REINCARNATION TO A NEW LIFE

You need to wake up, live in a daze

a haze of days

Morning noon and night

It ain’t right but there’s no way to stop you

Like talking the living to the dead

Entire life living in the red,

sleep and rest in the bed

it’s my bad nothing eases the pain

pills night and day - no way to stop you

The mental and physical anguish remains the same as you push life to exsanguinate

your blood thins day by day, tire so easy it’s all breezy and good,

you examine your mind, it’s more than a faze

but it’s all good

You explain the drugs are legally prescribed by many different doctors who listen to your complaints

They prescribe pills to alleviate the gaze of hazy pain you live in

Describe pain where it maintains a domicile in your head –

it possesses you, obsesses you search for a nonexistent cure

Can’t accept the prognosis, 18 drugs a day all prescribed to the beat of your heart.

Slows the glow / the glue holding you together disappears in my heart.

Another pill won’t cure your ills. Determine the excess of the access or access to excuse

Excuse me, I meant excess the distress, there’s no elixir to create a victor,

It’s all downhill by doctor’s goodwill

I profess I’m consumed and confused;

is it the syndrome about which comes first - the chicken or the egg?

A stitch in time ain’t worth a dime, do you have the time

On the road to enlightenment, forget sentiments the buck stops here.

Watch on the sidelines while u struggle for a quick exit

Living life like you’re fit to be tied, live life on an incline

Live the fast lane

You’ll regret it, lose out in the end living inside your mind won’t suffice or change the end. Tell myself and tell you.

My words fade in the southwestern wind turning southerly

while we dismiss lists

Stuck in an abyss, lost in time, fade in the dreamer

Stare at your demeanor, lost and found, I stand my ground while Jill comes tumbling after and Jack can’t find his crown

Search through the valley of death

Surmise the crease in your pants

Cry another dance, dry tears in my eyes.

My vision blurred by raindrops falling. 

Remember to see the sea widens

fear to die in the midst of a dream becomes real

You will heal from the power of words I implore

Noise In My Head

Play my heartstrings like a violin 

Sweet and bitter like a mandolin

Up and down the scale to my chagrin

Left with no more turns, try to find a way in

Your face in a stuporous grin

Walls of my heart broken down like walls of West Berlin

No answers, like holding me together with a body pin

Your pain tattooed on my heart like my car’s Vin

Feelings strewn in a bin, you complain 

About selling your brand new Schwinn

Feel like a fish caught in net, 

Alive while getting her fins skinned

Wouldn’t feel so much pain if my heart 

Wasn’t previously scarred by kin

Almost disappear, your thoughts and mind grow thin

Along with your body flesh

Made of flesh and blood, not of tin

Suffer with words create a fierce din 

My heads in a spin from all the noise

Desire a way to create a win

Search for what may have been

While time eludes us, realize 

I’m older to begin

Buy my book Tupelo Honey & other tales

THE WORLD IS A DANGER ZONE

Listen To the Poetry Queen, Violetwrites, Read  plus read while you listen 

- this is 2nd half - Below is 1st half of poem.

Fear to venture out

Afraid of myself 

Have to hide myself away of my own free will

Because I’m dangerous

Dangerous to my health and yours

So try to stay away from me

I’m fat so all these layers of fat are there to protect me from you, you, and you

I’m the you, the you – you never want to be, you even define yourself by the absence of affect which clearly puts me there at the center, and you look at me and say, “I will never be you! I would never be able to do what you did,” but walk a mile in everyone else’s shoes and somehow you find yourself there, in my shoes and me in yours

That’s what happens in interchangeable movies, right! We exchange the old for the young and young for the old. Then, somehow, when the young come back to old, who they really are, they all know what they thought they didn’t know, and after the interchange, and exchange, they recall, maintain and retain the change they knew and came back to

Where it all began and where we’ve been, what we learn, what we have to do

It counts if you went to the school of hard knocks

Please don’t send me back there

It’s how this all began, there, where I was born

No way to stop the clock, lost in this reverie 

Each day I’m more unhealthy to myself than the day before

A cycle of self hate, blame for who you are

Who I am who I say I’ll never be

Intentions matter say some

Others say only actions

I don’t know who to believe

Do I know where I am?

