Eye gathered lilies
22 February 2020
Daffodils smiled slight
Aligned in metastasis
The wind stroked rivers
Peeping through hedges
Walking into his footsteps
March blossoms shone through
Return of my King
Senses locked on to his strides
Eye gathered lilies
Reading of the poem:
“Exaltation” from the album Lamentation of Swans: A journey towards silence – Azam Alii and Loga Torkian
Birthday party
A short (10 min play) play by Geetha Balvannanathan (geethap2007@hotmail.com)
17 September 2016
CHARACTERS
ERIC: SEEN AND HEARD, AN AGING MAN GRAPPLING WITH THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE AND LEFT ALONE ON HIS BIRTHDAY
BARTENDER: SEEN AND NOT HEARD, HE HAS PICKED ERIC OFF THE FLOOR OF HIS BAR COUNTLESS TIMES AND KEEPS WARNING HIM NOT TO DRINK TOO MUCH.
TWO ANGELS: NEITHER SEEN NOR HEARD BUT ERIC TRANSLATES THEIR COMMUNICATIONS
Setting: A bar initially and then a room which is dark and small.
Time: Beginning of evening
Opening scene in a dim lit bar. Eric is seated alone under a spotlight and drinking and then all of a sudden he drops face first on the table.
Lights go out.
Lights come back again only on Eric.
He is confused and trying to look all around him but can barely see anything.
ERIC: (SPEAKING TO HIMSELF) Man, that was one heck of a drink. The doctors said I should not have anymore but I can still stomach a good one. And that stupid bartender. Well, that’s what happens when you become a creature of habit. You go to the same old bar and the barman starts to get chummy and the next thing you know he’s the preacher from the church doubled with your step-mother from hell freshly out of her grave with that pointing finger telling you not to drink or it’ll be the death of you.
(looks alarmed at something on his right) what the… who are you? Angels? You don’t look very much like Angels and what the heck… I’m dead? I’m dead! It’s my birthday. Christ! I cannot be dead! (turns back to the two angels and turns back to the audience) I’m dead! Just a drink or two and wham! I’m dead. Now what? You’re going to withdraw my license or ask me to walk on the straight line in the dark (snickering to himself)
What? I can keep the humour for later? Oh come on lads, you can take a good joke, can’t you? Can’t you? I mean come on Gabriel, Gab! I am sure you must have a great sense of humour…No… OK so where am I? Huh? In purgatory? Why purgatory? What am I doing here and why am I not in heaven? My wife and my mother always told me I was a good man. A good man who had gone wrong sometimes but a good man all the same.
What? I have to think of three good deeds during my lifetime and then I get to go to Heaven? Only three good deeds? You are sure? Three good deeds. Okay, okay. Three good deeds. I have done three good deeds. No problem. Three good deeds….
When you say three good deeds, you mean good as in good for whom. Huh? Good deeds are something that you do for someone else? Ok.. Three good deeds… Three good deeds…. Three good deeds. One two, three…. Three good deeds… Yeah coming coming. Geeze calm down. I’m getting there. Don’t worry, I’ll find three good deeds to talk about in those 8 minutes left. I thought in eternity you had no time and now you’re counting the minutes? What? This is purgatory, not heaven? It has almost the same rules as on Earth. Okay, okay okay. I am getting there.
(Scratches head, keeps thinking over and over but cannot find anything to say). Whaaaat? You’re already fed up? I’m just starting! One good deed is enough? Okay okay okay. I’m sure I’ve done one good deed in my life (raises voice again addressing the angels) I can hear you snickering over there. I really don’t find you very angel-like you know. You strike me rather as two gossiping women getting their back on someone. I did nothing to you fellas, why’re you taking it out on me. If you have a problem with your boss for overtime, take it out on him, not on me.
OK here we go. It was in 2011, 15 years ago. My 25 year-old nephew came to me and talked to me about this beautiful girl whom he loved dearly. She was such a poor and delicate thing. She was working very hard at Wallmart, was underpaid and was trying to graduate at the same time. I took pity on her and funded her so that she could be able to finish her education without having to go work at Wallmart anymore. How’s that for a good deed.
