Apr 29, 2018 Original Poetry
Scorch and Dissipate
©April 29th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
This collection of motley atoms,
This plasma package of cells,
This automotive, self-willed
Assertive, ego-shaped, skin-covered
Shape of five-foot-three-and-a-half
Moves through the day,
A human shell holding the sea within,
Keeping itself from bursting out
In a trillion particles of salt,
Drenching everything in its wake.
I’m sorry if I scorch you
Inadvertently, advertently.
Salt can heal, though it burns.
I am the shell, the sea, the salt,
The wounds, and I’m tired
Of this shape of me.
It’s time to be air, unseen,
Filled with light and breath.
And when that time comes,
I will embrace it, and dissipate.
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Apr 28, 2018 Haiku, Original Poetry
Full Moon and Anger
©April 28th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon slipped out, free
When a tree’s embrace loosened
The sky grew brighter.
This night! And that moon!
They pulled me into the sky,
But anger caught me.
I failed to be free.
Haunted I am, by anger:
My moon in this tree.
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Apr 27, 2018 Original Poetry
410 ppm
©April 27th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
What does one say when,
Standing on the mountain peak
Where the air gets thinner,
One’s eyes go dim from no-snow-light,
And there are too many dead
Along the broken icy way?
What does one say when,
From there, one sees the earth
Take shuddering breaths,
Breathing in the very thing that
Once gave rise to life, and
Which now heralds death?
When the shorelines are erased,
And borders are smudged,
And birds fall out of the sky,
And animals keel over, dead,
And the tilt of the axis has moved,
And entire continents of ice
Topple into a fresh-water sea,
And whales and dolphins beach
Themselves, will we be
Forever unforgiven?
We’re all that’s left.
We’ve reached the top.
It’s lonely and bare,
And there is no delight in it.
There is only one place left to go.
And it’s steep, a nether plunge
And we may not be there
To know when we’ve reached it.
What’s left to say?
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Forgive us. We were a mistake.
We will erase ourselves.
We will smudge ourselves
Out of this picture,
And be re-drawn,
Or not.
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Apr 26, 2018 Original Poetry
I Choose
©April 26th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Trees after rain, and in sun;
Daffodils, drenched in dew;
Lilacs, budding in blue air;
Forsythia, dispelling the darkness,
Clouds, quiet and sunlit, now spent;
Forests, tender with snakes and ferns;
Moss, springing softly underfoot;
Birds, singing loudly in rain-light.
And
You, laughing in your sleep beside me;
You, singing in your room past bed-time;
You, sprawled like a grey rug on the couch;
You, whose love protected us all;
You and you, blood of my blood;
And you, my friend, whose voice
Rang out loud and clear with mine,
Lo, those many years ago.
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Apr 25, 2018 Original Poetry
Forsythian Spill
fl©April 25th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sunny over-flow
Of forsythia
Against pearl-grey rain
In rocky Medford
Makes me glad of life.
A bright-spill of light
Borrowed from the sun –
A dance in spring rain,
Signal cars on slow,,
Home-bound roads.
Forsythias bloom
Like eternal youth,
Challenge our dead past,
Defy our despair,
With a shout of Joy.
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Apr 24, 2018 Original Poetry
Translation
©April 24th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Words do not translate well –
Nothing does, really.
Like gazing through a one-way mirror
At something you can glimpse
From the side where you stand,
Or, from the other side,
Where you stand, and cannot see.
When the oceans which made life
Now contain the seeds
Of the destruction of that life;
When birds fall, stomachs distended
With objects one cannot bear to behold;
When people kill people in war
In peace, over race, religion,
Gender, money, while slipping away
With no consequences;
When wars are fought to swell
The bloated bank accounts
Of those so rich, they could
Re-build the earth over and over;
When hatred is a habit
And power is an object
To be grabbed at –
There are words that come to mind,
But none will suffice.
None will suffice, so that even
In the Ice Age of feeling,
The warmth of language
Is denied.
Words do not translate well.
When the playing fields
Saturated with sunlight
Ring with the voices of children
Kicking a ball around;
When the seedlings you planted
Break through the rich, warm soil
And reach upward with delight;
When the dog rolls her eyes at you
In mischief, and attacks a paper bag
In sheer, mad joyful play;
When the music you make
Is a temporary sand-bag
Against the encroaching waves;
When people help others in need
With no anticipation of recognition –
There are words that come to mind,
But none will suffice.
None will suffice, for,
In the sea-swell of feeling,
The landmass of language
Goes under.
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Apr 23, 2018 Original Poetry
Turn!
©April 23rd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Pulling up of roots,
Loosening the earth,
Tossing off dead plants,
Under a Spring sky
Can make metaphors.
Leave out metaphors –
Just stand and drink in
Air that heralds Life.
Straighten your shoulders,
Look up at the sun.
Your daughter close by
Joins you in this, while
Seedlings in the house
Grow up tall and strong,
Awaiting their turn.
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Apr 22, 2018 Original Poetry
A Short Nod to Earth Day By A Sleep-Deprived Human
(With Apologies to Mama Earth)
©April 22nd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Earth-Day’s Birth-Day
Barely saw the sky today
Didn’t make it out today,
See things growing green.
In a dark room
Middle-of-the-afternoon
Sound and light, and laugh-room
Heard a vixen scream.
Good-night, sleep tight
Sleep until the daylight
See your breath in dream-light
In the In-Between.
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Apr 21, 2018 Original Poetry
Feathers!
©April 21st, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Floating all around,
Like dissolving hopes,
Like Death’s joke,
On birds long gone;
Settling without a sound,
Attaching themselves
To clothes and hair,
Ready to choke life
Out of the living;
Bursting from a cushion
From a manic male fox’s
Wild depredations in the living room
Of dysfunctional humans,
Anarchy in full bloom,
In full plume;
Floating and falling,
Soundless ghosts of birds
Long gone, killed for comfort.
Blooming like madness in a mind
Stricken with fear and loathing,
Lost in a fog of dissolution
Emerging from a cloud of mayhem.
And foxes at the center of it all
Pure anarchy! Pure lust! Pure abandon!
Chaos breeds chaos breeds chaos!
This is fox country! Down with humans!
And they will slip in feathers and fall in blood,
And they will run and face a new dawn
A dawn wherein borders are re-drawn
And walls come tumbling down.
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Inspired, again, by First Love is The Revolution by Rita Kalnejais
Apr 20, 2018 Original Poetry
Beast-Light
©April 20th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
The ancient beast
Large, gravity-bound, impelled
By a strange need,
Stands on pillar legs,
Gazing up.
A part of space, iron-bound,
Jagged, deadly, full of heat
Tears a hole in the sky,
Lighting a planet.
The beast dies.
It saw the light.
I’d rather not go that way,
Even if I *am* interested
In that last page of *this* story.
Darkness is beautiful
When pierced by a few stars.
It’ll be easier to sleep, and
I might even drift away
Particle by particle, and
Float, dust-mote-like,
Into your dream.
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