Short sketch – Revenge

The Goddess laughed. Her eyes were amused and grim with satisfaction. She gazed upon her nemesis. A strange aura emanated from her, an impenetrable white shield of an inner secret of power.

“Your quest for revenge upon me has destroyed you more completely than any revenge I could have chosen. I do not need to defeat you, demon. I am beyond your power. My bondage was my own choice, as is my freedom. You deluded yourself into thinking that you chained me, for you have chained nothing but yourself. I have always been free.

Your murky claws can reach me, but they cannot touch me. Your black soul cannot sully my aura. The sacred touch of Life has healed the scars of your attack, and lighted in me the all consuming fire of passion. I revel in Life; I revel in my Beauty, I revel in the power of my Being. I revel in the knowledge that my revenge is complete because you are now my slave. And you do not know.

You sought to bind a Goddess to you with mortal bonds. You succeeded only in chaining yourself to a Power you can never conquer. This is true Justice – that you must suffer what you sought to inflict upon me”

She laughed again and turned away. The demon watched her with red rimmed eyes, still believing that he held the chain. As she walked, the chain dragged him with her, but he could not hold her back. He who had thought to master was the one enslaved.

The mountains and the heavens echoed her laughter.

Poem — KALI*

You have misjudged me.

You have glimpsed only the depth of a woman’s love.
You have not fathomed the vehemence of her contempt
when that love is thwarted by a betrayal that shames infidelity.

You have felt only the intensity of a woman’s faith.
You have not comprehended the potency of her scorn
when that faith is shattered by the reality of a treachery more appalling than mere falsehood.

You have sensed only the warmth of a woman’s tenderness.
You have not known the eternal ice of her indifference
when that tenderness is subjected to mockery and requited by a sham, a pale reflection of her love.

You have known only the sweet passion of a woman’s innocence.
You have not been scorched by her soul set ablaze by a holocaust of pain,
when she has cremated all the dreams of her innocence.

You have interpreted a woman’s gentleness as her weakness,
her unwillingness to cause pain as her inability to defend herself.
You have not gauged the power of her endurance, or the strength of her conviction.

Be not so deceived.

A Goddess is born from the depths of a woman’s heart,
hallowed by the ardor of her love,
or baptized by the depth of her anguish:

A Fury with power to which man has no equal.

Challenge not that Goddess; test not her Wrath.
It shall consume you.
She has no mercy.

I shall not forgive.

*Kali–The Goddess of destruction in Indian Mythology.

Poem–Premonition

Oh Wild Wind, potent and restless—
Why do you haunt me thus?
Fluttering open concealed thoughts
Like the leaves of a dusty book;
Raking up the leaves of memories,
Long dead, buried, lost, forgotten;
Your touch: neither caress, nor kiss—
But an icy slap upon face and limbs;
Your voice: no whispering melody
But a howling shriek of fury and anguish…
No more the mischievous prankster,
But an angry, mighty Avenger—
Tearing at my tresses and clothes,
Cracking panes and felling trees;
Oh Harbinger of Thunder and storm,
Do you bring tidings of a sister-tempest
In my life and heart?
Destroyer, Creator—Say you?—
That this, the price of a mighty Love
That both crowns and enslaves me:

That all I know and cherish,
All around and within …
Will be blown and washed away…
And I, begin life, anew?