Dec 28, 2017 Original Poetry
Fragment
©December 28th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Eyes that rake the darkness,
And pull up weeds by the roots,
Stray in your direction.
You are transfixed, and beam light.
Your toes curl, and your blood tightens.
Your roots go deep, deep within.
You resist. You are impelled. You resist.
You are impaled.
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Dec 27, 2017 Original Poetry
An Imperfect Poem
©December 27th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
It’s when your feet are in two different dimensions,
It’s when your mind’s a cable car in suspension,
You ask yourself, “Where do I belong? once again.
The answer comes floating back, “It’s not where, but when.”
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Dec 12, 2017 Original Poetry
Turn Away
©December 12th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Soughing music from the highway rises and falls.
Sky-muffled and tree-flanked, the cars flow gently down.
Lassitude, and warm bed, and prone dog at your feet,
Make a dome of silence ringed by soft murmuring.
Comfort is simple – there’s no need for silken sheets,
No need for velvet couches, heavy tapestries,
No need for silver coffee pots, or samovars.
Comfort is in the lying down in your own bed
Held fast in pillowed dreams which come to you alone.
And when you turn your head and see a slant of sun
Something like enlightenment fills your muted mind.
And, turning your head away, you fall back asleep.
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Tags: #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TurningAwayFromEnlightenment
Dec 11, 2017 Original Poetry
The Bleaching
©December 11th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The years bleed your skin dry –
Translucency is all that’s left.
Lips once full of unconscious desire,
Are now wistful, remembering all.
Eyes that once invited everyone else’s,
Look inward, students of Time and Loss.
Hair, once boisterous, full of spring,
Now curl only in memory, straggle
Just a bit, mourning their lost bounce.
This is in the world of Sight.
In the world of Sound, something else:
Subsonic and ultrasonic fall behind,
You limp in the middle range, perhaps.
Music still makes you rejoice, or weep.
Voices make you vibrate in sympathy.
You hear more, sense more in the words
That fall like gentle rain or thunderstorms,
Echoing all around you, confusing meaning
With intent, with subtext, with tone.
And you study them, disquieted.
And your nose, more sensitive than before,
Speaks of the sweetness of sweet things,
The rich earthiness of earth things,
The sourness of disappointed things,
And the sickness of ailing things.
And your tongue, curled inside your red mouth
Still delights you with its own taste,
And reminds you that when all is gone,
You will still love the food you eat –
There is lust in your sense of taste.
In the world of touch, everything
Remains, full of exquisite, sensuous memory,
Full of the Now, as your neurons still thrill
And your skin, pale and thin, still trembles.
Your skin, sloughing itself off like a snake,
Still keeps its memories of when you were
Younger and awake, quickening to joy
To sensuous delight, to unaccustomed lust.
When all this is left behind, and you fly,
Will you mourn the loss of self?
Will you stick around the Living?
Will you ache to touch, be touched,
Or, will you dissolve into the air?
And will that air touch those who come
After, reminding them of something,
Filling them with inexplicable sorrow?
Will their senses absorb some of what
You once were, and vibrate in sympathy?
Or, will you walk, transparent now,
A being of air and light, deflecting light,
And not recognize what you see –
All the shadows that move blindly
Through the twilight of their lives?
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Dec 9, 2017 Original Poetry
The Goddess
©December 9th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
By Vijaya Sundaram
Brahma dreams of music, and chants
An entire world into existence.
The words escape from his vast mouth,
And swirl into stars, planets, interstellar dust.
He dreams himself into being, dreams that his wife,
Serene and chaste, and seated on a white lotus,
Grows from his navel, holding the vichitra veena
Which she plays, to the rumble of his voice.
There are others who arise from his words,
Which pour out in aeons from his meditating mind.
Darker shadows, hiding under his amygdala,
Emerge, crowding out, shoving aside his words.
They arise, giants and monsters, passionate
Inarticulate, wordless, grunting and pushing.
Meanwhile, his wife plays on, eyes closed, legs folded
Beneath her, on her white lotus, transported. She smiles.
And as she dreams herself into song and life,
She dreams Brahma into being, and his words
Are the words she created with her bicameral mind,
When she lay athwart the void, and yearned for him.
And the monsters, jostling and grunting crowding in?
Those were there, when she turned over the rock
And stooped to see what she could find under it.
Curious to understand, she lets them cavort. She is bored.
But she is the Chaste one, the Pure one, the Singer.
She, who dispenses knowledge, words, music,
She longs for One who will teach her what she knows.
She is lonely. She is eaten up with longing.
She opens her eyes. Her smile fades, for
All around her, when she turns her stone face,
She sees what she dreamed into being: Emptiness.
How can she change this? She closes her eyes.
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Tags: #Brahma, #HinduCreatiion, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Saraswati
Dec 8, 2017 Original Poetry
Citadel
©December 8th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Where is Lysistrata
Where are the womenfolk
Who would stand as a citadel,
Resisting their menfolk,
And decrying war?
The men are at the gates
And among them, those
Who would be with the women
As women, stand perplexed:
When to move into the citadel
By stealth, not force?
When to declare themselves
As not men, but Other?
Beside them, other men – careless,
Arrogant, crude and filthy,
Speak callously of those
Whom they desire, laughing,
Smirking, challenging one another.
Displaying, strutting, stupid
As stones in a field of mud.
Behind them, other women
Eager to replace those in the citadel,
Urge the men ever forward,
Happy to witness the downfall
Of sisters and mothers, friends.
Proudly, they wear their disdain,
For they imagine themselves
As One of The Boys.
