Dec 14, 2018 Original Poetry
Tilt
©December 14th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Blue light filters into a crooked room
With tilted frames, and tilted books,
And tilted vision in a tilted mind.
I look sidewise, and spot
A passing whim, flirtatious and winsome.
I am determined, though, and
Look away. I shall not be seduced.
I have things to do,
And places not to be.
Nine camels follow a tenth,
Noses high, tails stiff,
Free of camel-drivers, free of burdens,
And still trapped within a narrow frame,
Tripping on sunset sands,
Ringed with gold, and red, and gold.
They have somewhere to be,
And will be forever getting there.
I have somewhere to be, too.
But here I am.
Four plastic stars, luminescent at night
Lie flat against a tilted wall.
It’s daylight. They have no job to do.
They stay there, placid and pointless,
Like the clothes on the floor,
Lumped willy-nilly in haste and abandon.
A naked wire-man blows an eternal horn,
With a naked wire-woman flying by his side,
Hair streaming in an unseen wind,
A dove in her hand, and a tambourine
In another: Eve and Adam in a white sky.
And, trapped within a picture frame,
They, too, keep flying, free, trapped.
The sun comes tilting through
My dusty windows, criss-crossed
By the branches of distant trees.
And here I am,
With tilted visions in
A tilted mind.
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Dec 14, 2018 Original Poetry
Gift-Wrapped
©December 13th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
There is a gift-wrapped box
Somewhere, ready to be opened.
And a man or a woman
Seated within it, waiting to be known.
That they are in a box
Might be entirely their doing,
Or it might not be.
The question is: When you open it –
If you open it –
And they spring up,
Full of the bounce of a released self,
Will you quickly shut the box, or
Will you go away, unsure and rattled?
Will you help them climb out,
And walk around in your world?
Will you speak to them, or shout?
Or, will you shut your ears
When they open their mouths to speak?
Where you were, what you did,
What you said, and what they said,
Before you reached that box – all these
Focus like a laser-cutter
On that box, when you open it.
Now, unknowing and blank, you’ve
Opened it, was it simply because
You passed by it, and it was
Nicely wrapped up with a bow?
Ah, but there are so many bows,
So very many boxes,
And so very many gifts.
And all I want is to release them,
Not direct them – they may go
Entirely where they please.
I will release them, and step back,
And admire the beauty within
Before they step out, and flee
Far, far away from where
They sat imprisoned.
I will release them, and step back,
And admire the beauty within
Before they step out, and flee
Far, far away from where
They sat imprisoned.
I will collect all the pretty bows,
And wait to give them to the first
One who returns.
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