Jan 8, 2015 Original Poetry
Playing with My Dog
©January 8th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
It’s water leaping into the air
Catching light and tossing it up.
It’s laughter and growls
And scurrying and skittering
And funny mock-battles.
It’s being willing to shed
Time and dignity
And be utterly free.
It’s letting go of dead weights
Encircling ankles, gripping me
By the neck.
It’s saying, Yes, death waits
But I will simply be
Right here, right now.
This is what it means
To play with my dog.
I will play.
And sing.
I will tug at my dog’s toy
And bring her joy.
I will leap and pirouette
And jump and spin.
For, at the end of the day
After all the news and the din
Of competing stories, voices
People tapping at my head
Waiting to get in,
There is just this:
Time narrowing down:
A living room, a rectangle
Of wood and light,
Colors and music,
And a dog with
Rubber chicken in mouth
Growling happily while I
Tug and pull and play.
And we leap around each other,
All existence sharpened
To this point. None else.
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Tags: Chronicles of Holly, Fun, Holly, Playing With my Dog
Jan 8, 2015 Original Poetry
Child in Water
© January 8, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
A scream hangs in the air
Long after the deed.
Betrayal and terror
Clip five-year old wings.
Sailing over an edge
Into a void, crying,
“Daddy, I love you!
Save me!”
The heart stops.
Bones hurt with
Unending pain.
Cold enters deep
With fingers of frost
And icy dread.
Eternity is a few long seconds
Cutting off five years,
Choking off a child’s cry.
Eternity is the menacing dark
Rising up to meet you
Like liquid iron.
Eternity is waves, like claws
Closing over a still beating
Child-heart.
And I sit here and weep
At a mere headline,
While there, an entire
Beautiful bird-child
Spinning, spiraling,
Into brick-darkness, has been
Ended.
For her father,
What forgiveness?
None, I say.
May he rot
In the dung-heap
Of time.
May he crawl in
Unending grief.
May the waves of
Remorse rip apart
His beast-heart.
May he never more
Know human love.
Worse, may he
Know it, and never
Find it.
May sorrow tear
Him to shreds
Day after day after day
While his heart
Beats itself into
Nothingness, and he
Spirals, headlong, into
An unending chasm
Beyond death.
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On seeing the headlines: 5-Year-Old Girl Dies After Being Tossed Off Florida Bridge
Tags: Evil Father, Horror, Huffington Post /AP news story about a five year old girl thrown from a bridge
Jan 8, 2015 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT – © Copyright Jean L. Hays
Genre: Realistic Fiction (current events-inspired)
Word Count: 100 words
Unthink
©January 8th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I found myself staring at the banner near the historic sign, and mouthed the letters to myself.
Unthink?
How had I gotten here?
Here, America’s Main Street, where songs arose from the dirt, and dreams were broken in the dust of racism?
Too much thinking, that’s what it was — too much reading and too many heartbreaking stories in the news.
I feared for my son — for his beautiful dark skin, his large-black-grape eyes, his woolly puff of hair, his idealistic spirit, his bursts of sadness.
I feared for him, for the safety of all our children.
How to unthink this?
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Sorry, folks! I’d been sick, then busy with schoolwork, and there was too much heartbreak in the news in the past five weeks. I’ve missed being here, and seeing everyone’s work. I will try and be more consistent, because I MISS this!
Thanks for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting this beautiful site, and for her use of unusual and challenging photo-prompts (for which I thank Jean L. Hays!)
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt, Flash Fiction, Micro-Fiction, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Route 66 photo prompt