Some Voices, We Are Told, Matter More Than Others … (Poem)

Some voices,
we are told,
matter more than others

Call it privilege
Bias, Prejudice, Politics,
Racism, Sexism,
Bigotry
Call it what you like.

But whether it’s a little voice,
Or a big one.

Suffering is suffering.

Yet …

So much is drowned,
So much, we simply tune out
to hear the familiar drummer

But to place our ears to the ground
For the voices that have yet to be heard
For the soft drops of tears shed in hidden spaces.

Amidst the cacophony of the voices we know,
The voices we’ve been told are more important,
than the ones who are missing.

Surely …

Could we not listen, just a little further?
A little deeper?

Could we not seek out the words held thick
in the still air of silent neglect?

Could we not seek to hear the voice
we were told never to value
never to love
never to respect?

For some voices,
some lives,
we are told,
matter more than others…

Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015

Image: Autumn edition 1925 - our new guide to rose culture (1925) (20163159620).jpg By Dingee & Conard Co; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

Poem ©  Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015 . All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce without the author's consent.

Whoever said Rebirth was Easy?

Out of familiarity and into the Unknown,
An old self burns and another begins to form,,
It’s all new, and yet you’ve known it all along.

Parting pangs of what you left behind,
Anxiety rears its head as if to remind,
That there’s so much be explored.

Things to master, things to mess up with,
Things to enjoy, things to weep over.
There’s so much stuff that could wrong.

But, what if it went right?

That question is a bright light or deeper night
Than where you are now

What if things went a different way?
A new road,
A Pathway,
Beyond what you can imagine.

And so it is
The Eggshell broken,
Ashes spread around,
No sight of the old to be found.

It’s all new,
It’s all fresh,
But still a voice uncertainly asks:

What if it all went wrong?

And another, in a whisper replies:

What if it didn’t?

What will you have found?

That question is a bright light or deeper night
Than where you are now

What if things went a different way?
A new road,
A Pathway,
Beyond what you can imagine.

What will you have found?

Bairavee Balasubramaniam

 

Image: Mt Charleston Blue Butterfly.jpg – By Corey Kallstrom/USFWS (Flickr: Mt Charleston Blue Butterfly) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons [Digitally Enhanced by the author under license terms]

Poem, ‘Whoever said rebirth was easy’ © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015. All rights reserved.

WELCOME TO THE NEW

Sometimes less is more,
More or less,
Sometimes to get real fast,
You’ve gotta go real slow..
Sometimes to get somewhere,
Stand real still…
and – 3, 2, 1, ..
Nope, still no go.

Funny old world,
Topsy-turvy doesn’t quite cut it,
That’s logic we get – we can predict,
Where truth is stranger than fiction,
Where stillness is the prerequisite to right action,
The old world won’t make sense in the new
Once you shake hands with the stranger,
in the Mirror – hm, seems rather familiar?
Normalcy bid Adieu.

It’ll never be the same…
Not now? not ever?
Never again?

There’s just no going back…
The old ways just don’t make sense …

*happy sigh*

Welcome to the New.

© Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD

Image: Young Galaxy Accreting Material.jpg – By ESO/L. Calçada (http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1040a/) [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

BREAKING THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS: A JOURNEY IN PROSE

Cold in my stoicism,
Frozen in my own denial,
Of a world I crafted,
Gone. Done. Dusted.
It’s final!

I remember a warmth that filled me a long time ago,
Did it, really? I’d like to think so..
When I believed in my own illusions,
The ones I thought made me whole.

Face-to-face, we gazed in a mirror,
And in his eyes I thought I saw a glimpse of something familiar,
Was it home? That kindred spark?
Was he The One to dance with me in The Dark?

He wasn’t. None of them were.
No matter the posture,
The rhetoric, the glamour,
Promises of forever,
I’ll stay with you, my dear.

But He just wasn’t Home. None of them Were.

Tired of wanting to get there,
Tired of needing to be whole,
Tired of waiting to find him,
Tired of wanting to come home.

Till one day I Surrendered,
The Mirror Shattered.

And with it The Lover,
The Victim, The Saviour,
The Self,
And with it, The Other.

What now? What next?

A New World Beckons,
Paved with Broken Glass,
Did I at last pass my Soul’s Test?

The Mysteries lie in wait…
Discoveries I am bound to make,
Of the world I missed,
Too long spent in the mirror’s bliss,
Waiting for that one, magic, kiss.

Was it all worth it, you ask?
Yes …

I believe so,

At long last.

