The Eighth Stone

I.              The Eight Stones

Stones of harvest,

Lost in the well of tears

Stones of forbearance,

Weathered by the dunes of time

Stones of integrity,

Betrayed by the tree of hope

Stones of love,

Empowered by crystals divine

Stones of promise,

Hindered by a fog of fear

Stones of truth,

Dishonored by the winds of levity

Stones of forgiveness,

Awakened by memories of tides long past

Stones of tomorrow,

Hidden within the disillusionment of today

II.           Reflections

Through seven comes delivery,

Bearing the gifts awakened by the eighth

Swaddled reflections to comfort thee,

In times of tryst, defiance and hypocrisy

Open wounds salted, still

There remains a life fulfilled

From the soil comes the sky,

In the fire, flow the waves of life

Earth, Wind, Flame and rain,

Beyond the clouds you’ll find refrain

In the eighth, smoothed and pored upon,

The seven breathes a newfound wisdom’s enlightened plan.

Nine Rasas

Love and lust,

one the same,

Sringara

Cauldron’s boil,

Temper’s spill

Ravdra

Mourning with

Compassionate arms

Karuna

Dark passages persist

Monsters linger depths unknown

Bhayanaka

Vile tumult’s rise within

Nausea paint’s a grimace flush to skin

Bibhasta

Vigor tango’s vis-à-vis,

As heroes call deafens doubt

Vira

Laughter wells eyes in joy

While ridicule enlists the salt therein

Hasya

A first skyline exposed

To an unsuspecting glance

Adbhuta

Halcyon, charming wind and wave

Spreads calm unto horizons far

Santa

Spatiality gathers sheaf’s abundant.

Place procures fields for harvest’s green

Rasa awakens

A centrality of energy

Engages physicality’s line

Sushumna, gravity breathes

Shape-shifting altruisms bend perception taut

Aligning eternal stage, set for actor and audience alike

Herein resides the locus of Rasa

Unlocking sensorial rhythm’s

Brandishing pleasures unbeknownst to hue

Permanence abides the spindle’s truth

Weaving abhinaya

Emotions are evoked,

Accessed, then tasted true

Rasa’s essence aspires unto

Boundaries shared in man

Even breath alone can balance

The humors of flesh

Cloth of table spans word and sight

Preparing for presentations feast

It is known Sthayi bhavas  

Will appear once taste’s expression

Overflows; generating

enactment of the nine

I hope everyone had a great New Years and will carry that greatness throughout the upcoming year and beyond.  With each new year that comes, new hope spins it's web, and sorrow hopefully remains in the past.  Poetry is a way that man can grasp hold of emotion and paint it into a tapestry to wear the entirety of the upcoming year and beyond. So, how perfect is it that 2013 opens up on a Tuesday.  Tuesdays and poetry have become synonymous and lets all go celebrate our poetry together over at D'Verse, where Open Link Night, fittingly kicks off the New Year right.

A Contradictory Mindfulness

listen to ‘A Contradictory Mindfulness’ on Audioboo

Pieces.

Torn in all directions.

Shreds. Rags.

Born unto faithless winds.

Lemmings

to fall

swiftly…(Or)

Lost in a wager based trigger-field

Lost in a wildly rampant vile view

Lacking

Losing

Self

at 

every

sensation

declared

incorrect

yet.   (Are they not still a part of you?)

The insider is not necessarily the smartest

It knows everything it sees

yet makes no differentiation

in regards to relevancy or correctness of manner

Solvency

painted upon an invisibility

you've come to caress

Superimposed

Images left out in distemper's wind

Atrocious behavior, atrocious behavior!  You hate with so much vehemency

Plagues spewed upon the screen

Disagree, disavow

Questions WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

Then

you

closed

your eyes

and imagined

a less violent floe

where bergs are not as sharp

where waves do not flash-freeze 

where caverns are not composed strictly of leftover icecaps. Capitilize that, Capitlize, capitalize, capitilize

Did someone mention pride?

I'm not sure, I hear things sometimes, especially

when I try to trick myself into agreeing with those

things I'm completely opposed to….(THEN why AREyou?_)

It's a good question

It's fair, in every sense of the symbol of the word, it's fair

and

the answer is probably far too simple

for that I do dearly apologize…(There I've started already)

It's ...exhaustion... exhaustion…

I'm so tired of the wiggle room

I'm at that point

where I'll martyr some values

for a shot at peace

although….(And YOU HAD TO KNOW THIS WOULD COME) there is philosophy at play…when isn't there right?

Without peace, there is Eden.

Eden, however, some consider myth.

But, lets pretend you believe, if but for a second or two.

Then, you would know, Eden was destroyed

by man's own disobeying

Life is built on tension

Tension provides momentum

Tension stimulates the mind

Without it

with their only being peace

we would not exist

therefore

leave us

a little

perhaps

a smidgen even

just, don't take it all away

otherwise

where would we be?