I don’t know anything 

Everyday that I live I know myself less each day I live

I try my best to know 

Yet what I know is I know less instead of more

What a dilemma!

I seek peace is hard to find

Peace

Peace to the planet

Peace to all who survive here

Where 

Here on our planet

Pray we humans all survive, animals, all inhabitants survive

Peace to all

Earth to all

Spread the Love and Peace to all

Om mani padme hum

Aooommmmmmmmm

A WALL OF POWER

The Western Wall, also called the Kotel is the last remains of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, which formed part of the enclosure of Herod’s temple, resulted in the encasement of a natural steep hill, that became the Temple Mount. The Kotel is holy due to its connection to the Temple Mount and is holy to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. This holy place was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The remaining wall is all that is left from the Temple Mount. 

A WALL OF POWER

Can a wall really wail or is that a fail-safe fallacy to inspire the fire inside

Does a wailing wall speak to inadequacy inside?

Can a wall 2000 years old wail sufficiently to quell my pain?

Can a wall help me see the heartbreak between Abel and Caine?

Can this 2000-year-old Western wall help our world find peace?

Help nuclear energy threats cease

Pray for wars to decrease

Help humanity stay safe without regrets

Pray no one forgets the past

The result of making outcasts leads to a lambaste

Will this wall provide a safe space to do more than cry about what’s left?

I try to shrug free of my chains 

There’s no escaping the Western Wall’s remains

Power soars through my veins, the wall opens my reality

Feels like labor pains, I feel my soul strain to let go restraints

An African lady, dressed in high fashion speaks in tongues I can’t understand. 

She pounds her chest, pounds the wall with a closed fist, and screams “Jesus” 

The rest of the words are forecast

African Lady’s fist pounds her words into the wall’s veins

A religious Orthodox Jew rolls her eyes momentarily aghast 

Then returns to her private prayers

I try to imagine African Lady’s sorrows as the wall absorbs them

Overcome with waves of feeling, I struggle to see through my tears, fears appear,

I return my gaze to a wall I don’t know but somehow feel like I’ve been here before, 

Wailing inside, feel all aglow, wait for my soul to be lit by peace

I place my shred of paper with my prayers for our world to heal

The wailing western wall, a holy grail

My hand held steady against a small sweet spot of stone, mine momentarily,

Press my hand against ancient limestone

Can’t control the flow of my tears 

Hard to reach through all the bodies to press my hand through 

Other women clamor to touch the wall

Maybe think the wall will heal the

People from many lands and many religions, 

Lay our hands on together, on this sacred stone wall

All hope for love, relief, a better life, for everyone

The wall crowded with thousands of us praying together, 

People from many lands and many religions all here like one

Lay our hands on this sacred stonewall, ancient limestone 

Pray for family, pray for peace, 

Pray for a better world 

Pray humanity will survive, whatever befalls us

Pray for love, relief, a better life, for loved ones

For everyone, everywhere, humanity together, for once and for all…

Louisiana Catch Book Review By Sweta Srivastava Vikram

Louisiana Catch 

By Sweta Srivastava Vikram

265 pages

Modern History Press

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

April 2018 Fiction

ISBN 9781615993543 (ePub, PDF, Kindle, ebook)   $5.35

ISBN 9781615993529 (softcover, acid-free paper)      $21.95

ISBN 9781615993536 (hardcover, acid-free paper)    $30.09

Caught by surprise, reading about a young lady living and working in New Delhi, I wondered why was Louisiana Catch the title. This became clear later when Ahana visited New Orleans to be with family and to work.  I was glad to become reacquainted with New Orleans through Ahana’s eyes. Through the narrative, I came to know and understand Ahana. I didn’t always agree with Ahana, yet, I always liked her. Ahana comes from a very privileged family, yet that is not enough to protect her from marrying an abusive man, and attracting another man, who at first, she regards as a friend from an online therapy group. 

The subject is very timely with all the “Me Too” today in the news and everyday comes someone new with new accusations. Every day we see people who we thought we respected, arrested and going to jail. Men with money and power have always been keen to use their power to control the women in their professional and personal lives. This book is about women and the power we wield when we stand up for what is right and help others. It is about human rights and also about losing people we love, suffering and finding love. 

