Apr 22, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Housemate, Overheard
©April 21st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
He spoke above the shower –
The water running down –
A waterfall of vitriol,
Gurgling into a drain
Full of rage.
Loud he was, and angry.
I hate you, who-do-you-think-you-are
Strutting around, full of yourself,
Thinking you own the place?
You smug, self-satisfied a–h—.
Playing your music, inviting friends,
Just you wait, you f@#ker!
Downstairs, aghast,
We looked at each other,
Eyes round like pennies
About to drop.
Jobless, hungry, secretive, single,
He clung to the form of things,
Donning a well-ironed shirt,
Neatly creased trousers, jacket,
Pretending to go to work,
Spending mornings at an Arlington diner –
And afternoons, evenings,
Who knew where?
We paid his share of the rent.
Made sure he ate dinner with us,
Afraid he might die.
Heard him rant against us
In the upstairs shower
Night after night.
Tried to reach his family.
In the end, they arrived,
A kindly old Jewish couple.
Eyes a-brim, hearts broken,
They waited with him, as he packed,
Thanked us, smiled a grateful smile,
Said a quiet, saintly goodbye,
And left.
Loneliness is a shell,
Inside, a voice beats against it
Waiting to get out.
We overheard him.
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The Day 21 NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about something overheard, and incorporate it into a poem.
Tags: #Housemate, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 20, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Games I Prefer
©April 20th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Games? Like run-jumping?
Or ball-fling-falling?
Or bat-smashing-ball over fences
Or whistling-racquet thwacking birdie?
Or mud-wrestling and arm-wrestling?
Or mashing someone’s face to crowd-boo-cheers?
No thank you!
I prefer no games, save those
That I can play in quiet.
Where no one wins,
And there is no opponent,
And the fun is in the moves,
And the moves are a dance
And the dance is a spiral,
And the spiral ends when
One steps away, hurtling
Rapidly out of the galaxy,
And return in time for coffee.
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Today’s Day 20 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt was to write with a game in mind.
I wrote it before midnight EST, but edited it, and it was a couple of minutes past midnight!
Something is up with the napowrimo site. It didn’t let me post my poem there.
Tags: #GamesPeopleDon'tPlay, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 19, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Me-creation
©April 19th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
At the very start, before all else,
There was Song.
Fear and phlegm, fatalism and faith
Churned within, too.
Rich blood and love fed a world.
Head and heart, tail and spine,
Fingers and toes, nose and eyes,
Forming cell by cell.
Star-stuff, yes, dark matter, too.
A whole universe, tumbling
In a womb, in the sweet dark.
Songs slipped into bloodstream,
Made their way to tiny ears
Slipped into heart and lungs
Still forming.
Tap-tapping away, a drum-beat
Grew stronger, and the stars
Gathered in eyes.
Playing with the umbilical
Climbing up and down it
Feeling her way in the red-dark.
So secure, so quiet, so sane.
And then, a slipping out,
A brightness, a definition of shapes,
A limit and limitlessness of things.
Skin, meet air.
World still forming,
Centred and eccentric,
Waking and sleeping,
Still, endlessly making.
There are worlds within words,
And worlds without words.
All within, and without,
Liminal, always.
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Today is Day 19 of NaPoWriMo 2017, and the prompt was to write a Creation Myth poem.
Tags: #NaPoWriMo2017, #NewCreationMyth, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 18, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Today, Springing
©April 18th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Dogs a-tumbling down the hill
Grubbling on the grass
Tailashing away in sun-cold Spring.
The air, awash in hound-cry,
Barkling and squeawhimpers,
Blue-ens and trembles
Like a live thing, ready to tackle
The season hovering like a
Butterfly, unsure and zigzaggering
Above a single dandelion,
Which captures all the delight
Of the sun in beam-bloom.
