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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 01 2013 : 1:14:11 PM
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Little Laughing Waves
Oh! - I love the little laughing waves
when at a shore they gently lave
and should you doubt, just hear me shout
some sample picks, of deep-felt (onomatopoeic) licks:
"Chingle, changle, pingle, pangle
chitter, chatter, he, ha, ho!"
And in this way the laughing waves come by to fill my soul!
-Ananda T. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Nov 01 2013 : 1:16:36 PM
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Whitetail
A deer bounded by in the snow
his tail so high it seemed to glow
he flashed that strobe for all to see
and hung in air at apogee.
-Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Nov 04 2013 7:55:15 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2013 : 1:54:58 PM
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Wave!
Thick in the air the spirits lay
rippling the waters of the bay
wavelets glint then dart away
who's it for I cannot say.
As the question merely is a rhyme
a playground set for my passtime
so with all my meanings to assign
I'm taking things well past benign.
Since life's an oyster on a shell
let's on our brethren fully dwell
and make it a circular love spell
an endless round with no final farewell!
For by whistling past, death may be braved
we leave just shells back in our graves
with no souls lost but only saved
for when we return, blow kisses, and wave!
-Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Nov 16 2013 1:34:08 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2013 : 2:00:08 PM
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Daughter
You were conceived
in a driving rain-storm
running wild over all creation
from the moment you were born.
Daughter, where are you now?
I hear you high up in the trees
running from crown to crown
I run too but cannot keep up.
Daughter, wait! -
my legs aren't - oh - they're just not
what they used to be - oh, Daughter
I run too but cannot keep up.
-Ananda T. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2013 : 2:06:37 PM
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Speak
I believe - one must believe, you see -
that there are now, and will be more
people who look upon my primitive
efforts with charity and empathy.
It is most surely to you I speak.
Whatever else you may think
of my own life, to me it represents
truth, beauty, logic, and civilization -
all the things that do not exist here.
It is most surely for you to speak.
I need to regain a balanced perspective
there must be a world outside a cell
and though I cannot imagine what it might be
a moment's kind voice would be enough.
It is most surely for us to speak. Hello?
-Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Nov 17 2013 10:19:57 AM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Nov 12 2013 : 2:29:30 PM
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Sing, O My Blood-Children!
Please take this poem, just one of many
all my blood-children, each born uncanny
as my heart stirs a surf in its wet scarlet nest
spreads manta ray wings, then bursts from my chest!
My azurine evensong stained by dark ore
I wash in burnt ashes to wreathe in much more -
a caged bird who dares to fling blue notes high
while clutching his small vault to wail, howl and cry!
Now all of the light (and sometimes the night)
and all of the bounty and of the blight
and all of the goodness and of the sin
is flung from my fingers, right out thru this pen!
So envy my drives, even those born of pain
as I strain not the chains of restraint full in vain
for tho my clay feet may be locked down in place
the tip of my wing brushes your soul-angel's face.
And breathless I watch as you then touch the spot
where passing was planted my heartfelt forget-me-not
and I savor the moment you know me firsthand
not by the labels with which I've been brand.
For you, absent angel, I'm a busy brood bee
extruding blood-children just like ruby seeds
all bursting to root in your deep fertile heart
and give simple friendship a good place to start.
Oh, some hugs would be nice for my wings to take rest
(and perhaps even hands to help tidy this nest)
but you may think it best to just heap me with scorn
for more plaintive word-wraiths conceived and then born.
Yet any weight squeezing the olives compressed
brings more oil amphorae to then stand expressed
and a global gold standard that's proven too right
is the world ever standing a little more light!
-Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Nov 16 2013 1:26:30 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 07 2013 : 12:40:37 PM
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Dear friends,
Roy was admitted to an ICU at a local hospital on December 2. We aren't told much, but were told he's off the ventilator and may get out of ICU soon.
In addition to being so ill, he's also in a state of despair. He doesn't know I'm writing this plea; please take a moment to write to him. A single sentence on a single piece of paper may be all it takes to get him off the dark road he's traveling.
Roy is a man of many, (many), words.  Please, please, please take that moment and help him.
Roy Wahlberg 103429
MCF Oak Park Heights
5329 Osgood Ave No
Stillwater, MN 55082-1117
Thank you,
Roy's family |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 12 2013 : 7:05:52 PM
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Dear friends,
Roy has been released from the hospital. He is in a mental health ward. He's not well and we are having major difficulty working with the DOC.
