Crooked Grin and Other Poems

By Amrita Valan

Crooked Grin

The crooked moon flashes me a sidereal grin
And ducks under cloud cover.
Hinting all and sundry
Leaving a trail of nothing.

Every star in the sky chortles in silence
Diamantine derision.

Who trusts a wanton one-sided luminary?
Who never reveals his dark side?

I wrap my silver stole with its indigo lining
Tight over my throat and shoulders.

Before I am drunk on moonshine
There will be lines written
Abdicating it.

Stellar

I am never too tired to star gaze.
Knees aching, heart pounding from
Steep three storey climb,
Breath fierce and sharp,
I rejoice under the pallid moon
Steeped terrace.

Wind caught between buildings
Fanning my face, expectations
Raise my eyes to the heavens.
God never leaves his obsidian
Blackboard empty.
Tear drop trailers advertise movies
From alternate realities.
Some other history blinks and
Winks mysterious significance.

Time distorts the date light messages
Were sent.
Can’t erase it.
Stars stand steadfast sentinels,
Staring into oblivion.

Muses of Lumos, offering
Music of the spheres
To the inner ear.
Twinkling teasing trails of questions
Whose answers both bemuse
And mystify.

I am caught in a wondrous stellar web
Lustrous beyond reckoning.
An urge to go astral, nihil ultra,
Wanderings beyond my human
Origin.

Soleil

Sol our sun has many facades
Many appellations.

Le Soleil the brilliant one.
Helios rising god of Greece
Suryan the Hindu god
On chariot driven by son,
Saturn, seven horses of the
Spectrum pulling it,
A rainbow cavalcade
Merging to white clarity.

Middle-aged yellow star
In its prime, fusing hydrogen
To helium in innate fury.
Give or take a billion others?
No source of mystery?

Our sun has tales and myths associated
Heroic qualities attributed
Life giver, He grows beyond human
Comprehension, to a
Rage of angelic vivacity.

How many stars in this universe,
Can boast an Icarus?

A Konark Temple?
Sun dials and Inca sanctuaries?
Ra of the high Egyptians?

The devoted reverence of sentient
Life forms that are aware that it’s
Crucial for life itself?

Black hole sun, our dread terror,
And Goldilocks effect, our
Incredible luck of the draw
In cosmic hazards of existence.

Crimson blush at sunset
Pale ivory gold at dawn
Brilliant white fury at noon
Sun has many faces
Adored by many names.

Amrita Valan is a writer from Bangalore India. She has been published in several
anthologies, such as Poetica 2, The Poet’s Christmas and Childhood anthologies to name a
few. She has featured in online journals such as Spillwords, ImpSpired, Portland Metrozine,
Shotglass Journal, Oddball magazine among others. She has a master’s degree in English
literature and is a mother of two boys.