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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