces
They run for cover.
One old witch
predicts success
Another fame
And a third- fortune
I lose myself
in the past and the future;
the present- a suspended moment
That does not exist.
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Aug 12, 2012
Aug 12, 2012 at 10:00 AM UTC
You say I've changed
Into something I can't recognise
Yet still I wage
War on your cold scathing eyes
So tell me who
The predator or the prey?
You look into the mirror
And see everyday
True colours are but shades
Wearing them like an effigy
Plastic, like make believe tales
Is this who I'm meant to be?
Jul 11, 2021
Jul 11, 2021 at 1:17 PM UTC
Dear Florence,
I remember the day I first saw you. I swear that is the only time I ever believed in ‘love at first sight’. You were as calm as the meditating soul. Your passing wind soothed my beating heart.
In that first ride to my new house, I knew. I knew you were going to be my home. I knew you would mend all of my aching slits, stitch after stitch. Each day you bestowed me with a new beautiful day to inspire me, to metamorphose me, even more poetically than the phoenix rising from its ashes.
I knew, one day, I would say goodbye. Chasing your dreams can sometimes be a painful journey. I knew leaving you would shatter my soul into little pieces, strewed all around your streets and alleys and piazzas and bridges. But dear Florence, you deserve so much more than my little-scattered pieces.
As I say goodbye, pondering over the Santa Trinita bridge, I become forever yours. The joys you have given me, the memories of which will wander along through all my journeys. My sorrows, the memories of the flowing Arno river will always wash away.
So, as I leave this place, I request you to take care of me. For ‘the me as I know it’ has become ‘the me as I knew it’. I am leaving behind this version of me for it is only in your shadows did she glow bright. Let your pink skies continue to set away all my anxieties. Let your rising blues continue to give me hope. Let the shining gold, always guide my heart home, just like the Duomo always guides us in its warm embrace. Let your ringing bells, help me rise every time I stumble. Let your art, keep my imagination flowing and let your symmetry create order in my life. Let your changing skies give me strength and inspire me to never stop, come what may.
Take care of me when I am gone. Just like you have over the past year.
Forever yours,
The girl who never really left.
Oct 28, 2018
Oct 28, 2018 at 10:04 AM UTC
Ascent
The narrow passage arched over the gaping river
like a gymnast vaulting backwards,
gracing the ground with open palms.
I began to climb--
beleaguered on both sides
by insecure concrete obstructions;
I diverted my attention to the ascending road ahead.
I continued to climb,
like a slowly chugging roller coaster,
meekly scaling up the track
with subdued anticipation.
I sunk into the road;
the sky merged with my pseudo-perpetual path, forming the offing--
where it seemed the road ran eternally into the heavens.
I saw blue reach into black in the late afternoon's
fading visage.
Summit
Gliding over the mountainous ****
I stared over the horizon
where the sun was neatly tucked
under the trees--
silhouetted against the dusky sky,
looking like fingers reaching up into the void,
accumulating like earthly pillows to a heavenly face glowing brightly.
I watched a murky blue dip into a wet grass'd green,
then a traffic cone orange,
followed by the passionate (infra)red of two lovers' entwined,
climaxing in a jaundiced yellow--
tucked neatly like a layer of film
atop the silhouetted landscape.
Descent
I wished I had
descended the adret
of my ascension's perceived perpetual offing,
rather than this gritty one--
to dip into the horizon,
where I would metamorphose
into a dazzling array of colors;
feeling myself slowly fade away
into the impending night sky.
Tucked away for another day,
sleeping under the stars,
in the fingertipped forests
now obliquely reaching into their absent luminescence
but relishing the cool night air--
silently waiting for light
to soon again
breach their gloomy shells.
[Enlightenment lingered within the visions of my ascension--
I danced with its transient spirit at the summit--
to be decimated as the car lurched downward into mortality.
I saw what could be as I moaned into the
fading afternoon's dipping colors.
Who knew the descent was the hardest part of humanity?]