What do you mean that was not exactly a good deed? Okay okay okay. I slept with her but no harm in that. What do you mean I did give her the money but only because I made her my mistress. Why is that a bad thing? She had a sugar daddy taking care of her what else could she wish for? She did not have to work anymore and I gave her money for her siblings too… What do you mean I should have given him the money so that he could marry her and they would have both been happy. I had no problem with her marrying him at all. She could have married him if she wanted to. I was not the jealous type. After all, I was married myself so I would not blame her for being married. He neither. After all, he found her first (snickering to himself). What? He killed himself? Roger? Na… you got it all wrong. He killed himself way after she became my mistress and it was an accident, his car drove off the road, skid right off the road because of the ice on the road I think. It had nothing to do with me at all…What do you mean it had everything to do? What? He tried to kill himself many times and only succeeded that Christmas eve? I remember thinking how odd that he should have just drove off the road, it was not even a difficult bend for Roger who was such a great driver (his voice trails off)
I guess that one’s completely out, right?
Okay okay One good deed, one good deed, one good deed. Yes, got it. I remember the summer of 1983 Helen was giving birth to our first baby and I was of great help that night. What do you mean how? I gave energy and vigor to the midwife who helped Helen deliver. A wham slam in the pantry is hardly a good deed? Why not? She was energized, I was energized and God knows Helen was energized when I went to the room and took care of her and of our baby daughter. What the midwife? She delivered my child? Yes, my child so what? She delivered mine and Helen’s child. Not our child? Not Helen’s and mine but hers and mine? The midwife’s and mine? We had a child together? 7 years of trying to get Helen pregnant naturally and then another 5 long years with in vitro and with that one night wham bam the midwife had my child? Okay okay okay, that has to be a good deed right? You’re the ones that keep saying that children are a gift of God and have only good in their heart. If I brought that into the world then that must count as a good deed. She killed herself? Oh come on man. Gabriel? Gab! She killed herself? Why would she do that? The guilt?`! She was married? So what? I was married too.. She had a conscience. Oh please, don’t give me that conscience smoncience thing… (shakes his head as apparently the angels are not happy). Not a good deed….
Okay okay okay I got one. It was the spring of 1959 and there was this young thing. She was selling two different sets of cookies one to sponsor her scout club trip to Canada and the other one to contribute a gift for her mother’s wedding. I took both sets of cookies and she didn’t even have to beg me to. What do you mean I did not pay for them properly? She did not ask me to pay something specific. She just said give what your heart guides you to. Well my heart did not guide me to anywhere else than a penny at the time. She should have been more specific. Anyway, it is not like I stole them from her. That does count as a good deed doesn’t it? No? No! Okay. Okay. Okay.
Winter of 1969. I remember my fiancée Amy, she was crying. I really wanted to have some good time but her dad had just died a week ago and she was not in the mood and she started crying so I sat there listened to her cry and then consoled her. There, that is your good deed. Me, Eric, I triumphed over my bestial instincts and did a selfless act for another. What? It was not me? It was not me! You’re right! It was Philip, our neighbor. He had always been a good bloke. Always happy to help others. Even his wife, she was a very good woman. It was not me. I had left the apartment. I was angry she was not giving in and was upset. I remember… Amy.. I listened to her sobs from behind the door. I wanted to go in and take her in my arms and console her, tell her everything would be alright but I didn’t. I was just angry she could not put a lid on her feelings and be the sexy woman I had always known. I failed miserably. Amy… Then I went to the bar to drink. That’s how I started drinking every other day. The bartender sent me off saying I was too young to spoil my night drinking myself silly. I went back to the apartment and Philip was there consoling her. At the time I was too drunk. I thought he was seducing her. I was hateful. I told her so many awful things. Amy… I do not deserve to go to heaven. I think you should put me straight in hell. That’s all I deserve. I cannot think of one good deed that I did. Amy….Why? Amy.. If only…What? You can’t decide? Another test? Go back? Go back where?
Lights go off, thunder resounds. Lights come back and Eric finds himself back in the bar with the same bartender
Back here with him. What use. Stirring up all those feelings and coming back to this lonely birthday party with no party in it. What do you mean what birthday party young man. Can’t you see? It’s the old villainous Eric as you usually say. What do you mean what old. It’s me! Eric! Sir? Sir? You’re calling me sir? You’ve lifted my old carcass off the floor so many times and thrown me out of here and you’re calling me sir. What old? Me! (turns towards the mirror at the bar) Oh my oh my! Yes! (addresses himself). You sexy beast! (runs out of the bar yelling at the top of his lungs) Amyyyyy… here I come!!!
