There’re some of us
Who cannot stand
On two feet
Like the homo erectus
Because we are the lotophagi
We cannot think
Nor act nor speak
Nor live according to our wishes
But we do the master’s bidding
Who feeds us the lotophagi
We’ve bartered our souls
A little at a time
And unwittingly given a little
Of the body and the mind each time
As a package deal of the lotophagi
We see pictures
Of street children
Sleeping on the footpaths
Of Mumbai or Kolkata or Hyderabad
And we’re looking at us the lotophagi
Numbed beyond human suffering
Our codes of conduct are not
Those that serve our best interests
Or those of our offspring
We’re broken as the lotophagi
It is time to reimagine the scenario
The lotus sutra proves it is not the lotus
That is evil
It is those who misuse it
And that are the lotophagi
Look that captor in the eye
Let the light of your soul shine
Through your brokenness
And say I am no more enslaved
It is such errant nonsense
That Venus is not happy
The way she is
The only little whiff of
A half-joke-mock-complaint
I’ve ever heard from her
Is that
She thinks
“It’s not fair
Adonis has a weathervane
And divining rod and I don’t
I’d love to be able to tell
Which way the wind is blowing
Or where to find fresh water
With so little effort
Any time of the day”
Because they come back with fish stories
And those about the one who got away
If they went to Brokeback mountain
They come back with no fish at all
And Ishmael was just following
A great big sperm whale
Called Moby Dick
Through the great big
Vast unknowns of brine
When he was really looking
For a fresh water stream
With a divining rod
That took him places
He’d never gone before
And he got lost
Trying to find himself
Fifteen years of staring into the dark
I finally found an escape hatch
In the black
In the darkness of my soul
In the darkness of my heart
In the darkest recesses of my mind
A little spark
A little proof of magic
That surrender to the Divine brings with it
Before digital photography
You couldn’t have a photograph
Unless there was a negative first
The light and shade were reversed
That which was really black was white
And vice versa
In the excavation of the authentic Self
Comes a point in the inner journey
When the exact same thing happens
Your roadmap warps
Then the road goes topsy-turvy
You are lost in a land of opposites
Your best years become your worst
Your worst tormentors your best teachers
It is all about bringing about balance
Via a newfound vision of things
Where nothing is perfect
And we’re all too human and the better for it
A little boy six or so
Playing soldier out in the backyard
Builds his fortress with young green branches
Arching down from an overgrown bush
And a cotton dhurrie he borrowed
From the kitchen floor
He marshalls his troops to victories
Around the carrot patch
The rosebushes
The plum trees
And settles down in the shade
With a cup of the bluest Gatorade
He grows up and goes to war
His talents as a leader among men
And his courage and forethought
Earn him a place among
The best of the best
He surveys his accomplishments
And wants just one more little thing
The simplicity of that existence
Where one carried no train behind him
No worry before him
Because the child within the man lives
Two souls hang in golden scales
In perfect balance
He the body she the mind
It wasn’t always so
Once upon a happy time
They were honored for who they truly are
Bodymindsoul
Yin and Yang
A Unity
Then his mind
Became maddened
Then saddened
Her body was sold into slavery
Her mind they couldn’t shackle
So it lived, somewhat
Reassurance came to him
Only when he was
The Body
His ultra fine mind
Was damned with faint praise
And constant ribbing
Her body was disrespected
Pushed to the limits
And her capabilities questioned everyday
Somewhere along this treacherous path
Idealism honesty and vision
Were getting eroded
A thousand miles
Through the desert they walked
Shod in sandals
Rats will gnaw at your feet when you sleep
Vampires will swoop in when you bleed
To drool upon a potential feast
The evil ones may have their evil designs
But there is a certain something
That they cannot kill
Atlas shrugged causing
A seismic shift in awareness
And they remembered being whole once
They took back their souls
They took back their minds
And their bodies too and put them back together
They’re happy now
Sonali writes poetry and fiction. Her work is inspired by her many interests and the many roles she plays in life. She was born and raised in India and has lived in the U.S. for twenty years. Her poems "An Alphaby For My Beautiful Dreamer" and “The Awful Simplicity Of Ten" were recently picked for the 'Commended' and 'Highly Commended' categories of the Margaret Reid Prize for Traditional Verse. Her work was selected for the city wide reading at the Austin International Poetry Festival, 2011. Her short story "See With Your Eyes Not Just Your Heart" was finalist at Glimmertrain. Her poem "They Say The Skies Of Lebanon Are Burning," about her experience with the Bhopal gas tragedy, came out in "Courageous Creativity." Her poem "Ode To A New Song” is in "Calliope," issue #132, "The Chumpion Of Lost Causes" is in "Burning Word" issue #59, and "Roses That Grow By The River Juliette" is in "Punk Soul Poet," September 2011 issue.
NOVEL EXCERPT:
ALLIGATOR POND
by G.L. Williams
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2012
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