May 3, 2015 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry
They Will Not Die (Elegy #2 for Freddie Gray)
By Vijaya Sundaram
©May 2nd, 2015
Freddie Gray is dead,
Voice-box crushed,
Back broken in a
Nickel-ride homicide.
Was there hope for Freddie Gray,
Gray in a grey world?
Nebulous justice rules, a
Cloudy truth in the world of
The makers and breakers.
Hope is crushed, lowered
Into the ground,
Back in the box whence she came.
Yet, voices outside speak aloud
Angry and proud, people stand
And march, and … then throw rocks.
For, when words don’t work, what’s left?
When actions born of peace
Lead to laughing contempt,
Blank indifference, grudging handouts,
What’s left?
When blinded eyes, blinded mouths,
Blinded hearts, blinding fears
Rule the rulers, and crush
The ruled and the damned,
What else is left?
And a city burns,
Children cry out, eyes stretched wide
And injustice rides
Comfortably, now in blue,
Shielded by certainty
That they will not lose
This game, their game.
For they own the weapons
They own the power
They own it all,
But they will never
Own the truth.
And Justice will come
For they do not own her, either,
Just her simulacrum.
And they will receive just desserts
And face an eternity
Where unending despair
And hungry remorse will
Claw and gnaw at their vitals,
And they will not die.
And Freddie Gray
Will live, if we let him,
If we remember.
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Tags: Baltimore, Freddie Gray, Police, Race, Remember
May 3, 2015 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry
Speak – A Lamentation
By Vijaya Sundaram
©May 2nd , 2015
Spine broken,
Voice box crushed,
Yet another young man
Dies, beaten in the race
Of life.
Twenty-five years alive —
Now, older than time.
Life stretched before him
Before death came
Cruelly, in the back
Of a nickel-ride van.
He broke his own spine, they say.
They lie! How they lie!
Our hearts fail us, sense falters —
Brazen untruth spewed from mouths of
Killers, snuffers of the weak,
The disenfranchised,
Our police ride strong,
While a son is dead.
He broke his own spine, you say?
I laugh in disbelief.
But some buy their story
Listening with stretched ears
To lies pouring from all sides.
For lies sustain some,
And comfort them, while
They sit spellbound,
While flat-screens, plasmic,
Pour out flat people
Speaking flatly about
A three-dimensional world
Rendered two-dimensional —
A grotesque Guernica
Sans history, sans meaning,
To those who sit,
Gesturing with painted fingernails,
Dyed hair, painted-on smiles,
Or communing with
Neatly slicked-back hair and
Business suits, patent-leather shoes,
Sputtering about matters they know not of.
But this death looms over us, while
Yet more voices arise —
An ark on a wave of sorrow.
And who will ride this wave?
And who will bring the ark
To land again?
And who will bring back
The olive branch, the olive leaf
And who will sight land?
And who will stand tall
And who will speak
And whose backs
Will take the weight
Of all they need
To build again, anew?
And who will remember
And mourn all the
Freddie Grays
Of the world
Extinguished, voiceless,
Back broken?
And who will speak for them?
And who will listen?
And who will heal
A nation that kills its own?
Tell me when you know.
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Jan 12, 2015 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Current Affairs / General Interest
On My Compulsive Urge to Seek Out The News of the World
©January 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
What is wrong with me?
I never read the news fanatically when I was younger, and now, I go and look for it every day. No, I don’t watch television, and I’ve even stopped reading the newspapers. That is no protection. I am a creature trapped by the Internet. So, I read all the time — BBC news, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, other newspapers from all over the world, and various new sites that I learned about through Facebook. Why? Why do I do this? Why do I punish myself with this onslaught of (let’s face it) mostly horrors? Okay, I do find nice things too, which I pursue just as fanatically. I love reading about innovations in ‘Green Technology’ or following articles about space, or about music, or about ‘Tiny Homes’ (something I adore), and I look for news about people doing good in the world as well. Mostly, however, I find the bad news first.
WHY do I keep doing this?
Is it a compulsive habit now?
Is it that I need to make more sense of an insane reality, and discuss it with people?
Ultimately, does knowing change things?
I would hope so. I’d like to think so. I mean, if I know more, could I be more alert to injustice or to an increasingly hostile planetary climate? Would I take more of an interest in my fellow humans, in whom I already take a great interest? Would it help me teach those who don’t know, or those who do know, but don’t care?
I know what this need of mine is. It’s about finding connection in an increasingly disconnected world. It’s about understanding reality and how the injustices in one part of the world will affect my life and the lives of those about whom I care. It’s about taking action wherever and whenever possible.
There have to be limits to this seeking out news, though. Otherwise, I fear I’ll go mad with all this knowing, and be helpless about doing anything to change the course of human events.
I fear that it is crippling my creative impulse.
I feel my mind getting more and more cluttered with facts and opinions, both mine and others’. I can barely move around without bumping up against some reminder of some horrible event or injustice that’s happening in the world right now. And I am reminded of Oscar Wilde, who, back in the 19th century in The Picture of Dorian Gray, remarked, “The thoroughly well-informed man — that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.”
