Apr 14, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Suitcase

Suitcase-Blood
©April 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Pack your suitcase (tattered, but good)
Sling your instrument over your shoulder,
Look around quietly,
Take the measure of things,
And say,
“Bye, then!”
And leave.

The road unfurls before you,
The horizon pearl-pink.
You spend your time
Forgetting your life,
As you walk down, then up that road,
Towards that pale, glimmering
Line between here and there.

 And you forget all the way
Down the road to there.
Your suitcase, which held everything,
Starts slipping from your grasp.
When you trip beyond the horizon,
You let it fall open.
Everything spills on the road,
Everything you own, or held dear.

And that lute you held
So close to your heart
Falls from your grasp, too,
And lands, with a crack,
Then splits wide open,
Like a pomegranate, or a heart.

You gasp, and grasp a passing
Thought to keep from drowning,
And say, to the waiting air,
“Perhaps, I don’t want to leave,
After all.
This is my life, still. 
It is good.  It was good.
It was beautiful.
And so much music
Filled my days.”

And you stop there,
Stand and remember
All the things you forgot.
And your suitcase, still open
Bleeds upon the pavement.
And the lute is mute like a stone.
But you leave, silent and sore,
Without a backward glance.

Somewhere, you hear a string
Twanging.

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Submitting to both The Daily Post, and to NaPoWriMo

Tags: #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Suitcase, #The Daily Prompt, #TheDailyPost

Apr 14, 2016 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry, San San

Truth and Lies – The Outlier
©April 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Dear child, if called on to prevaricate
Think straight, and try to not be prodigal
Dwell deeply on the truth (intensively).

For you, dear child, will find it’s not too late
To dismiss what’s mythological.
Your doubts, when you think straight, will disappear.

With liars, deal not apprehensively.
Dwell deeply on the truth – there is no fear.

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The Day 14 prompt for NaPoWriMo deals with a form I’ve never heard of, called the san san, and it was difficult at first.  Then, I did something I’ve never done before:  I simply came up with the end rhymes, and wrote the poem around them.  It came fairly easily this way.
Here’s the prompt that was provided:

And last but not least, our (optional) prompt! Today’s prompt comes to us from TJ Kearney, who invites us to try a seven (the site corrected it later to eight!)-line poem called a san san, which means “three three” in Chinese (It’s also a term of art in the game Go). The san san has some things in common with the tritina, including repetition and rhyme. In particular, the san san repeats, three times, each of three terms or images. The seven (eight) lines rhyme in the pattern a-b-c-a-b-d-c-d.

 

Tags: #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #SanSan, #TruthandLies