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
How Strange.
You long for change,
but you are loath to redo.
And thus, loathe yourself.
And this loads on you,
on your coarse course.
Preventing the Metamorphose,
and forces you
into your torturous fortress.
A cocoon,
that protects against monsoons
but not the typhoon raging inside,
waking Typhon,
and blowing out
Prometheus's fire.
Oh how Oedipus Wrecks
the tedious good
until spiritless.
But never hopeless
Pandora's box is open
but Sparta's soldiers
will close it and guide you
from Tartarus to Olympus
and change, you will.
Shed your mortal grossness
for immortal happiness.
No common sense
that this recklessness
has consequences
When you do realize
What the Fates's foretold
it will be too late.
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 6:48 PM UTC
Undisguised not camouflaged
Standing out, A bright sun
in the blue sky stars hidden
within go unnoticed by the
Indifferent world Trapped
in their own cocoon of delusions
Unable Unwilling to metamorphose
to the beauty of kindred nature
into a free fall spiraling down
into the mundane
Illusion of Solid crust
beneath which the turbulent
molten lava flows
sometimes bursting out
yet another times causing
Tsunami and tremor
And yet the indifferent world
lays blinded by floodlights of duty
warming blanket of empathy
shredded by scissors of hate
buried within the grave yard
under the tombstone of misery
The different who rise up
from time to time are consumed
by the indifferent
like a flash of lighting absorbed
by the indifferent earth as storms
of war thunder around in dusky
skies and innocent plants take refuge
in purging rains only to be flooded
out into the indifferent sea of documentaries
only to make a trickle of frozen blood flow through
the chambers of tranquil heart
and indifferent yet try to contribute
subduing the thorny vines of growing guilt
by a click of like or share or Tweet
Sometimes the silent song
is heard through the sonorous
souls within mind and winds
of change blow nucleating through
an idea propagating through words
symbols of art hitting the conscience
and arise the single conscious crowd
not the raging temporary mob
new sprouts of generation rise up
through the barren land
and art forms inherently provide
what people need dragging from
the oblivion of what people want?
as bright illusion of illumination
is smoldered through enlightening
darkness as indifference transforms
into glowing luminous flowers of empathy
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
I am a ragdoll stuffed with two-cent cotton imitation in a factory in China.
My arms and legs moved by hands seen through mismatched button eyes.
my only desire is to be like other dolls: Barbies, Polly Pockets. Big eyes and plastic bodies.
My pills come in a bottle like a gumball machine, dispensing one brightly colored sphere at a time.
Pills to make me, like them.
The artificial emotion seeping into my veins.
Sweating out my pores.
Plastering smiles on my face, and ironing rainbow patches behind my eyes.
A giant sugar-coated crutch shoved under my armpit.
Force-fed lying happiness.
Here comes the choo-choo into the tunnel.
I am a cat eating grass to make itself *****
I want to move my own ragdoll arms, sit up without a metal pole behind my back.
I want a straight line stitched on my face so I can choose to make it go down.
Or up,
Or diagonal,
Or shed my potato-sack skin and metamorphose into a trumpet.
With freedom to resound over mountaintops,
Dribble liquid gold from my singing mouth.
But I am a ragdoll.
Whose head is stuffed with two-cent cotton imitation on a factory floor in China.
Whose only desire is to be real.
