Mar 9, 2016 Uncategorized
Shine On! (Sonnet for Childhood)
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
See yon diamond kite, sweet child of the sky?
Come watch it trail its skeins of sun, and smile.
And see the air move round it in a dance –
You’ll soon, like me, fall straight into a trance.
The world moves fast around, and so do we,
Not knowing if we’re trapped, or if we’re free.
No matter what, if we but laugh in play,
All traps, and chains, and bars will fade away.
If I could find the golden key for you
And carve a doorway to a world that’s new
I’d make it full of light, and play and song
I’d walk in there; but you can fly along!
It’s in your eyes that I see childhood shine
And wish for you that it will not decline.
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Tags: #Childhood's Universe, #Nostalgia, #Original Poetry, #sonnet, Kite and sun
Mar 9, 2016 Friday Fictioneers
Photo-Credit: Emmy L. Gant
Genre: Shakespearian Fantasy / Grim humor
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Ill-Met by Rain-Light!
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The King stepped into the urban jungle, followed by his retinue. He stared at his Queen, who emerged from behind a trash can, with her attendants.
“Ill met by rain-light, proud Titania!” His voice fell like rain, cold and stinging.
“What? Jealous Oberon, maker of ill-winds and trash-bins, here?! Fairies, skip away. He causes floods and Climate Change!”*
He looked around, and paled. “I take it all back! Come home to me!”
“What’s done cannot be undone. It’s ALL your fault. You wrangled with me over a mortal child who was mine to foster. Fairies, hence!”
And Planet Earth died.
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*I’ve always thought that Shakespeare must have experienced some glimmering of Climate Change, but in a fairy-world sort of way. In Act 2, Scene 1, when Titania meets Oberon, she tells him that the strangeness of the seasons (everything being topsy-turvy, as it is today in our world) is due to their fighting:
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this same progeny of evils comes
From our debate, from our dissension;
We are their parents and original.
And thanks, as always, to Rochelle, our generous and talented Fairy Blog-Mother, and to Emmy L. Gant, for that beautiful photo-prompt!
Tags: #Shakespearean Fantasy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Climate Change, Original 100-word short story based on a photo-prompt
Mar 9, 2016 Friday Fictioneers
Photo-Credit: Emmy L. Gant
Genre: Brutal Realism
Word Count: 100 words of text, exactly
Lone Trash
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I sit on the sidewalk in the rain, my mind an empty bin. I can barely move.
Ants bite at my veins. Spiders crawl up my spine. Last night’s dinner knocks at my throat. Gagging, I lurch up, and stagger along the street.
I was thrown out of the restaurant. I was being a jerk, I think. There are gaps. I cannot remember. There’s a haze that hangs over my mind when I try.
I’ve lost my job, my wife, my family, my home. My heart is as stone.
There’s a broken trash-can here. I think I’ll keep it company.
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Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, Fairy Blog-Mother whom we love, and who hosts Friday Fictioneers every week! Thanks, as well, to Emmy L. Gant, for the haunting photo-prompt for this week!
Mar 9, 2016 The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Contrast
Sun in a Universe Blacker than Night
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The night presses so blackly
Against my cold window-pane,
That the absurd orange of
Fake cloth flowers holds it back.
Night staggers away, singing –
A drunk in delirium.
I am not fazed. I sit and
Sing my song to solitude.
All around me press the ghosts
Of those past, and those to come.
I greet them and leave them be.
I have work to do right now.
Faraway ambulance wails.
Who goes where at 2:00 a.m.?
– Life so tenuous, like glass
Blown by a drunken artist!
I sit here calmly, knowing
As sure as the sun will rise
That I shall live, and live long.
This is not dumb arrogance.
Somewhere, dawn breaks over hills
Here, though, I fight the night with
Borrowed light, and invite sleep,
Comfort and warmth in silence.
Such foolishness to presume
That such things will always exist!
And yet, what do I gain by
Speculating on disaster?
Somewhere, people fight and die
Somewhere, people starve and die
Somewhere else, women give birth
Till the fields, harvest the wheat.
And it hurts me, every day –
The wounds of all who live, and
The terrors of all who die.
Still, I dream, and sing my song.
And the earth keeps spinning on,
Blue marble seeking her boy.
Her Sun keeping watch in a
Universe blacker than night.
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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Original Poetry, Comfort and Solitude, Life and Death, Speculating, Sun and Space
Mar 9, 2016 Original Poetry, Tanka, The Daily Post
In response to Secret from The Daily Prompt
Secret Season – Tanka #2
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Bees buzz in sunshine
The Season of Secrets comes;
Blossoms everywhere!
See your child unfurl her wings;
Wonder at her secret smile.
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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Secret