This community is so important to Roy, We hope some of you have written to him. We're trusting that some of you have. (I can't face asking him in case none of you have). If any of you would like to write a word to him here, we will make sure a print of it gets to him.
Thank you,
Roy's family
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Edited by - anandatandava on Dec 12 2013 7:42:47 PM |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2013 : 11:47:12 AM
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Hi Anandatandava:
This is to send best wishes for healing, peace and happiness. My thoughts and prayers are with you in the unbounded pure bliss consciousness that unifies us all.
Your contributions to the community of practitioners here are beyond measure. Thank you for your generous sharing. I hope you will be back to your writing again soon.
The guru is in you.
Yogani
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CarsonZi
Canada
3189 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2013 : 11:52:36 AM
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Sending love and well wishes to you Anandatandava. May you abide in peace and know that you are loved always.
Love,
Carson  |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 21 2013 : 06:33:53 AM
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Dear Yogani and Carson,
Thank you for your caring and beautiful words of encouragement for Anandatandava. I have them copied and put into a letter that I'm sending to him today. This will mean very much to him. I feel that I should tell you a little of his story for perspective.
In 2002, I believe, he was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus and it has been untreated. The corrections department feels that it isn't necessary, but my research and contacts with Hydrocephalus organizations feel that left untreated he will deteriorate. A friend of his and I continue to try to find the answers.
Another condition may be adding to Anandatandava's problems. We are very sure that he has the Asperger's Syndrome variety of Autism. He has had all of the characteristics since childhood and it was an awakening to learn of the disorder. There seems to be a strong strain of this in our family. Anandatandava has an officially diagnosed nephew and grandson and there are other close relatives who may be somewhere on that continuum also. The gift of the disorder can be wonderful language skills, which I feel he has, but poor social skills. His interpersonal relationships certainly can get off track.
I do think that the corrections department would like to be able to fully care for people with these kinds of problems, but it is a very large institution that requires rigid rules to operate, and probably never enough funding to do everything. It is perhaps not serving or able to serve someone like Anandatandava well. We are trying to find answers and solutions and get him well again and back to his focus and love, writing.
Anandatandava's sister, Judy |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 25 2013 : 3:46:05 PM
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Yogani,
I hardly dare think I have contributed anything of value here other than a moment's diversion from time to time. No, the real indebtedness flows the other way: to you, to those who have labored to type me in, and to those who have encouraged me in many other ways. You have all nurtured life where there had been only bareness, and fostered a voice where there had been only silence or dysfunctional noise.
I have always felt myself painfully different from others, at best a zebra among horses, but mostly just a clumsy aardvark. But buoyed and energized by the wellspring of writing, I now on occasion find myself sharing flight with all manner of delightful species, and my solitude then becomes populated with a warm sense of commonality and community.
Yes, through the miraculous outlet you have afforded me, tho my hand touches concrete, my mind feels the sunlight beyond - and that is everything.
- Ananda T. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 31 2013 : 12:32:25 PM
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Gulliver's Travails
'Twas the night before Christmas and all thru the sick-house
not a creature was stirring, not even the louse
who lay pinned down in bed by a tube and wire web
while visions of urinals danced in his head -
dreaming of freedom from his catheter hose
so not to be anchored like a worm from his nose!
- Ananda T. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 31 2013 : 12:38:25 PM
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Comes a Time
Have you ever
in trying to save a small bird
held it cupped within your palms, and felt
its troubled struggle, strain and flutter
against your well-meant restraint?
There comes a time, my dear
when body can no longer serve spirit
for nothing can be held forever
and broken hearts especially
have a crying need to fly.
So while snowflakes fall like soft blessings
from a beckoning frittilary sky
dash the encumbering chalice
unchamber your encircling hands
and set me free.
- Ananda T. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 31 2013 : 12:41:41 PM
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Silkworm
Lover, I feel you silently departing
like a silkworm releasing its thread
the only light left now glimmering
in the fading tapestry weft
is the faintly woven shimmering
of distant memories parting.
- Ananda T. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Dec 31 2013 : 1:27:14 PM
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Dance Macabre of the ICU Cicada
Somewhere an alarm was shrilling
tugging me out from the cottony deep.
Sliding a few loose layers of consciousness together
I lazily fresnelled in on my tormentor
but sensing the gathering focus, he ceased his cry.
Again untethered, I resumed my blissful spiraling drift
but that pesky insectizoidal siren quickly returned, baiting
my naked awareness back into the grating shallows.