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 9:43 PM UTC
"There is an appointed time for everything, /
A time for every activity /
under the heavens;" /
—Ecclesiastes 3: 1 (NWTSE) /
A season has departed, /
A season has begun, /
The Circle of Life continues, /
A legacy remains undone. /
The gauntlets I have transcended, /
Have diamonded my soul; /
Therefore, I offer this solemn petition /
Knowing the fight remains to be won. /
In time, there will be tribulations /
But this heart stands adamantine, /
These eyes remain dauntless, /
My spirit is forevermore unphased. /
A time of self- (re) discovery /
Has burgeoned anew, /
We will all metamorphose /
If we look to the future bemused. /
Your potentialities are enormous; /
Together, we are a fulgurant storm. /
Rise, rise, young stalwarts /
You are a Spark of The Divine. /
The experiential cascade is perpetual, /
Incessantly persevere, /
May wisdom inhabit each one of us, /
May we each forsake not to love. /
A chrysalis has unraveled /
Diaphanous wings have been borne, /
Doubt not inviolable beauty /
Always, abides in the light. /
(—Se' lah)
07-18-2021
Jul 18, 2021
Jul 18, 2021 at 4:47 PM UTC
If only he knew how much I wanted---
To be beside him.
To look intently in his eyes,
until all the words left unspoken inside my heart metamorphose into million tears.
So that he'll know how much I wanted---
To be
The girl he wishes to care for
The lady he prays to marry someday
And the woman he will love to cherish, to dream with,
to hold and to adore
someone he'll want to grow old with
Until all the breath we have in us is gone.
So that he'll know how much I wanted---
To be.
But I know this is only me,
who longs for him
to love me.
Jan 29, 2015
Jan 29, 2015 at 4:04 AM UTC
One inane cyst on the heel of this once beautiful planet,
Us parasitic worms slowly deflate our ballon of necessity; oblivious to the destruction.
In our absence this terrible moth could cacoon and metamorphose
Into a wonderful creature, and return to how it once was.
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 6:23 PM UTC
We came from the rain,
Into ourselves out of body,
Kissing— still dripping.
Dec 12, 2014
Dec 12, 2014 at 11:20 PM UTC
Troglodytism. get betwixt thy cave **** rats. amass!!! beyond the wooded canvas of life.
and lay beside thy corpse of agony
in the pits of all foul'd demon beknownst to thou's angst.
there lay the chalice of life.
Oh to lay in the darkness'
o' to bask in the decadence of no light.
Anti heat
forth go ye unto distraction.
To over sensual
to photopic cancer
all bio centric failure that reveals itself in the concord of vestige
only one
only one who's skin, brines to salt. Only one who's writhed on the depth of the cave
sub terrain.
Becoming convoluted
with ulcers. In the brain.
Stomach
esophagus.
Till veins squelch the blood from oxygen as gills. Sea water.
till muscle over sinews, Myomeres.
till acts of mycotic deprecations elude your own grey. Destruction.
And sap what is left
the bends corrode all health.
You eek out a full metabolism.
You finish all hopes with each loathsome meal intake.
death.
Oysters take over.
They create their home
shell of man.
Disabled to a merman, made, morose.
Barnacles infest recesses,
chasms that held mountains of bountiful moral.
Filled till bursting in the case fit for a brain,
but these ocean vermin walk the tightropes of this goblins neural bag.
Tearing each synapse.
Like the innards of a necrotic recluse.
I am the dying vagabond of the ocean.
Finally succumbing to its ethereal pitch covered floor,
where no reflections mourn for me
and ghost wail me no remorse,
as I metamorphose.
Into, detritus.
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 1:23 PM UTC
*I want to do a movie-marathon,
Running from morning til noon to midnight.
Watch all the saddest movies ever filmed.
Or spend this day reading stories, novels, proses.
All told by broken souls, fueled by heartaches.
'Til all these pain metamorphose and birthed into tears.
'Til all these hurt goes away along with this release.
For,
I am growing tired of saying "It's okay. I'm fine."
Enough of the lies!
Those lines..
It kept me from being human,
For it suppress
the cries,
the screams,
the state of fragility.
It kept me from feeling weak,
from being vulnerable.
And,
I need to hear your voice, to soothe my restless soul.
I need to feel your hands holding mine, making me feel that i am not alone.
I need to see that look in your eyes, penetrating inside me,
reviving embers of my being
that is slowly drifting away.
I need to...
Oh please!
I need you.
Anything you can offer to take away this emptiness.
***Until I can see I.
Until I can hear me.