Ahana is likeable and a bit naïve. Broken, from a first abusive marriage, she allows herself to fall into paranoia, wondering if he is in touch with her ex-husband and that’s how he knows so much about her. At first, she takes his friendship as a gift and the more he demands and pounds at her emotionally, the more she makes excuses for him, and the more she cajoles him and becomes afraid to confront him, suspicious he may be following her. What woman who has escaped abusive relationships doesn’t know this feeling? Here, I see and say, “me too,” having gone though an abusive marriage myself. And like the “me too” movement shows, when we open ourselves up to the truth, we can finally let go of our fears and our history. 

I think the part of Ahana that needs healing is so wound up and traumatized that she is blind when she meets Jay at an online therapy group for members who have recently lost a parent, after her mother suddenly passes away. She simply takes Jay at his word, and accepts him for who he says he is, someone too who has suffered through a mother’s loss. Every time Ahana asks Jay about himself, no matter how simple, for example, is he dating or where he lives he rebukes her as to why, as his best friend, she is hassling him which results in her feeling guilty and unworthy. Ahana makes excuses for what he says and why, and centers the blame on herself. I assume that this is where the cycle of abuse comes in, and Ahana is unable to see that she is repeating history by letting Jay speak to her in ways that demean her. 

When her household cook and her cousin point out the inconsistencies in Jay’s behavior and more importantly, the negative effects on her, at first she is not ready to listen. Eventually she gets to the point where she clearly sees his game but by this time, she is fearful and paranoid that perhaps Jay knows her husband and has learned about her from him. 

At one point I wanted to yell at her, “Ahana, why are you giving this Jay guy so much importance in your life and why don’t you just cut him out?” At that point I totally identified with Ahana’s cousin, Naina. And why wouldn’t I, since Naina is a mental health professional like myself.

Throughout the novel, Ahana is fighting her demons and has left a high paying position to coordinate a women’s conference to raise awareness about violence and abuse of women, which is part of how she overcomes her own trauma. The other part of how she overcomes her trauma is through her relationship with Rohan Brady, who Ahana must work with on the conference, called NO EXCUSE.  I’m not sure how cell phone service works in India, however I do have an online poetry friend in India who has called me occasionally and he assures me when he calls me I don’t pay, and I never have! 

At one point, early on in the communication between Ahana and Rohan, when Ahana is still in New Delhi, Rohan calls Ahana, and Ahana says she has to hang up because she doesn’t want to pay international fees. There were also a few typos I hope they fixed in the final version. 

Ahana has misjudged Rohan as misogynist because of his online persona.  As for Jay, and his abusive and baiting behavior, it is well past the middle of the book when she finally begins to see through his gameplay, and after everyone around her and even two women in her online therapy group have warned her repeatedly about him. Ahana finally asks her cousin’s husband for help and since he is a police officer, it comes to light that Jay has criminal history. 

In all, the novel is very personal and readable, a quick reader for me, once I got into the details. I was also glad that there was a list of characters in the beginning for review since Indian names are foreign to me, this list made it easy to follow the characters in the beginning. I recommend this novel, to women especially, as this is book is about women and love, violence towards woman and clearly makes the point – that all violence and verbal abuse is always unacceptable. The other important insight is to always tell and not keep abuse a secret. This step is by far, the most important in overcoming tendency to allow abusers or toxic people into your life. Ahana makes this point very clearly in her work. 

ALL ABOUT THAT SEX

Yeah, you’re a lousy lay

OK you can get it up 

But learning how to satisfy me is 

too far out of your way

You’re probably afraid to get lost in fur

I’ve been with men who know how to do things to turn me on

Making a woman scream is how he gets off too

Naturally knows to do

It’s not mechanical, 

Some men just know how to do it

They know how to let go

When men let go of their senses 

They know how to make a woman cry

And laugh with pleasure

Where are the men who made me 

Cry out in ecstasy, 

Did they love me too?