Hmm… I just noticed I had this poem in my drafts.  Guess I never posted it, in which case I guess I never linked it up to Karin's Poetics from 11/10/12.  Actually turns out a blessing, as I really didn't have anything to write tonight.  Some Haiku, but that's about it.  So, I'll post this tonight for OLN, at D'Verse of course.

Stop on by, where the Superbowl of Poetry happens every week, not just once a year.

The Intricate Line that Spans War, Power, Sexl Love and Death

I.
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.


II.

…he fell in a slumbering; and dreamed how a dreadful dragon did drown much of his people, and came flying on wing out of the west parts and his head, him seemed, was enameled with azure, and his shoulders shone as the gold, and his womb was like mail of a marvelous hue; and his tail was full of tatters, and his feet were flourished as it were fine sable, and his claws were like clean gold. And a hideous flam of fire there flowed out of his mouth, like as the land and water had flamed all on fire. Then him seemed there came out of the Orient a grimly bear all black, in a cloud; and his paws were as big as a post.  He was all wrinkled with lowering looks, and he was the foulest beast that ever any man saw. He roamed and roared so rudely that marvel it were to tell. Then the dreadful dragon dressed him against him and came in the wind like a falcon, and freshly strikes the bear. And again the grisly bear cuts with his grisly tusks, that his breast was bloody, and the blood railed all over the sea. Then the worm winds away and flies upon high, and came down with such a sough, and touched the bear on the ridge that from the top to the tail was ten foot large.  And so he rends the bear and burns him up clean, that all fell in powder, both the flesh and the bones; and so it fluttered abroad on the sea.

III.

You invaded my sorrowful heart

Like the sudden stroke of a blade;

Bold as a lunatic troupe

Of demons in drunken parade

IV.
A man can only begin to understand the depths of woman’s nature when he surrenders his soul unequivocally.  It is only then that he begins to grow and truly to fecundate her.  There are then no limits to what he may expect of her, because in surrendering he has delimited his own powers.  In this sort of union, which is really a marriage of spirit with spirit, a man comes face to face with the meaning of creation.

V.
You in my mortified soul

Made your bed and your domain;

     Abhorrence, to whom I am bound

As the convict is to the chain,

VI.
He participates in an experiment which he realizes will always be beyond his feeble comprehension.  He senses the drama of the earth bound and the role which woman plays in it. The very possessiveness of woman takes on new light.  It becomes as enchanting and mysterious as the law of gravitation.

VII.
One day when he’d gone out to hunt, after fasting and painting his face in the proper way, he felt the leaves moving not far from where he was. He sensed a shape and halted, saying: A big animal!  He approached slowly, heedlessly.  Not taking the time to make sure what it was, he boldly shot his arrow.  He ran to see.  There is was, lying on the ground, dead.  What had Fallen?

He was frightened, 
of course.  
Some evil 
would befall him now.

VIII.
As the drunkard is to the jug,

As the gambler to the game,

As to the vermin the corpse,

     I damn you, out of my shame!

And I prayed to the eager sword

To win my deliverance,

And have asked the perfidious vial

To redeem my cowardice

IX.
It was almost as if I had suddenly discovered that she was a cripple.  That happens now and then, when two people fall in love.  And if it is love which has united two people then a discovery of that sort serves only to intensify the love.  One is not only eager to overlook the duplicity of the unfortunate one, one makes a violent and unnatural effort towards identification. “Let me carry the burden of your sweet defect!”  That is the cry of the lovesick heart.  Only an Ingrained egotist can evade the shackles imposed by an unequal match.  The one who loves thrills at the thought of greater tests; he begs mutely that he be permitted to put his hand in the flame.  And if the adorable cripple insists on playing the game of pretense then the heart already open and enfolding yawns with the aching void of the grave.  Then not only the defect, but the body, soul and spirit of the loved one are swallowed up in what is veritably a living tomb.

X.
Alas! The vial and the sword

Disdainfully said to me;

‘you are not worthy to life

From your wretched slavery,

You fool!— if from her command

Our efforts delivered you forth,

Your kisses would waken again

Your vampire lover’s corpse!’

XI.
When the end draws near, there no longer remain any remembered images; only words remain.  It is not strange that time should have confused the words that once represented me with those that were symbols for the fate of he who accompanied me for so many centuries.  I have been Homer; shortly, I shall be No One, like Ulysses; shortly, I shall be all men; I shall be dead.

This piece is my attempt at a Cento, which the work of other writers are reassembled, into a collage of sorts, with the intent of creating something original and unique.  For more about this form, stop on over to D'Verse, where Sam Peralta is hosting Form For All
, and has gifted us all with an incredible article, which includes a detailed discussion about this form.

A Breakdown of original Text:

I.  & XI.    The Immortal, Jorge Luis Borges

II.            Le Morte Darthur, "Arthur and Lucius Emperor of Rome",
               Sir Thomas Malory
III., V., 
VIII & X.   The Vampire, Charles Baudellaire

IV., 
VI & IX      Sexus, Henry Miller

VII.           The Storyteller, Mario Vargas Llosa