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD
www.bairaveebalasubramaniam.com

Image – heavily modified version (with rights) of: Young woman and broken window-2.jpg – By LennieZ (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Text and Graphic Modification © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015

NECTAR SPILLS, SHE UNVEILS

Hey you!
I told you it would be this way…
Touch my heart,
my lips part,
Touch my soul,
my hips begin to sway…

A gentle tickle,
And the shy rose begins to bloom,
A nuzzle, a giggle,
She begins to swoon.

*flood*

The flow of nectar begins,
Sweet, thick, liquid love
Oh how it spills.

Over your lips,
Drowning the mind,
Over your flesh,
The body’s defenses unwind,
Over your ego,
In which you are confined.

You wanted a woman’s love, didn’t you?
Her heart, Her yearning,
Her passion, Her dreaming,
Her sex writhing and churning,
In waves of pleasure, ecstasy, agony
and through it all … Play …

I am an ocean. I am vaster than you can imagine.
I am the mighty force of a river waiting to burst free,
And through all this you ask
but a mere trickle
of All that is Me?

I’m afraid that just won’t work, Little Bee…
For with my love comes sweet intensity,
Will you drown? Will you soar?
Will you wail? Will you roar?

That I cannot say lest you find a way,
Drop your doubts, your limits,
Cast it all away.

Be here,
Without fear,
And Love Me,
Through the night and the day.

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam, PhD
www.bairaveebalasubramaniam.com

LITTLE GIRL, ON YOUR COSMIC THRONE

Dark Daughter lit by the Stars,
Lovingly surrounded by Grace from Afar,
From the Abyss She Emerged, …
A Being of Sweet, Tender, Love.

Little Girl on your Cosmic Throne,
Playing Peek-a-boo with the Inner Planets,
Hide and seek with the Gas Giants,
Giggling away in a game of Celestial Tag.

Sweet creature, Brave warrior,
My Precious Cosmic Paradox.

Her Skin Lit from the Glow of Worlds,
Her Bright eyes Gleaming,
Like the most precious Pearl.

Holding hands with the Universe,
A little vortex doing her dance,
And all of the Cosmos watches,
In Absolute Silence,
Entranced.

When she’s sad, worn, ragged or just tuckered out,
She comes back home,
and lays her head on a Lap with no Form.

Tucked in Her Blanket of Stars,
Awake only in her dreams
My little Daughter of the Dark,
Falls asleep..

To the sound of the Universe’s Heart Beat.
Silver anklets tinkle on tiny black feet,
Dancing in the Darkness,
Reality Woven from A Little Girl’s Dream.

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam, PhD
www.bairaveebalasubramaniam.com

Image Information: M51 whirlpool galaxy black hole.jpg – Image from Hubble – Uploaded by By Stephen Conatser [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

WOULD MAN HAVE A SAY IN THE MATTER AT ALL?

WOULD MAN HAVE A SAY IN THE MATTER AT ALL?

If man truly saw woman as sacred,
Would we have less sex and hate crimes against her?

If he truly saw her as a being worthy of respect,
Would she have equality in his familiar spaces of power?

If he truly saw her sexuality as one of her choice, and not his,
Would we leave that strange space we now inhabit?

In between gratuitous displays of sexuality in the media,
the mocking of Jada,
and a prudish moral policing
of the mother feeding her child in public?

But wait …

If woman truly saw herself as all these things,
Sacred, Powerful, Worthy,
In control of her Sexuality.

Would man have a say in the matter at all?

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam, PhD
www.bairaveebalasubramaniam.com

Image Information: Man Woman Multiplism by Victor Victori.jpg (https://edvictori.see.me/self2012) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Dissolution: Maya Un-Masked

DISSOLUTION: MAYA UNMASKED

Dissolve, Dis-illusion, Dis-assemble,
The words of fear and decay,
Yet without death never shall we see,
The Soul that Body Sheaths.
The Secrets that Matter Keeps
The Truth that is Concealed,
In Form, In Structure,
Waiting for The Big Reveal.

The Moon, the Sun, the Stars align so
My Goddesses of the Sky, of Serpent and The Old,
Ajima-Harati-Dhumavati-Kali they stand with Strength Untold,
Watching over me as I crumble,
My ego tumbles,
My desires shatter into dust,
As the Pisces Moon’s Secrets Unfold.

Karma Ceases, Ties Dissolve,
Attachment, Desire,
Ownership is Renounced,
Through Pain a new Freedom,
A New Vision, A New Birth,
Through Death, Decay, Formlessness,
In the Watery Womb of Chaos and Surrender,

A Pathway is Born.

And The Dark Goddess Smiles.

She Says: Now, My Child.
Stripped of your Certainty
You Stand Before me … Naked

Now, My Child,
Prepare …

For Your Journey has only Just Begun.

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam, PhD
www.bairaveebalasubramaniam.com