Or was it the ones who didn’t possess skill

Who loved me the way I want you to do

Makes me wonder

Don’t believe that men learn it

It’s a charm they carry deep within themselves

Sweet charm where they let go 

Is it because that’s all a man got to give 

Men know what turns me on emotionally 

but when it comes to sex 

They don’t know how to

Satisfy my soul

I wonder if a man needs to opens his soul 

to make a woman come

Probably all in my mind

Easy to know how to enjoy

Your needs or mine, I know how to come 

All about my mind’s excited 

Can come and keep coming too

Part of it’s up to you because, yeah, I got my own controls

Yeah Yeah …

I do what I know how to 

to myself or to you

I can make my own feel–goods

What about you

Don’t you need and want your own feel–goods

It’s all about time

I need you to do it too

It’s like you forgot

Or never knew

I know the feel good in having my pussy be eat real good

I know the good in screaming and coming again and again

Because other men have done what you can’t do or refuse

To do

At this point, it makes no difference if you know how to do 

Go down on a girl like you’ve never before

Some know what to do

Others never heard it

But I know what I had before

And you don’t know how to do

Like it was done to me before

Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go

The stars, the sun and moon

Surround me –put me in a swoon

While I read runes

I want the world to know I’m one of you

so step aside and let me through,

Did you hear what I said,

I’m no different from you, you and you, 

Graduated the school of hard knocks

Just like you, came from the wrong side

Didn’t come up easy

Can’t you see

Who I am,

I said I’m one of you, some of what you are – what you are – 

Created in some image I create for myself and the stars in the sky,

I’m on the brink of expansion

An explosion of words going off in me

Words on the horizon

Words provide aspirations, a solution to our rotation 

Of bullshit politicians,

Anxiety spreads like a bloodstain

Feel another me emerging again

There’s a thrill up on the hill

Let’s go, Let’s go, Let’s go

In an explosive moment, puff of smoke at sunset,

Like the campfire built at sunset burns out at dusk all by itself

No one tells it hey fire, listen up, hear me, you’ve run your course, your hearse is on the horizon

My hearts locked inside straining to emerge, a collection of alternatives,

Add some trepidation, come to liberation, salvation is near, 

Not helping to flex, feel like a hex on me. 

Talk shit like it’s the next recourse, 

a force of nature to be reckoned with, no worries – 

Climate change is a no go…

Eastern sunlight rays in my skyline vision alive with the flow of color

Mesmerizes me

My heart skips a beat

A city girl fundamentally, nature claws me with her vibrations

Heartbreak hotel is still a go to

Zonked out on fresh brewed coffee

Feel another poem birthing inside me

I HATE MY FAT, I WANT TO GO BACK TO THINNER ME

I see you -hiding inside -under so many layers of fat, carefully placed and misplaced

Inside and outside, you gain and lose in a cycle of fat to thin again

I try to see it is me but I see someone else, she’s not me. 

That woman I see in the mirror, I deny she’s me. 

I want to stop eating, makes my life so complicated because everything seems to be about food while life becomes more sedentary against my will

I don’t know what to do, so many theories about emotions

I want to walk more but my feet hurt, sometimes my hips ache, time chimes

Reflects my image in a mirror, Caught in a web of suspense to see who I am today cause everyday when I awake I’m a new becoming me

Betrayed by my shell, I hide as much of me as I can inside armor

Keep crying help, keep on trucking doing what I do

My system runs amuck and a thunder – I wish I could control my mind

I’m addicted to food – hard to forego food

Eat falafel - fills me up so much, eat Baba -Ghanoush loaded on tons of salad, 

seems to not matter – no matter what I consume … I can’t say, no excuses

Digesting food takes up too much time – I feel like I’m part of organized crime defending sublime

Give me water, honey and lemon- I promise I’ll still survive

I question me– why am I doing this to myself

Yet I hide myself watching me, I see myself from the outside

Creep out from the inside

I yell free me so I can move with the flow

I creep back inside to hide me from myself 

you know where I’m going with this

From humiliation and aspirations all combined, tied with a big purple bow

Put in front of you I am me in front of me I see me and become afraid Of who I am that I made me who I am to you I am you in a wounded knee I see who we are 

