Apr 4, 2016 NaPoWriMo

Rebirth – A Hopeful Sort of Poem
©April 4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

April is the cruellest month
Taunting and teasing,
Bursting with wickedness,
Squalling winds, blowing snow,
Budding leaves, blooming crocuses,
Cerulean skies, carefree clouds,
Leaden skies, lethargic clouds.

Yes, April is the cruellest month
A harpy dressed as a lady
Full of glee, full of rage,
Full of life, and full of death
Full of bulb-destroying fury.
And yet, and yet …
She brings me hope that
Soon, Spring will rise again.

And when Spring rises,
April will collapse quickly, a
Deflated balloon, a house of cards,
A puff-pastry full of hot air.
And May will arrive, serene,
Beatific, a lady in green and lilac
With zephyrs fanning her brow,
And birds caroling to her,
As she reclines, smiling, upon
A grateful Earth.

And we shall shout for joy
And dance in the green
And make little circlets of
Daisies and pansies for those
We love, and celebrate the
Birth of a New Earth.

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NaPoWriMo prompt for April 4th: 

In his poem “The Wasteland,” T.S. Eliot famously declared that “April is the cruelest month.” But is it? I’d have thought February. Today I challenge you to write a poem in which you explore what you think is the cruelest month, and why. Perhaps it’s September, because kids have to go back to school. Or January, because the holidays are over and now you’re up to your neck in snow. Or maybe it’s a month most people wouldn’t think of (like April), but which you think of because of something that’s happened in your life. Happy (or, if not happy, not-too-cruel) writing!

Tags: #AprilistheCruellestMoth, #Hope, #Original Poetry, #Rebirth, #Spring

Apr 3, 2016 NaPoWriMo

For OFOFW
©April 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Your words shaped worlds,
Rearranged my mind
Wrenched my heart
Sang in my voice
Haunted my holidays,
Made me weep in sympathy.

Your words held my hand
As I tried, halting and bold, both
To shape my own.

Your words, drenched in purple
Clad in gold, dripping with honey,
Bent with sorrow,
Striding like mad, old Lear
On the plain, blind, heartbroken,
Shouting into the cold wind
Of others’ incomprehension,
Spoke to my ears alone.

I, a child of ten,
You, dead for decades,
I, bursting into language
You, sharing it.
I, moved by Basil’s love,
And laughing with Algy,
And shuddering at Jochanaan,
And weeping over a
Fisherman’s broken heart,
And hating a Spanish
Infanta for spurning a Dwarf,

And you, spinning stories
From the ether, threads of
Purple and gold, spinning me
Into a cocoon
Wherein I dreamed and
Grew my own wings.

You were my immortal,
And I, so mortal.
You made me reach for
Your sun-clad world,
Remote as Olympus.

One day, perhaps,
We shall meet.
And I shall bring you
A sacrifice of poems,
A raiment of stories –
You, my first love.

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Prompt for today from NaPoWriMo

Tags: #FanLetterPoem, #Original Poetry, #Wilde

Apr 2, 2016 NaPoWriMo

My Family – A Non-Portrait
©April 2nd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

I do not really like to paint
My family’s pictures, thus to taint
With wordy portraits all that’s vast
And complex, which I hope will last.
Suffice to say that we are three
And thus, we form a Trinity
Of an earthly kind, it’s true
Of husband, child, and me; a glue
Of loving holds us all, so strong
With books and singing all day long
And walks in woods with dog in tow
With love for life and earth, we glow.
And for them both, this much I say.
I’m deeply grateful, every day.

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The (always optional, not compulsory) prompt for today’s NaPoWriMo poem was:  Writing a poetic family portrait.

Tags: #FamilyPortrait, #Original Poem

Apr 1, 2016 NaPoWriMo

Lilac-Love
©April 1st, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Purple mist atop green leaves –
Bridal lilacs emerge.
The still morning air blushes.

Hard to believe such beauty
Lives here, now.
Meanwhile, millions breathe only dust.

Translucent motes of morning sound
Gong-like and golden
I stand, lost in reverie.

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(Poem #1 – NaPoWriMo)

Note:  According to Maureen Thorson, owner and operator at NaPoWriPo:  a lune “… is a sort of English-language haiku. While the haiku is a three-line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable count, the lune is a three-line poem with a 5-3-5 syllable count. There’s also a variant based on word-count, instead of syllable count, where the poem still has three lines, but the first line has five words, the second line has three words, and the third line has five words again.”

I went with the latter variant.

Tags: #Lune, #Original Poetry