The song plays in the background “I believe in miracles, you sexy babe, you sexy babe”…
You Sexy Thing (I Believe in Miracles) by Hot Chocolate
Veiled promise
12 September 2016
Male female
Through darkness and light
Replicate
Pulsation
Vibrating through the three chords
Self Soul Oversoul
Stirring thoughts
In pans of morrows
We had cooked
Spiced sorrows
The broth a slow infusion
Heinous perfusion
Instilling
A sense of despair
Tool of dark
Distilling
A concentrate of the fear
Keeping the hate near
The choices
They make more than man
We fathom
What we can
Sea of possibilities
The weak minds will tease
Mind construct
On auto-destruct
Only Heart
Sees life’s way
Death an easier pathway
Slow route to decay
Heart will soothe
The mind that awakes
In the flakes
Veiled promise
Powdery matter spreading
Infinite threading
Reading of the poem:
The Key to the Universe (Dance of the Sacred Union) – Stellar
Lazu Ra Oh – Stellar
Journey in Love one four four – Stellar
Promise of the Fall
24 July 2016
All is spent
Efforts and prayers
The Dragon
Uncovers
Scales and gills under layers
Mistaken for flesh
Blue genies
Sing of oncoming
Nocturnal
Silent flights
When we will roam into nights
Deeper than cyan
Man lion
Keeper of the sun
We are one
Under oath
What seeps in one seeps in both
The blazing branches
Dining smoke
Ribs a black anthem
He inhales
I exhale
Withered lungs flailing ribcage
Burning in the rage
The regrets
They serve no purpose
The chest dark
The heart white
Intervals give me respite
Between mighty breaths
In due time
My rhyme will explain
The meanings
Of the pain
When the dewdrops will recall
Promise of the Fall
Reading of the poem:
A matter of Time – Dillon
Your Flesh against Mine- Dillon
Lightning Sparked – Dillon
Deep within lake Blue
6 February 2016
The days fly
Swirl of emotions
The feelings
Intense growth
Conscious expansion of soul
Fear is of the dead
Body stirred
Impact of broad chest
Beating heart
Blinking eyes
Fleeting moments of unrest
Blue and brown curtain
Mesmerised
Drowning in blue skies
I kissed lids
Fluttering
Bit shoulder a teasing wake
Of sleeping giant
Lazy days
Succession of nights
Lost in grains
Sandy brown
Like sawdust in milky way
Freckles a highway
Speeding lanes
A map to follow
Adventure
Departure
A promise cast on the brink
Of reaching somewhere
Thrill subsides
Yet it grows steadfast
The heartbeat
Soul echo
This is now for tell and show
Meanings unburdened
He said soft
Did you hear of Mars
Hitherto
There I lived
Speak to me of your Venus
Perhaps we can trade
I churned it
Whirling whirlwind looked
Upside down
Inside out
Every nook and corner spoke
Of unfailing love
The mind speaks
A foreign language
Heart oozes
Inky red
Stories of a thousand nights
One infinity
All else paled
Muted melodies
Hopeful peeps
Fear that creeps
Disguised in faltering love
Blown away by breeze
True love stands
More than bad weather
Dilating
Expanding
By the self replicating
Infinite system
One and one
Are more than mere sum
Less than two
Souls entwined
Between valleys and the peaks
Deep within lake Blue
Reading of the poem:
Blue Velvet – Bobby Vinton
Birdy – Not about Angels
Birdy – T Shirt
Birdy & Rhodes – Let it All Go
Birdy & Jaymes Young – Best Shot
Where all is Balance
16 October 2015
.
From doorways all come
Light and Darkness will rotate
Taking turns freely
.
.
In the mind the Fears
Create Monsters of Darkness
Rampant on Earth Spread
.
.
Heart within the Love
Showered wide Angels of Light
Of Wings that fluttered
.
.
Light and Darkness twirled
Beginnings in the Endings
Time spiralled Backwards
.
.
Sacrifices spent
Twists of spate for the Rising
In Heart of False King
.
.
Mind will reach the Heart
Setting clocks to Zero-point
Where all is Balance
.
.
Walk in Tomorrow
My Promise of the Union
That forever Shines
.
You who know my Heart
15 October 2015
.
Confusion of minds
Let loose mists upon the Hearts
That in Love were set
.
.
Bring me skies’ atoms
Let me knit you stars blankets
To keep out the cold
.
.
Breathe in Tomorrow
Where Heart beats fully, only
In precincts of Love
.
.
Shades of yesterday
Forgotten by tireless soul
That in past had strived
.
.
Life flows not backwards
All rivers upstream won’t flow
Respite name darkens
.
.
From front to flipside
Every area in flames
Caught in your loving
.
.
Heartbeats throb faster
Two in one will live ever
As the souls will twirl
.
.
The fingers sealed it
Promise by your kiss followed
Into depths of me
.
.
Gaze into my eyes
How could I forsake your touch?
You who know my Heart
.
.
Ten is renewal
Heavens open by our will
For our Kingdom come
.
Promise
23 July 2015
A hand on a heart
With a will outshining times
That emerged purest
Ramblings
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