Who – attempt to reject self loathing

I am me, wounded, beneath who you are

Hide in plain sight in an underground version of myself

I ride deep waves within myself, diving deeper I fear I’m forever lost

Who is the self I claim to be trapped inside me waiting for a way outside myself

No escape, like a trapped bull in china of life trying to escape from myself 

Caught in an endless loops of myrioscope kaleidoscope color

Endless blues persist as I judge who I am

I see a violet sky inside me

Exploding in years of pain

Abstaining from gain I constrain myself

I’m a bloodstain of pain from which I came

I hide from myself and ask how did I ever withstand myself

Caught on a continental shelf I conspire to divide myself, prove myself, 

I will be a band of oneself to expand and assert myself, 

I will be a prayer of despair 

More morbid in beware

Nothing works that worked before

Now I hear all in my head

If I eat properly and see myself thin I will be – really?

Compare healthcare 

Impaired, play side chair in the affair, arise out of nowhere, I exist, I am somewhere, here to defend

I am sightseer in my own life, like a replay game in surround sound, can’t understand fear is …

So lonely inside, longing for love, I seek, I cry, 

worth the weight, FATE of my soul, I inquire, FIRE up insights

GET TO BE SEE THE REAL ME

IN REVERIE

In reverie of poetry, permit me to say

I’ve put up with my fair share of despair and let me downs
 -some hard - some easier

It’s all the same, like disappointment about disparaging remarks about my pink hair

Hair’s faded from bright red I admit

Hearing insults from important poets known on the scene about my poetry not being “real” poetry 

My poetry’s not authentic; it’s eccentric

I don’t know how you can get more real than me

My poetry is me and then some more

It has room for me and you in store

You find yourselves in here, inside a poem

Be careful what you say round me

I will quote you

in a poem

It’s no good to say I should delay

You say and pray I won’t consider putting your words in a poem even though you know that’s what I do

Repeat after me – I forbid you to put this in a poem

So if it’s not goose for the gander stop feeding me

Give me some respect for what I do

I spill my blood and guts for you

I receive letters from people who read what I write

I received one today from a nice girl. She said she’s sorry for my life, she feels so sad for me, she’s just glad she’s not here where I am, she wouldn’t know what to do if she stood here where I stand in my shoes,

She doesn’t know anyone who’s had it this bad

She just don’t know how I manage to survive a life this sad

I told her, "Suicide’s a waste of time,

I’d rather spend my energy writing poetry."

She said, "You suck at poetry!

You can’t write “real” poetry anyway."

You think I’m pulling your leg?

Then whose leg am I pulling? ~

Mine?

Damn, if I had my legs pulled a little, maybe this hip pain wouldn’t hurt so bad

So I’m an old fool who writes poetry – 

What did you say you do?

Good morning sunshine

Good morning sunshine

Today you look so fine

Look like you’re dressed to the nines

Good morning sunshine

I wish I could sing like Patsy Cline

Instead of like my tiny feline

Today I’m feeling turquoise, not quite blue because 

I’ve got some sunshine inside these cloudy dulls. 

I’m a scorcher flower who can bear the heat and not wilt today

Feeling turquoise, not quite blue, 

Kinda midway between a rose and a brunette 

Rose to face the glory of a new day, a day spiced with rosebuds, 

My little cinnamon boy, not a toy

Does the bluebird spell Rheingold – ill fit, sit a while, file me away – my mind strays

Like a stray branch on a tree, a lone bluebird sits alone, barking up the wrong tree, 

I see he jes can’t stop himself from falling in a heap under the magnolia tree

Because something got a hold a me I know it must be love

Good morning sunshine

My sweet bliss divine

Living on the incline

Thrown together on a lifeline

*Sunshine on a cloudy day – when it’s cold outside I want the month of may

I guess you’d say what can make me feel this way, My guy – my guy talking about my guy

Good morning sunshine

Today I don’t need any wine

To make me feel Dr. FeelGood

The sun is shining 

I’m a scorcher flower  

I won’t wilt today

Think it’s gonna rain today, sky a cloudy silver gray

Rain the same under these silver gray skies

Turquoise, feeling a yellow shade of blue

Sunshine peeking through my blinds

Good morning sunshine

Living on the sweet side 

*Temptations