Feb 4, 2018 Original Poetry
Visitations
©February 4th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Love songs from a land unvisited
Visit me in the darkness,
There is sweetness in them,
And sorrow, and loss, of course.
Bleak moors, hills, high winds,
The call of cattle or sheep,
And the song of a girl minding them.
Love makes her apple cheeks glow,
For a young man approaches,
Red rose in hand, trepidation in his step.
Hope makes him tremble,
Certainty makes her suddenly shy.
This moment, here, now, while winds blow,
And the lowing of cattle make a world
With pressing needs encroach upon them –
This moment makes generations
Dance around their feet like fireflies.
The wind swirls around them both,
And her black hair blows about her face,
Like curtains of night sailing swiftly,
Mercilessly across a silver moon.
The young man catches his breath,
As his own dark hair is wind-whipped,
And his eyes shine like dark stars.
Now bold, she extends her hand.
They do not know anything for certain.
Perhaps, they’ll be together
Forevermore. Perhaps, not.
So, I sing of a time long ago,
Far from my own home,
Far from my life, and lifetime.
I sing of a young man who
Loves his beloved,
And of a girl who loves her swain.
And of the sorrow that must
Inevitably come, crystallizing
Into a song of yearning,
That holds them in the amber
Of Song-Time and Dream-Time,
And bring them together once more.
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Feb 3, 2018 Original Poetry
Liminal
©February 3rd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock
Mouse creeps near the backyard wall
Moonlight pours like milk and mist
Pulse slows down to nothing at all.
Water dries, and deserts spread
And children cry before they sleep
And parents search for grains to eat
And feed their young the food for sheep.
Music wafts through baffled air
And waves lift songs of trackless whales
And dolphins float to nameless shores
And boats get lost without their sails.
Death comes by on wingèd feet
Tender, kindly, singing, free,
While flowers close and fall beneath
My tree of sighs – she sings for me.
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Feb 2, 2018 Original Poetry
Seven-Sent
©February 2nd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Seven geese flew in a pale blue sky
While the moon hung low,
And the stars swung by.
Seven cars drove down the grey highway
And the lights shone bright
At the end of day.
Seven wolves lurked in the twilit woods
And fireflies shone
As bright as they could.
Seven girls danced with their hair uncurled
While the Poles reversed
In an upturned world.
I lay in bed for seven straight hours
With dreams that I chased
Through a field of flowers.
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Feb 1, 2018 Haiku, Original Poetry
Terrain, and Thirst, and Tilt
©February 1st, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
A slow stream struggles
Through baked terrain, which awaits
Rain, which never comes.
Hope flows more slowly
The days wing past storm shadows
What will ease this thirst?
Tilting axis here.
What compass can we follow
When the poles reverse?
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Jan 31, 2018 Original Poetry
Indifference
©January 31st, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon hung large
Wandering amidst clouds,
Palely luminous in a violet sky
Outlined by streetlights.
You must have been Twitlering on
Loudly and stupidly, your moron mind
On full display, like a piece of maggoty cheese.
Your minions hung your words, traitors all,
Outlining you with broad smiles,
Congratulating themselves on a job well-done.
They pulled it off.
They produced you.
I never listen to you. I didn’t tune in.
I put rage aside for a few moments.
Instead, I lost myself in floating
In a huge, indifferent sky,
Diffused with moonlit clouds,
And called down the moon.
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Tags: #noSOTU, #StateoftheDisunion
Jan 30, 2018 Original Poetry
Being Double
©January 30th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Double consciousness dogs her days
An anthropology museum with native artifacts?
(Ah, but can you detect the suffering behind them?)
A winter street in Harvard Square, full of bright shops?
(Ah, but do you see the homeless stretched out in front?)
A king penguin on YouTube, chasing bubbles in a trance?
(Ah, but what about its homeland of less-than-eternal ice?)
A leaping dog who greets you with joy when you return?
(Ah, but what about its short life compared to yours?)
Shut up, shut up, shut up, she says, to the other within.
The other grows quiet. She wishes to get drunk.
(Ah, but you don’t like alcohol!)
She longs for oblivion, for blind forgetting.