This time a figure rose, murmuring, "His vitals are real low."
"Yeah, he's bad," came a response.
"Oh wait - they're coming back!"
And so passed my wet twilit dream
porpoising thru the swells of a timeless sea
whereat upon each plummet, electronic and human minders busily reeled me back up
but it was a catch-and-release program
and so back down I'd go.
The world then tilted, toppled and wheeled
thru a growing and glowing pulsate palette
of less saturate, more pastellate tints
that ballooned and emptied of sunlight
in tinctured sync with fat bolides of morphine -
*poof* *poof* and I was again a child in fever delirium
and flannel footies watching wide-eyed as molten crystal
currents boiled and whispered thru the illumined air.
(Try to keep what's left of your head, O early acolyte
on the well-worn shamanistic path of brain pathogenicity!)
From some parallel but alien universe
a hot bright dart snarked across my unguarded pupils
"Hello, is anybody in there?"
(I swam toward the voice like a curious cuttlefish.)
"Show us you can breathe on your own and the tube can come out."
Huh? - reaching in confusion toward my tape-covered face
I came up short against restraints both hand and foot
quickly being cinched even closer with the admonishment: "Don't touch!"
I surfaced suddenly to the depth of my plight:
harpooned down the throat and enmeshed in a tight trawlnet
of straps, plastic tubes, leads, and conductive goop!
After voicing my protests as best I could (*gurgle*)
I resigned myself to relearning to breathe
it obviously being the only upright way to leave!
So knowing I had nothing but life left to lose
I commenced to draw on that respirator hose
like it was a hookah hooked to heaven, the umbilical of mother love
the last creamy teat for the littlest piglet
and it took a lot of practice and human help: brisk reminders
body rubs, even a shout or two down the MRI tunnel
but soon I silenced that damned cicada, shed the tubes
and stood braced (albeit unsteadily) at the edge of the bed
whereupon the doctor said, "Why, just look at you - you should be dead
but tho still too old to dance, show a much greater miracle in its stead!"
Well, I gave him a smile, but thought all the while
"Beg pardon, Doc, but just give me some room
for I danced myself right out of the womb
and plan to dance straight back to the tomb
for it's never, ever strange or wrong to dance too late, or long, or soon
even if I have to rattle my own bones for a tune!"
(Now - I'm famished - where's that hospital food?)
- Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Jan 05 2014 5:00:27 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Jan 22 2014 : 5:52:34 PM
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Darkness at Noon
I'd long known that a crisis loomed, and soon
some surely wondered: from whence the gloom
as my writing took on a more caliginous tone
but others may from experience have known
that prisons feign a fail-first plan
where even if an inmate can't, they claim he can
and consider their job being done most well
when all help is denied in this man-made hell.
What part of failure, tho, couldn't they get
as fate further dealt to anti up their bet
that being penny-wise wouldn't end as pound-foolish
but perhaps both sides did gain a half-wish
to walk in lock-step an adversarial road
that daily o'ertopped its acrimonious load
for I played my role, make no mistake
as the need to beg I could no longer take
abhorring life as a burden on others
condemned as a pest who ever pleads and bothers.
Would you too have thrown it back in their face?
I did - and do - but please consider my place
and reflect how empty all would feel and seem
to face existence with no self-esteem.
So I chanced to change the playing field
but found that demons can't (easily) be shamed to yield
and would instead suspend a critical med
in apparent hope I'd be silenced or dead!
What a tableau and action-packed adventure
with crime-scene tape X'ed across my door
while I was gathered and scraped up off the floor
then pounded and puffed with lots of tough-love CPR
the long way thru a one-lane blizzard
before ICU-intubation straight down my gizzard!
Honey, it seems I forgot to breathe! -
was I really that darn eager to leave
or did I just feel so delightfully blessed
to be rhythmically ridden, hard-pressed and kissed?
But I didn't complain, no, not a peep
having received Michael Jackson's death-potion of sleep
so, I dunno, your honor - it's all one great big haze
except for being really sore, and that for days -
but while numb and dumb, I had questioned the morphine drip
right up until the dang thing quit! -
and then felt stomped from all possible angles
and resuscitated by a whole herd of camels! -
so apparently, if passed out, or entirely away (*yuck*-)
even herbivorous Heimlich might not be ducked
and it may not be by angels your lips are sucked!