Where is Lysistrata?
Where are the women, decrying war,
Who would deny entrance to the men
And the women who support the men?
They are rebuilding their citadel,
They’ve dug their moat.
And the moat now has crocodiles.
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Tags: #Lysistrata, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #WomenSpeakingOut, #Womenvs.Men
Dec 7, 2017 Original Poetry
Morning Commute
©December 7th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Morning comes too swiftly for my taste
I awake, like a forgotten creature
Rising from a black lagoon,
Torpor and languor suffusing bones
That protest the pull of gravity.
I have the pleasure of working:
Earning that which keeps body and soul
Knit, and assures me of my lowly place
In a world run by money without toil,
A world run by greed without end.
I have the pleasure of playing:
Making music, reading, theatre, walking.
And these keep soul and body knit,
Assuring me of my place in the flow
Where the currents of art and life meet.
There are regrets, yes, and sorrows,
But I do not indulge these anymore.
I shrug, and my sadnesses fall off
My shoulders, a weighty cloak
For which there is no more use.
Speculation is useless, but I still
Play the mental game of “what ifs?”
I imagine branching pathways,
Dead-ends, about-turns, disasters.
I will never know, but I still imagine it.
The answer is in my flight-lines.
A V-shaped flight of geese
Scissor the December sky into two,
And light pours down the fissure.
While streams of cars spill steadily
Onto the highway, arterial and venous.
I join the cars, a corpuscle among corpuscles.
I want to join the geese, scissoring a bright sky.
I open the windows, and sing a loud, low note, and,
For a moment, the wind lifts me aloft; I’m in the air.
Then, my turn signal blinking, my mind laser-sharp,
I swerve into the middle lane, and focus.
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Then, my turn signal blinking, my mind laser-sharp,
I swerve into the middle lane, and focus.
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Tags: #CanadaGeeseandTraffic, #MorningCommute, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Dec 6, 2017 Original Poetry
A Response
(To Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” in Rehearsal)
©December 6th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Icy blasts from a sub-Siberian mind
Blinded my vision with snow-drifts.
There were sisters, lovers, friends
Would-be lovers, servants, a conniver.
There were losses, tears, quarrels, a death.
There were those who longed for love,
And those who loved, and were loved,
And those who loved, and were spurned,
And those who didn’t know how to love,
Puzzled always by their ineptitude, but
Holding tight to the object of their love.
There were those who drifted, seaweed-like
Through their days, swaying under currents
Of self-loathing and loss, but still laughing.
There were those who wept for a life
They would never have again,
Entombed in their own grief over the past.
There were those who brought gifts,
And expected nothing in return, as they
Left, laughing and singing, full of cheer,
Like a Season which had done its time.
And, there was one who got all she desired,
Taking, and taking, till she’d sucked dry
All who gave without resistance.
Heralding a new life, knowing nothing,
Nor caring to know of the suffering
She caused, she walked, candle in hand,
Casting darkness everywhere she went.
The one who loved, lost the one she loved.
The one who couldn’t, lost the one who loved her.
The one who longed for love, never found it.
While the Doctor wondered dully
Whether anything made a difference,
The Eldest Sister wondered if they
Could ever know, the One who served,
Found her peace of mind, and rejoiced.
Expecting nothing, she found everything:
A room, a bed all to herself.
Shelter, comfort, assurance in old age.
What more could one want?
Like shadows in a dream dreamed
By a spirit long gone, the Players
Moved through the words,
Like fish through seaweed.
Disquiet and melancholy held me
Stupefied in their grip, even as I
Admired the artifice of it all.
Back at my home, alone, swimming
Through the murky hours past midnight,
I breathed in a quiet Moment, then
Releasing it, drank a glass of water,
To wash down my day with cold clarity.
Time enough for imaginary sorrows
On the morrow, when I’d visit
Chekhov anew, and hear his voice
Across the desert of dead time.
I went up to my bed, where
Sweet sleep and rest awaited me,
My shelter, my comfort, my assurance
In a stormy world that beat its petrel
Wings against my joy-filled home.
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*A bit rambling, but I wanted to keep to my daily discipline of writing a poem a day for thirty days. Two more days to go!
Tags: #ChekhovResponse, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #ThreeSistersResponse
Dec 5, 2017 Original Poetry
Slip Away, Swim Back
©December 5th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Music from two guitars in the other room
Weaves its way into this one,
And arrests my mind.
Transfixed, I listen.
It takes very little music
To stop me in my tracks.
I am put in mind of a video of
Elephants behind their fence,
Listening to a beautiful singing voice,
Sensing that a different world of perception
Is possible in a flawed universe.
Most days, my home hums and buzzes,
Music vibrating within the walls.
Some days, the silence sings with the memory
Of that music made here.
I am grateful for this.
When I am old, and when my mind
Begins its slow slipping down the slope,
Sifting like sand through my fingers,
Or the tide pulling my toes into its sinuous arms,
The music and the songs will pull me back,
And I will swim ashore.
I will sing loudly.
I will make the winds listen,
And I will stop the sea.
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Dec 4, 2017 Original Poetry
Supermoon
©December 4th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon hung low, like a fruit
Waiting to be plucked, sucked dry,
An overripe yellow peach,
Dripping with pulpy pleasure.
In my car, on the highway
I saw the moon approaching
And I was filled with desire
For that which I could never have.
So much wanting tied up in
Impossible moon-craving,
Such need for forbidden fruit!
I gripped the wheel and drove on.
The night yawned and pulled me in
There were chores to do, with the,
Plump week only just begun.
I let the moon slip away.
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