Until I can feel and be myself again.**
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 10:48 AM UTC
Thoughts fester and wallow in retrospection
Regret reclines upon your left shoulder
Gloom unforgiving sits upon your right
Prodigious and ever bolder
Attired in the colors of the night
Vacant is the once brilliant soul
It's path freely chosen
Ah unwelcoming heart bloodless and morose
Once pulsating with love and life now infinitely frozen
Indeed it becomes you
As glittering tomorrows metamorphose into yesterdays
Anger devours the futile effort
To unburden one's self of taunting shades
No words of this world shall relay to that which awaits
The unwavering constant confusion
When the moon grows dark on the wane
When Regret at leisure sits upon your left hand
Gloom hushed and brooding
Convenes with melancholy upon your right
Come the watching murmuring somber shadows
Provoking madness in the mind.
All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby July 27, 2017.
Jul 22, 2017
Jul 22, 2017 at 7:47 PM UTC
Metamorphose me
into stylistically arranged
harmonies,
leaping off
the paper plane musical scores,
soaring away
like a child's imagination.
Oct 2, 2012
Oct 2, 2012 at 8:42 AM UTC
I’ve been taken captive by an infinitely lasting quandary; my life.
Time has revealed to me the fallacious nature of my conception.
Every blemish, stain, transgression on this once innocent and immaculate vessel pervades into the red blood cells coursing through my veins.
A smoky haze has befallen me from the clouds above; I am shrouded in murk and obscurity.
I can no longer see my way out of delirium and oblivion seems imminent during this seemingly perpetual moment.
Flying high above the clouds, the Lord has seen my distress.
Tacit supplications have led me to rebirth; I plea for repentance; I beg to be cleansed of all iniquity.
The elements within me have been perfected all within a split second; darkness and tarnished blood become baptismal aqua
-I exist to edify-
From this moment on I am on this Earth to illuminate its confines with iridescence.
Flames of a pearly white composition surround my spirit and soul.
The ebony clouds originating from The Adversary can no longer encumber me from progressing along life’s winding road.
Butterflies enrapture me as I am lifted into the stratosphere; time stops for but a moment and I metamorphose into a spiritual being of the highest caliber.
I am an iridescent sphere that is shining brighter than the Sun.
Chemical reactions taking place within the confines of my soul spur my transformation.
I am a sacred parcel carrying the message of a brighter tomorrow.
The winds of change have just begun to brush gently against my shoulders.
As the lightning flashes off in the distance an overwhelming feeling of tranquility befalls a once ailing heart.
Though stars may fall; celestial bodies may be shaken; I will remain…
-In spirit-
By Iridescently Efflorescent
Aug 8, 2012
Aug 8, 2012 at 11:27 PM UTC
*12am and imagining
a play on the dark ceiling
1.30am and relieved
for the 5 hours before light
but slumber is a deceptive guy
who lingers just out of frame
3am and wondering
when the sun will rise
end this torture
of lying awake
wanting to sleep
but being disturbed by
slices of daytime memories
haunted by the
ghost of tomorrow
6am and fatigued
wary of sleep that
comes in loose scraps
the sunshine peeks through
and it's time to live out
last night's tomorrow
which will metamorphose
into tonight's insomnia
Jan 31, 2016
Jan 31, 2016 at 9:35 AM UTC
*I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.*
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 3:36 AM UTC
Art I worthy of such privilege
To love thine true beauty?
For I'm but a humble stalk, my
silent flower
aloft resplendent in a Sun beam
conferring meaning to life.
Alas! perfidious winds grieve
as a triste petal trickles
to the ground rent asunder
in the capricious hands of fate
I metamorphose to a sceptre
you a jewel in its crown.
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 4:15 PM UTC
I'm in pain and it's all because of you.
I shouldn't have let you in my life in the first place.
I shouldn't have let you creep inside the barriers i've built all my life just to protect my self from this kind of feeling.
I shouldn't have let you own a space in my heart.