Allow me to comment now to my keepers
(besides thanks for the time-warped half-life, jeepers!)
and tho I'll try to hold down the bleepers
this might sound harsh, I still like you
but my pen finds jest in the cruel and unjust things you do
and otherwise just follows the rhymes - to wit - and without further ado:
Whoa! - these really close calls make me wet my britches
and I'll bet your twitchy trigger-finger still itches
each time I bounce back, you falsely infer in your face
then to insist I still don't know my place (which is where, exactly?)
but there are some things I wish you yourself could learn
so your gear-driven heart would more warmly turn
and grasp my simple (if unquiet) need to write and live
but this one shiny quarter you refuse to give
seeing my reflections as tarnished and that this will not do
and you come unglued to think I think the same about you! -
but this mad mental game you play on your own
'cept when I coin cladden phrasing off your thick metal dome
for, my time-weathered foil, no contest of wills is played fully alone
and some fortunate artists get fortuitous power surges
from the most fickle and capricious of demiurges (- hey, just like you!)
Much toxic water has now flowed under the bridge
and kept all our hackles high up in a ridge
but the lesson we really need carefully ken
is that while heatings and beatings harden weapons and men
the wildest of beasts may be most softly led
by a single gentle gossamer thread - of love!
Now there's a fine engram to engrave on your galvanized head
unless exceeding the pale of a destitute pail!
Oh, don't now engage that baleful hate-gaze
for the grating you feel as these words slide in sideways
bears artistic license for my last hunting days
in triune pursuit of the duty, game, and right
to face, fight and laugh at the dying of the light!
So, hello Darkness, my old friend
tho in ways I have learned to bend
whatever misfortunes you choose to send
only when I break will this play end...
-Ananda T.
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Edited by - anandatandava on Feb 02 2014 09:57:05 AM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Feb 06 2014 : 12:01:42 PM
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Freedom of the Press
Bent to the task
in a sinkless cell, freshly pepper-gassed
blinked eyes and mind, gulped to be brave
then flushed the toilet, and drank the wave!
Survival drives all that's been fought
comes a small income? - then quite dearly bought
and where ruin sits upon every path
I doubt this war's over, not nearly by half.
For cellblock shadows are never far to seek
and my chances at best are forever bleak
so the future seems futile, a mirage through the end
which no choice of my own can move to mend.
Bad fortune's clown performs as my lot
the worst of hard luck, as likely as not
but whether first or last earth is thrown on my grave
No amulets of hope or luck need keep me brave.
For perched here even on ruin's noisome rim
my dangling feet kick up their own kind of din
kindling the word-hoard in my full treasure room
and who feels frightened (or bored) when lightened of gloom?
So then as goes the pen, I guess also go I
and one dreary day, my veins will drain and dry
but for now more ink will surely get spilled
before comes the aurally arid day my voice becomes stilled.
And in case it sounds crazy to spend my time fighting
for the one simple right to spend some of it writing
you likely take for granted some big things too - like freedom or air?
and if they were lost, what would you do? - perhaps fight or despair?
Well, the same things to me are my writing and chair
and you have certainly seen, my time-informed confrere
that with unwritten words I'm quite roundfully crammed
and like a ripe puffball must burst out or be damned!
So if it's better to light candles than sit cursing the dark
why not combine them at times - you know - just as a lark?
for with even gentle thoughts roasted like heretics Inquisition
I gladly risk this already wrecked life to reject the imposition!
And as fate flips its coin on to do or to die
this warrior has already readied his last battle cry:
"Freedom of the (pre-Gutenberg pencil) press -
nothing more, nothing less!"
-Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Feb 16 2014 2:52:47 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Feb 09 2014 : 2:20:12 PM
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[i][/iHe Lied!
"Not all who wander are lost." J.R.R.Tolkien
When they lay me down to rest
unfinished works upon my chest
atop my bones the stone may read: "vae victus"
but friends will say that tho no longer with us
he sang and strummed a maple flame-grained lyre
that sprout and sprung lasting limbs of living fire
(no dormant choice for that hot-house voice)
and that he flounced around in mad abandonment
Seeming sometimes gutter-drunk, sometimes heaven-sent
a man of all reasons, though idiot or savant? crazy or daft?
but all now seen of his far-off bardic craft
are his rosy cheeks, both fore and aft
and that he laughed, and that he cried
and that in the end he did a back-flip and died
but vanquished in woe? - no, never, not ever
for even when he did lower, whimper or whine
- he lied! - ooh, that mischievous imp went and lied!
as behind his direst whimper lay an equally deep sublime -
sagas filled to spilling with storm-hit voyage, and sunlit curative line
journeys to the center of the mind, and thru the core-vortex of time
but as truth is oft' best served on a bed of myth called lies
pray take pity on your lowly servant, the Lord of all Goodbyes.
-Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Feb 21 2014 6:07:21 PM |
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Anima
484 Posts |
Posted - Feb 12 2014 : 12:39:14 AM
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Hi Anandatandava,
I'm glad you're okay. I like your poems. Thank you. I had a friend in college who used the name "Vaevictus," and he lives in China now. I have thought of him a lot recently.
Love
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The_seeker
Canada
27 Posts |
Posted - Feb 23 2014 : 4:50:14 PM
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You are a wonderful person Anandatandava...very inspirational.
I understand you've been through hard times, but as an old monk was saying: "sufferance purifies and nourish a humble heart".
A beautiful soul cannot be chained down by anything, actually I do believe you are freer than most of us.
God bless your heart. |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2014 : 5:38:59 PM
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In the Shade of My Legend
Well now, just what dear and dainty thing
has brushed me softly with its wing?
ah, 'tis a long-lost gracious thought
that I'd erenow somehow forgot
which now in kindness resolves to return
like a fleetingly errant airborne Lucerne!
Light-lanterned fairy tern
you spark hope in a man sorely spurned
for my name spreads just like a contagion
that tends to send them all off and running
but even night itself can lose the craft for fright
when love is found tucked under its covers pulled tight
and now you cuddle near where few others can or do
to sit serene in the ebon shade of my legend's milieu
little vampire vamp, pick your poison, I'll be anything for you
honeysuckle blood, milksweet bone, whatever else I create or own
for a loud lover I'll even squeeze eternal life straight from stone!
Furtive word will-o'-the-wisp
just how many poets have you kissed? -
but remember me for my unquenchable thirst
for endless spools of threaded verse
as thoughts alone are mere airy things
but when suspended upon a tensile string
of meter and rhyme can span entire worlds
and maybe - just maybe - bring distant hearts unfurled!
- Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Mar 16 2014 2:59:16 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2014 : 5:51:30 PM
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Life is a Roundelay
Of a miniscule life, what is not best seen clear
than thru the window of a single brimming tear?
the world rounded down to a tiny tremulant prism
a diamond solitaire diorama deep within the dark of prison -
no wonder I cry so, so many.
And tears are the one thing I know we both share
whether consumed by consummate rapture or pain-filled despair
and dropping either singly like a swallow from the eaves
or raining downward like overdue autumn leaves -
can you really deny that you ever cry any?
Well, I believe that all the living weep
drowning in weightless waters, bitter or sweet
for what is life but laugh, cry, rinse and repeat
briefly blinded by the taut drumbeats of our own heartbeats -
the veil drawn between verities - so which side do you fancy?
- Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Mar 16 2014 12:59:09 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2014 : 6:06:29 PM
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Wax of a Waning Heart
Oft' and long was the seal of love pressed
against the pliant wax of my melting heart
to leave Cupid's cameo die deep scarlet cast
but - alas! - as firm as your thought still holds me in thrall
I no longer feel your real touch on me at all!
For though your script does go on, it now reads that I've been written out
and though your world keeps on spinning, I feel that I've fallen off -
gravity now rules over only hearts discarded in the dead letter file
where even my most flowery endearments can never reach the open air
to bed again in your vase-like ear and blossom thru your scented hair!
If unconditional love is a cure-all for madness
then surely its unrequited form can be the cause
as my heart wrings and weeps itself wizened as a dusty briar
hollow as a pitiless fig, taper grown torpid and tired
my tallow turns tail to run, then hangs like rain on a wire
so before wax and wick are gone and only fading light remains
in pity reconsider - of all your dreams while you were sleeping
was I really not the one worth keeping?
- Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Mar 16 2014 2:58:45 PM |
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anandatandava
USA
215 Posts |
Posted - Mar 04 2014 : 6:10:38 PM
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The Muse
In all times and climes it's been solemnly said
that 'twixt soul and lips something goes dying
for Spirit cannot speak direct thru the head
but in some this truth would clearly be lying
when a Muse speaks for itself even when the corpse lies quite dead.
- Ananda T. |
Edited by - anandatandava on Mar 16 2014 12:38:45 PM |
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From Anandatandava