I need to do some spring cleaning.
And yet, and yet … I need to know. Everything helps me formulate and re-formulate my reality. While fantasy beckons, and it’s only too easy to lose myself in that world in my mind, I cannot afford to do so.
It’s sad.
I think I’ll wean myself from the Internet for a bit, or at least, check it every couple of days, instead of every single day.
Perhaps, I’ll be able to be more carefree, then.
And yet …
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Tags: Hostile reality and climate change, Media hound, News, Oscar Wilde reference, the Internet, The need to know things, The need to pursue the latest news of the world
Nov 25, 2014 Current Affairs / General Interest
I Wept Today
I wept today, coming home in the car, in the evening.
The darkness pressed in on all sides, and the bright evening lights fluttered and went damp.
All I could think of was, “They shot my son.”
And, for that brief period, alone in my car, I was consumed with grief.
I WAS Michael Brown’s mother.
I WAS Trayvon Martin’s mother.
I WAS Tamir Rice’s mother.
I WAS every mother of everyone who has been the victim of police and military violence, the mother of everyone, child or adult, who was killed.
And a void opened up inside me.
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Tags: Darren Wilson non-indictment, Ferguson, Michael Brown, Missouri, Mothers of sons
Aug 5, 2014 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Short Stories
Overthrow–A Sombre Vision
©August 5th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Gaea was angry, and her rage had built up to incandescent levels, lighting up the skies, pouring out through fissures, terrifying her children.
Too long, too much wrong had been done unto her.
Deep down, deeper than the human mind can follow, in the sombre shades of Tartaros, lived the monsters, the forgotten children of Gaea, who waited patiently, calmly.
They knew their turn would come. It was only a matter of Time. It is the way of the Cosmos. One gets overthrown by another, then, another, and another until the end of creation. After this, it would begin again, but in what form, nobody could know.
A crater blew up far, far away, where the Titans and Cyclopes lived in the deep, deep cold of a frost beyond human ken. Then, another, and another.
Things melted. Plumes of invisible spirits arose into the air, vengeful spirits all, locking arms, high above the world.
The Titans and their children were now the Gods of the Air, triumphant and savage after having been chained within for so many billennia.
And the Children of the Earth, puny humans, proud and heedless for so long, looked up and trembled.
Their time had come.
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Note: What made me write this piece? I’ve been reading too many accounts of the horrible methane craters being discovered in Siberia. I’ve also been reading Greek Mythology to (and with) my daughter, who has been devouring them voraciously. (I remember being the same way at that age!)
Tags: #Original Short Story, Climate Change, Cyclopes, Gaea, Gigantes, Greek Mythology references, Methane Craters in Siberia, Tartaros, Titans
Jul 30, 2014 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Short Stories
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Word Count: 100 words
Disintegration
©July 30th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
When the world blew up, and the sky fell to pieces, I flew for the first time. My atoms took wing, my flesh disintegrated, my “I” flew into the sun.
There was an explosion of pain beyond imagination.
Fear doesn’t exist in the face of such pain. Fear disintegrates into bits of flesh that fall in slow motion over an uncaring land.
My past died. The “I” that I was, never was. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, light unto light.
I’d lived, loved, learned, left — this, the sum of me.
Somewhere, there was grief. It might have been mine.
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My second story contribution to this week’s prompt for Friday Fictioneers — it’s darker, I’m afraid, than my last story.
Thanks, Rochelle, for hosting. We love you!
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Tags: #Disaster, ashes to ashes, disintegration, dust to dust, fear
Jul 28, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Current Affairs / General Interest, Reading, Teaching and Learning, Thinking, Writing
And here we are, comfortable, with our little, daily stresses and cares, our worries, or work-related sorrows, or the baggage we carry from our lives.
And there they are, in Gaza, which is burning, with Israeli artillery strikes or misfired Hamas rockets.
Or in Baghdad, where Sunnis are being harassed by Shias.
Or, in Ukraine, where there are hundreds of civilian deaths, while governments fight for control in one direction or another.
This isn’t a world in which I wish to live.
And yet, life IS beautiful. And Life is Beautiful, too.
We MUST try and speak for beauty, for life, for love, for peace.
We MUST end the little stesses in our own lives by being non-reactive, thoughtful, calm and measured. (Of course, that’s easier said than done — but I’d like to try.)
Plant a garden of flowers, however small your yard is. If there’s no yard, make a window garden.
Plant some tomatoes and basil in a box outside your window sill.
Plant a tree in a park.
Read a book, or write one. Or, do both.
Teach a child to read a book or listen to music.
Write to your congressmen and congresswomen, and to your leaders.
Play music with your family, your friends, by yourself.
Play.