Because now, i do not know how can i survive a day without hearing your voice, seeing your smile, or have goosebumps whenever i see you steal a glance.
Because now i do not know how to fix that barrier, or i doubt if it will be strong enough to resists your every touch, your every stare, your very presence.
Finally because i don't know how to take back that space that you have claim, not forcefully, but so effortlessly that it surprise me how much of my self is willing to get hurt. Over and over again.
A repetitive process.
A series of nightmares.
Slowly break my heart, my dear, as it metamorphose into a million glass like liquid called tears.
Until all of the feelings i have for you hangs itself up in the air and be left stranded. Until it is all gone. Gone forever.
-This one's for you.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 9:48 AM UTC
I'm too small
As small as a dot on the crumpled paper
I'm just one of thousands
Even invisible in this cruel world
Sheltered in a narrow and thin shells
Hiding behind the leaves which begin to change color
My first house
finally I was born
as something strange
I'm the ugly
My body covered with bristle
Feebly crawling along a twig
Gnaw the leaves around and make holes
Run away from the birds
Grappling with weaver ants
Makes me fell to the ground
until my bristle loss
Only worm greets
They hate me so
I could get killed, not all of them accept
until I'm stuck in another dimension
I'm the lonely hiding caterpillars
Imprisoned inside a small obsolete pouch
Trying to **** time
Struggling in the darkness to reach beauty
That's enough of this stopover
wade through the rigors of the long wait that handcuff
I was reborn
being different and they like me
Abundant happiness arrives
fly indefinitely with both my beautiful wings
I can go to wonderful place that I want
penetrate malignancy
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 4:27 PM UTC
let me take you to church on friday nights after gin and whiskey
roar ‘oh my god’ so she knows you like it
take communion when my thighs greet your face
- - - - taste thy gifts, which we are about to receive
knees rap the hardwood floor, make you beg for mercy
whisper sins in my ears, teeth bashed pillows no longer muffle
crying out your confessions, repent
- - - - keep it pseudo with a blindfold
dip deep, deliver baptisms when i get you wet
- - - - god is a woman in this bed, no more ****** mary’s
metamorphose **** into holy water
vocalize moans to the harmony of the gospel
precise fingers conduct the choir
- - - - adagio, andante, allegro - you designate
reach salvation when you ******
- - - - arch your back, thy will be (un)done
Mar 31, 2019
Mar 31, 2019 at 9:01 PM UTC
I try to kindle a sweet pupa
As I bring it here to my room
And I keep it there on the floor.
Then I start to observe it regularly.
Soon one day it starts to stir up
So I try to help the moth inside
And I cut its pupa with a knife.
What came out was a beautiful butterfly!
But the butterfly would not fly,
Instead it started squirming there,
And it looked quite pitiful grounded.
The natural struggle had been absent.
It was a sinful mistake at that time,
My helping it break open its pupa,
It had not learned to struggle.
I watched it staying so grounded there!
I could not make it learn anything,
My helping it metamorphose was bad,
And it was actually criminally awful,
Now it will spend its life thinking,
And only thinking that it is normal,
Lying & squirming was its capability,
I hate myself for ruining the pupa.
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 1:31 PM UTC
When Depths tries to meet Shallows
Depths loses itself
And Shallows moves away untouched.
Depths reaches out to Shallows
But Shallows cannot be reached
Unless Depths forfeits its own self.
But Depths cannot transform into Shallows
For Depths hides too much in Her *****
And Shallows will not metamorphose
For he does not have much within.
So Depths and Shallows are never meant to be.
Depths will ever carry her burden
And Shallows will ever drift away.
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 8:40 AM UTC
These hollow bones
are shaking, shaking;
boundless seas of skeletons
quake beneath my heels.
Fear saturates my skin:
it chokes, it curls
- an inevitable
forced descent into infinity.
I stumble into the cosmos,
crushing me beneath its glory
it's deafening
but suddenly, I am real.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 12:24 PM UTC