I Visit the Lady in the Depths

Where are you?
I shout
Loud!
For
The Lady of the Depths
“I am not at your beck and call”
I hear her voice
It’s not soft
And quite clear
But I don’t know where
It’s coming from
I thought that
We had become one
Some kind of self actualization
In Progress
1%…2%…3%

Prepare for descent
It is time
I visited
The Lady in her home
Since
She won’t pick up her phone
–
“Who dares come?
Fee fi fo fum”
I hear her joke
While I soak
In my inner being
(Where meaning
Is a fun treasure hunt
After I jump off my punt
And dive down, deep below)
While boats merrily row, row, row
On the Lady’s ceiling
Where the yatchs go sailing
While birds swoop down
A showdown between realms
When the dolphins jump out
Along with some trout

The ocean sky
Meets the ocean depths
And The Between:
A contested border
In a joyful game
Between creatures

“Fee fi fo fum”
Her echo
Draws me out of my reverie
Shall I compare thee
I begin to say
To smooth the way
To cover up
To disguise
My momentary distraction
There is no reaction
So I do not continue the sonnet
I’ve forgotten most of it anyway
Hey
I say
“Hey”
And just like that
The distance closes
The welcome mat is out
And a bouquet of roses

I do however say
A Hail Mary
Out of habit
I never quite know
What’s going to happen next
When I’m with her

No Muse ♿️

The Ladies
The muses three
Were they all just me?
I have a theory
Four years ago
I  imploded
Scattering my psyche
Scattering my soul
But can those
Ever be truly destroyed?
Disposed?
Deposed?
I don’t know
So,  four years ago
I split apart ( I lost my deep abode, my robe and my pet crows)
Then the Lady of the Depths
Took a step
Showing me chaos
Within my cocoon
A safe balloon
Floating in a thunderstorm
I transformed
From a sleeping corpse
I began to dream
And write poetry
Then the Lady of the Robe
Draped a cloak around me
And brought me out
Into the secular world
I began to grow interested
In things outside my coffin
I quit my bad habits
And head banged to Black Sabbath
‘War Pigs are playing pick up sticks
While they float on the Styx
They are a single step away from death’
Is what I understood
Though Ozzy said a lot of other stuff back then too
I leaped Into the year 2022
The year of the hellabaloo
(Baloo? Bear necessary?
Not really)
I now lived within Time
And not dead in my bed
Finally,  came the Lady of the Crows
Not so long ago
I began to feel again
Since I don’t know when
Before,  only annoyance
Now,  joy, sorrow, rage
Feeling sage
I can even blush rosemary
While I save some thyme
I have begun to meditate
Gluing myself back together
The seven chakras
Are spinning dreams
That I can remember
I still have 30% of my strength
Iron measure
200% in six months
Is my target
I’ll mark it
On my calendar
And meander
Towards it
For I follow
The Dao of Chaos
1 year of conflict
5 years of reflection
Ad infinitum
A perilous path
But it suits my biochemistry
And manic depressive psychology

(I hit a wall with my drawing, and started meditating and reading. I am working out a little…indoors. I’ll start light, and increase the intensity gradually. I had broken my L4 earlier (herniated disk) because of bad form. I think it has healed, even though the doctor said that these things never heal… I’ve become really weak compared to before. I got so immersed in all of these activities that I couldn’t scrounge up the energy to write poetry, but I’m feeling really good today. Don’t know when I’ll post again. Maybe after Easter. I should have finished my books by then. )

Thus Spake Tanmay (ustra?)

Whoa! I can feel things
Does this mean I’m human?
Then why am I afraid
To display emotion?
Stifle it up inside?
Stiff upper lip?
Not when I’m writing
I can’t give my muses the slip
Here I can roar
Let my feelings soar
Lose my readers more and more?
Who am I writing for?
I don’t really know
For me? For you?
Perhaps for them?

It’s a primal urge
To roar
I do it with written words
And try to make them soar

(A repeat rhyme

I know…I know)

Meditation
Slow my breathing
Feel something kindling
In my abdomen
I twitch
A petit mal seizure?
It lasts for a few seconds
And I feel pleasure?
Happens every time
Like an orgasm, I suppose
But not of the flesh
It tingles from my spine
All the way to my head
That’s the way
The Lady of Crows
Would have me write
I pray before the Depths
I study before the Robe
And do some freaky meditation
(Kundalini?
Houdini?
Spaghetti)
Before the Crow
Wtf is happening to me?