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Tags: #Trees, Baghdad, Gaza, Israel, life here and there, planting flowers, Playing, Playing music, reading, Teaching a child to read, Ukraine, vegetables, Writing
May 23, 2014 Current Affairs / General Interest
Note: This set of haiku below was inspired by an image of a sculpture by Isaac Cordal that I saw online, which was titled “Politicians Discussing Climate Change.” If you want to see the image, please note that I didn’t ask for permission to show it here, but you can find it on this site:
Four Haiku About Climate Change (Inspired By Isaac Cordal’s Tiny Sculptures)
Drowning in Denial (The Nile)
©May 23rd, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Seawater arose
Around us, as we posed
Questions in the rain.
Did we do this, or
Was it a freak of nature?
Our questions gurgled.
We argued, as we
Asked our questions, which bubbled
Up from drowning lips
And as we argued
The last one yelled, “It’s not us!”
And then, we vanished.
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P.S.
Please visit and check out my husband’s website, theclimatemessage.com, wherein he provides information, and hosts essays, music messages and poems relating to Climate Change and other related issues. These musical and poetic messages are coming in from all over the world. The numbers grow daily. My husband, Warren Senders, says that “Music is a Climate Issue,” and goes on to show us how. Please visit, and leave comments or your own musical or poetic Climate Messages on his page, if you feel that our earth is something worth fighting for.
Tags: #Original Poetry, Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, Four Haiku, Isaac Cordal's Tiny Sculptures, the climate message.com
Dec 5, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Current Affairs / General Interest, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning
Nelson Mandela was a Mahatma, a Great Soul.
The world is bereft, even if it doesn’t know it.
There are only a few giants among us, and he was one. The power of an idea that is bigger than a man carried him on its irrepressible tide, but it was he who steered the boat.
Twenty-seven years in prison did not diminish this man’s resolve–rather, he grew stronger.
One can argue with falsehood, with faulty premises, with those who are prejudiced, with stubbornness, with pride and prejudice.
One cannot argue with Truth and Right, with someone who is truly committed to Equality, to Justice, to Goodness. Mr. Mandela changed the face of discourse and race relations in South Africa with his indomitable spirit and passion for Civil Rights and his Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The world is a sadder, colder place for his passing. We have to, all of us, speak truth to power any chance we get. Mr. Mandela taught us how.
May he rest in peace.
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Tags: Civil Rights in South Africa, Mahatma, Nelson Mandela, Speaking truth to powe, Truth and Reconciliation
May 14, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Current Affairs / General Interest
Fiddling? Or Eating Bread in Circuses?
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 14th, 2013
The planet is burning, and Emperor Nero is fiddling away.
Bees are dying off, and the company that was doing important work studying and protecting bees was bought by the company which made the very products which probably contributed to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Whole species of animals and birds are dying off. Monsanto is today’s Satan, along with all the politicians who support it.
Meanwhile, on another plane, war-mongers and manufacturers of weapons rule the world and promote more war to line their bank accounts. Drone aircraft destroy villages, and no one person can feel guilty, because, after all, those are drones, and the people being killed aren’t white people from the Western world! Now, drones are being developed for domestic surveillance — it will be the beginning of a far worse global Big Brother which will be far more insidious than 1984.
And then, in the sphere of daily life, in all the developed countries, people drive gas-guzzlers. Alternative modes of travel are not happening quickly enough, and the rich travel here and there on private jets with impunity. Nobody really thinks it shameful. Nobody calls anyone out on anything. It wouldn’t be polite, don’t you know!
Forests are being cut down, the deserts and arid lands are advancing, and the wilderness is NOT paradise anymore. Floods do damage in some places, while drought takes care of the rest in others.
The planet is collapsing.
And we continue to shop, go to school, buy electronics, eat plenty, waste food and water, and watch movies. I do some of the above, too (except that I use older versions of computers and am probably one of the few people I know with an old flip-up cell phone, something which I avoided buying for years, anyway). I don’t indulge in some of the fancier technological devices used by the people all around me — but who knows? I soon might, tempted by the lure of their easy availability. No, I won’t. I shudder at the thought of adding more misery to the lives of those who toil away in places like China, or have to deal with the consequences of coltan-mining in the Congo).
Perhaps, for those of us consuming away in our frenetic fashion, it’s too frightening to look reality in the eye. Perhaps reality is really one of those monster flame-creatures that J.K. Rowling conjured up in “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.” What’s it called? Ah yes, Fiendfyre.
And so, we fiddle, while being burned up, along with the rest of those in power who set all this in motion in the first place.
Or perhaps, we are not the fiddlers, after all. The fiddlers are the makers of all those things we consume. Who are we, then?
We are the frightened populace who nervously eat the bread we are thrown in the circuses where we sit, maddened by fear and hunger, while watching some of the worse-off among us be killed off. After all, many of us don’t have economic power, and lack the wherewithal to assume power, so we take whatever handouts that those who DO have the power toss our way.
The problem is: We might be lion-fodder next.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: Bread and Circuses, Climate Change, Collapsing Planet, coltan-mining in the Congo, Emperor Nero, Fiddling While Rome Burns, Fiendfyre, Harry Potter reference