(Ah, but you worry about losing your memory!)
She wishes to be washed away without pain.
(Ah, but you fear drowning most of all!)
Defiant, she reaches for an apple.
I shall eat this now, she says.
I shall immerse myself in the act of eating.
I shall let my tongue and teeth, and throat
Experience all that the apple promises.
And she does. She gazes at the apple.
Such carmine beauty! She bites into it.
Such resistance! Such crispness! Juice!
And pleasure pushes thought away for now.
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Jan 29, 2018 Original Poetry
Beauty Lost and Found
©January 29th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Beauty’s on my mind, I think.
And with the death of every cell,
I see it fading, and I grieve.
And I am lost in craving it.
I gaze at all things beautiful
And when I see them, all I wish
Is that, in seeing, I’ll become
The thing I see, the thing I seek.
Is that, in seeing, I’ll become
The thing I see, the thing I seek.
I seek it in the azure sky,
I seek it in the trembling leaves
I seek it in the shining tears
On someone’s lashes, dear to me.
I look at flowers, see their flush,
And birds that flash through violet dusk,
At dark skin glowing, and at fair,
At eyes that smile or glare, or brood.
I catch their hues, and catch their light.
I lasso colours, clasp them close.
I cradle them, then watch them leap
Up high and higher, far from me.
What I owned keeps flowing down
Into a well of memories
Of how, when young, all skin was silk
And hair was dark, and eyes were bright.
I look into that well, and glimpse
Someone who might resemble me,
Then look up at the sky and catch
A glimpse of what I’ll join at last.
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P.S. I tried internal rhymes, and half-rhymes, and assonance, but left obvious rhyming behind.
I did aim for iambic tetrameter, however.
I did aim for iambic tetrameter, however.
Jan 28, 2018 Haiku, Original Poetry
Bowl
©January 28th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
I’m an empty bowl
In a revolving desert
I await cool rain.
I am empty still.
A bird circles overhead
Silent, unchanging.
Visions from new worlds
Crowd on the periphery
Stop, don’t jostle me!
Let me shimmer here
In this deadly, trembling heat
I have been sucked dry.
I await the night.
I won’t fight the dreams that come
When I sleep awake.
I reflect the sky.
My bowl fills up and ripples
My limits are here.
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Jan 27, 2018 Original Poetry
Remember This
©January 27th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
I feel tender towards you
My younger self, whom I miss.
I want to explain how
With care, you can navigate age –
These strange waters, these
Treacherous rocks, these
Shifting sands that move beneath
Your clinging feet.
Don’t let disillusionment blind you
Let it remind you of lost trust,
Of your trust in all, and your wish
To like all you see, to be all you see.
Push away the encroaching
Creeping cynicism, that weary scorn.
Remember your young self –
Not the angst-ridden, despairing self,
(Although she, too, lived in you.) Not her.
Remember that other part of you,
That unfettered Rejoicer.
Decades have passed.
And memory upon memory
Overlays the young mind you had.
The memory of the world is strong, yes.
Sweep it aside! Fling it away!
Open wide your arms.
Open wide your eyes.
Open wide your heart, and
See the world again, anew.
See for the first time, again.
See without memory,
But remember this, even as
The undertow begins its pull.
Remember this.
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Jan 26, 2018 Original Poetry
Apple and Fig
©January 26th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Teeth sink into the white crispness
Of a bright, red, impatient fruit.
One bite, and gloomy thoughts
Of ill-health vanish, and tiredness
Dissolves in a delicious rush
Of pure apple-joy, as the juice
Lingers a moment, like a
Benediction upon the tongue.
I think of a fig, now, and smile.
Figs come from death and gluttony,
And yet, such dizzying delight
Lies in its fleshy pulp, such
Tiny, tiny seeds burst onto
The tongue like innocence
Scattered, like paradise lost!
Mostly, the apple calls to me.
But, sometimes, when the
Stars crowd the unblinking skies,
On a clear, unclouded night,
I hear the chorus of dying
Fig-wasps in another universe,
And a shudder passes through me
Like pollen through the folded
Flesh of a fig’s inflorescence.
Then, despite myself,
I think of a fig, and I shiver.
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