Terror, pleasure
Joy, suffering
A real mixed bag
When the three start singing

A long introduction
For a short poem
Here we go

Through the eyes
Of the Lady of Crows
Which took me some effort
To control

I see clouds
Floating like driftwood
A rainbow
Light-show
Drawing them in
I see an ent
Conducting an orchestra
Of wind and colour
He thinks he’s in charge
But he’s just moving his arms
In a frantic effort
To keep up to the dance
Of the Universe
He’s constrained by the form
Imposed on him
By the spirit of this age
Who will not allow him to be free

Now
The afterword…
I’m not trying to sound mystical
Okay,  maybe just a little
It felt like squeezing a lime
Salt and sugar for the rhyme
I only lack soda
Won’t get it in the coda
I guess water will have to do
So boring… boo hoo
There was that whale thing in Fantasia
That felt like anesthesia
Was it Sibelius? I’ve forgotten
Middle age memory… rotten
The point is…
I’m finally getting to it…
I am just a guy
Making a beverage
And giving you a taste
In exchange
For the possibility
Of a like and a comment
And perhaps I also feel the satisfaction
No,  the delusion,
Of creating something new

My Art Rating: 0.5 Bananas 😭

I wanted to do something special
Something big,  something beautiful
For my month iversary (with digital art)
And all I had was a digital canvas
Filled with a substandard copy
And chaotic brush strokes
I wanted to break something
But those days of rage
Were long behind me
Weary acceptance now
…
Then the Lady appeared
“Why so glum
Why so mum
Say something
Anything
Even about nothing
Like you sometimes do”
If I rated my drawings in bananas
I told her
I was sure
It would be half a small one
An underripe and damaged one
“You may not manage one
Now”
She said
In my head
“Transcendent paintings
Are de rigeur
Sure
But they take time
And a special sort of inspiration
Don’t force it
I’ll still endorse it
Your new found purpose
You’re very earnest
And now you know
That grey has a thousand shades”
I had never read the book
Or seen the movie
BDSM was not my thing
I wouldn’t play that game
Even for someone wearing my ring
“I meant real colour, silly
Look at where your mind wanders
Next you’ll tattoo a fleur de lily
And claim to be Molly Flanders”
Who was Flanders, Molly
And why would I engage in such folly?
Was she the Marchioness of Flowers
That most mystical place
Filled with artistic grace
Where the muses sang
And the timbrils rang
And the lyres laid
With violins and made
Stringed babies
…
Violence and lies
Bad pun
…
Never mind
…
Anyway,
Where the muses sang
In time
Always in time
These were no maenads
But my muse seemed quite mad
Maybe she was half and half?
“Don’t worship the golden calf”
She said
“Muses and fuses,  mere tools
Use, misuse, abuse,  refuse
But don’t let them control you
Or you’ll end up  at war
With your psyche
And without electricity”
It was then that I realized
That I needed to back everything up
And stop sipping from the cup
Of laziness
My craziness
Was a tool too
That could be used,  abused,  misused But not refused
Every part of me was a tool
I just needed an instruction manual
Are we dual?
Did my boot contain a window to Ubuntu?
You and I
I asked the Lady
Two in I? II Roman style?
My mind was focussed on advaita
But I needed more data
To make a reasonable hypothesis
On my life’s purpose
The Lady blew a raspberry… pi
“Remember the porpoise?”

I remembered
My first poem of chaos
Where I had to choose
Between a fish and a gun
But got jailed for contempt
When I grew unhappy
At the settlement
Was all of this
Really nonsense?

“Chaos, my dear’
She stroked my cheek
“Apeiron, the unknown, the deeps
Where discoveries sleep
You need to dive down
And almost drown
In madness
To escape the blandness
Of safety and sanity
If you want to be
Pioneer
Discoverer
Inventor
Dreamer

The ers kept coming
Like pleasant humming
I listened to her sing
And no longer felt the sting
Of my horrible artwork
With its stupid lighting
And toddler level anatomy
Colour blind shading
And clueless values

“There you go again!”
The Lady stamped her feet (cute)
And disappeared

The Lady and the Art Novice

The Lady of the Depths
Crept up to me
From the Apeiron Sea
She had noticed
My focus
My drive
My bee hive
Of digital paint
And control Zs
She had observed
My dedication
My latest obsession
My reformation
That verged on monomania
I hadn’t felt like this since the intrigue at Ruritania
She said, with a smile,  “Draw me”
But I wasn’t ready
I distracted her with some astral tea
Happy,  she let me
Make my excuses,  many and plenty
I didn’t know if she’d get insulted
When an unflattering portrait resulted
She’d end up disgusted
And I the culprit
So she went back to the Depths
And waited…
And waited…

When I draw her, I plan to use this picture as the reference, for the clothing at least, but I am not ready to even copy it, let alone use it as inspiration…