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Today’s Day 18 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads:
Today, I challenge you to write a poem that incorporates neologisms. What’s that? Well, it’s a made-up word! Your neologisms could be portmanteaus (basically, a word made from combining two existing words, like “motel” coming from “motor” and “hotel”) or they could be words invented entirely for their sound. Probably the most famous example of a poem incorporating neologisms is Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, but neologisms don’t have to be funny or used in the service of humor. You can use them to try to get at something that you don’t have an exact word for, or to create a sense of sound and rhythm, or simply to make the poem feel strange and unworldly.
Tags: #Dogs, #NaPoWriMo2017, #NeologisticPoemAboutSpringToday, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 17, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
A Nocturne
©April 17th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Stars collect in violet skies
Like salt in an empty plate
Shaken by an idle hand,
Beautiful and brittle,
White and scattered,
Far, so far away from me.
Walking on this darkened street,
Dog near my feet, there’s
A catch in the throat,
A sudden ache, a yearning.
Spring air collects in my hair
And around my neck,
Like the hand of a lover
Grazing ever so lightly
The neck of the beloved,
Making her shiver; spring air,
Fragrant with scents that only
My dog can know, and she’s
Not telling me what she knows.
I do not contend with mysteries.
Doubt and unease collect in my blood
And so do certainty and peace.
They jostle each other, streaming
Through my veins, my arteries,
Beating currents, fast and strong,
Bearing life and death, scenting
Its river banks, urging flowers ,
Silting land, sifting through borders.
I exhale, while swirling currents
Tumble into a waiting ocean.
If I become a bit of shaken salt
In a night sky filled with darkness,
Or spring air stirring lilacs
Awakening all the senses,
Making a human and her dog
Yearn for something with no name,
Would I miss all of this?
Would I know to miss it?
And when all of it is gone
Would the world re-form, or sleep?
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Today is Day 17 of NaPoWriMo 2017, and the prompt was, quite simply, to write a poetic nocturne.
Tags: #NaPoWriMo2017, #Nocturne, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 16, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Dear Friend–You–Whom–I’ve–Never–Met
©April 16th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Dear Friend–You–Whom–I’ve–Never–Met
It’s strange to think that you’re out there
Out in a world so far away.
I wonder how you are a you,
Standing so still, with hooded eyes,
Beneath a blinding yellow sun.
You’re waiting for your world to end
While countries that you’ve only heard of –
Send death-heralds with massive heft.
Your family is not with you,
Your friends have died along with them.
Do you not curse my family?
We live, we eat, we sleep, we sing,
We have our friends, some books, a home.
We grieve for you between our meals.
What tea (or coffee) do you drink?
What houses stand where you could live?
Do libraries still have their doors?
What fragrance do you breathe all day
What thoughts occupy all your nights?
What songs hum in your head in sleep?
The birds of spring are singing now.
Our bulbs push up, fighting for light.
Do Damask roses bloom for you?
How will your people rise again?
And who will help you rise again?
In desert heat – desertion. Heal.
Forgive us all our trespasses
Forgive us all our trespasses
Forgive us all our trespasses.
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Today’s Day Sixteen NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads, in part:
Your poem can be in the form of a letter to a person, place, or thing, or in the form of a back-and-forth correspondence.
Tags: #EasterSunday, #LetterPoem, #NaPoWriMo2017, #Syria
Apr 15, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Photograph of the River Yamuna taken from the Taj Mahal, 2015©By Vijaya Sundaram
मझदार
(Mid-Stream)
©April 15, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Mid-stream, the boat stalls
And turns round and round,
Then, stops.
The compass has broken,
The oars hurt my arms.
The skies wheel around me
Night stars burn cold
And a loon
Makes itself heard;
The air bends to listen.
On the farther shore,
A storm churns the sky
Here, all is calm,
Then, a cry parts the waves
And falls like a stone.
On the farther shore,
Fires burn bright
The night is acrid
Death strains at the seams,
Skies rain down terror.
I remain, stranded,
Midstream, watching.
Fog collects around me.
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Today is Day 15 of NaPoWriMo2017, and I was honored to be Featured Poet today for my Three Clerihews from yesterday. Thank you, all for visiting, and for your kind words!
Tags: #Mid-Stream, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 14, 2017 Clerihew, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Three Clerihews
©April 14th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
When asked what he had to declare, smiled
“Only my genius, but nothing besides.”
America became a reluctant bride.
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Marie Antoinette
Kept a little papillon pet
When he was hungry, and wanted bread
She allegedly gave him some cake instead.
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Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin
Had a long beard that hid his weak chin
This, and his hypnotic power over the queen,
Led to his death, with scandal in between.
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Today’s NaPoWriMo2017 prompt for Day 14 was to write a clerihew.
Tags: #Marie Antoinette, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Oscar Wilde, Grigori Rasputin
Apr 13, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Nearly Cut
©April 13th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
You gazed at her across the dancing veil of her life
And you found yourself dancing on the blade of a knife
It’s not the knife-wound that hurts, but your fear of falling.
Did you think that when your pale shadow touched her shadow
That she would forget herself, that her weakness would show?
It’s not the knife-wound that hurts, but your fear that’s calling.
Yes, she did forget herself, but her shadow was strong.
She would not cut it away from her, and you were wrong.
It’s not the knife-wound that hurts, but the fear of crawling.
She lived in the light, you in the heart of illusion
What did you hope to gain from her near-dissolution?
It’s not the knife-wound that hurts, but failure that’s galling.
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Today’s poem is an exercise in a form I’ve never tried before: The “ghazal.” I have my misgivings about it, since it’s a form of Urdu poetry/song, and it seems strange to try and import that into English, but hey! Might as well try it. My couplets have a 13-syllable count per line for no reason other than that I wanted it to be so. And there’s a refrain, with a modified ending for each time it repeats.
Today’s Day 13 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads, in part:
Today’s is an oldie-but-a-goody: the ghazal. The form was originally developed in Arabic and Persian poetry, but has become increasingly used in English, after being popularized by poets including Agha Shahid Ali. A ghazal is formed of couplets, each of which is its own complete statement. Both lined of the first couplet end with the same phrae or end-word, and that end-word is also repeated at the end of each couplet.
Tags: #Ghazal, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #UnrequitedLove
Apr 12, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry
Ageing: An Alliterative Ambivalence
©April 12th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Glimmering light on golden paper-skin
Glazed with age, making way
For pale cracks in the frail porcelain –
Light settling like a smile on silver hair –
Hair, coruscating like a cormorant
On the wing, wending its white-breasted way
Across a flash of febrile water, agitated
By Spring hurtling pell-mell into heat-hell.
Eyes, deep and wise as a well in the woods
And fingers, gnarled, not nimble anymore
Fumble at their knitting, but the skill’s still there.
Bones like biscuits, ready to crumble,
But still intact, still indicating strength.
Set of shoulders, thin, tight from aching
Under the burden of a full life, betraying
Tension, but not fear, not frustration.
Muscles knotted tight – mere
Massage could never undo them.
For, if they were to un-knot, and the shoulders
Were to relax, she would unwind unawares,
And float away, like dandelion fluff, farther
Than she has ever dreamed of going.
Should she, she wonders dismally, despairing –
Then shakes off the thought, through habit.
There’s too much life left in her light-filled attic.
Dandelion-fluff can wait for another frail decade.
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Today’s Day 12 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads:
Today, I’d like you to write a poem that explicitly incorporates alliteration (the use of repeated consonant sounds) and assonance (the use of repeated vowel sounds). This doesn’t mean necessarily limiting yourself to a few consonants or vowels, although it could. Even relatively restrained alliteration and assonance can help tighten a poem, with the sounds reinforcing the sense.
Tags: #Alliterative Poetry, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Portrait of an old woman