Dec 3, 2017 Haiku, Original Poetry
Siren
©December 3rd, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon hangs low, close.
Close to a careening earth,
A gleaming temptress.
A lone mermaid sits.
Songs of heartbreak rise upwards
As waves come closer.
Closer come the waves!
Would that the planet could mend!
Would that sirens called!
I will rise song-wards
I will unfurl my wet wings
And fly to the moon.
________________________________________
Tags: #MoonlightPoem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #RisingTides
Dec 2, 2017 Original Poetry
The Only Experiment
©December 2nd, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
And the rich got richer,
And the poor got poorer,
And they all died unhappily
Ever after, consigned to ash.
And on vast unending plains,
The planet burns, a furnace
That melts all the icecaps.
And as the seas rise,
A single boat floats.
There is no one on it,
Just a very large note
On its starboard:
“We were a failed experiment.
Do not find out about us.
Leave this planet, at once!
Go far, far away,
Evolve sideways.
Never become bipedal
Grow as many legs as you can,
And run, run, run!”
No one sees the note.
There is no one to see.
They’ll never come to visit,
Because they never were.
_________________________________________________
Tags: #ClimateChangepoem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #ResponsetoGOP, #thehumanexperiment
Dec 1, 2017 Original Poetry
Jangle
©December 1st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Too many words can cloud
A day full of quiet.
Too much quiet can condense
Into a cloud around words.
In the daytime, people are
A jangle of voices, a jostle
Of wrestling minds, striving furiously.
At night, we sleep, restless and lost,
Floating among words that fly
Silently on pale wings through
A hushed, listening sky.
Inside my head is a gong,
And the silence around me
Now rings with it, my skull the bell-tower.
There is no escape, none.
To dissolve, to split into atoms,
To speed away from all parts of me,
So I need not hear myself think –
This is my dream. I need to un-be.
A pearl of great price gleams
Between the lips of silence.
When I was born, and without words,
Was it the silence which formed me?
Out of the darkness comes light.
Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!
_________________________________________
Nov 30, 2017 Original Poetry
Swell
©November 30th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The earth turns herself around
In her sleep.
She is uneasy, and clamorous,
There is pain, pleasure, triumph.
She dreams you into being,
And me, and all her daughters.
Spun from the same stuff.
We, her daughters, look into each other’s eyes,
And we know who stands behind
Those curtains – yes, you, and you,
And I and I, our surfaces stripped away.
All of us, spun from the same stuff,
Even the lying, thieving, enabling,
Hateful versions of her dream,
The ones who tear down their own,
Who line up in droves, to push each other
Aside in their haste to prop up the sons.
Who dreamed up the sons?
The earth turns herself around.
Deep in her sleep, she mutters
A name, but it floats away on
The rising swell of voices
Naming names, damning them,
Those who give nothing,
Those who take it all.
______________________________________________
Tags: #Daughtersandsons, #Gaia, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #RiseofWomen
Nov 29, 2017 Haiku, Original Poetry
Fracture
©November 29th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
How to write of peace
When a tsunami of rage
Over-swells the brain?
Rage does not flow well.
The waves are jagged and frayed.
Boulders dash below.
It boils over all,
This landmass of me, here, now.
Reduced to rubble.
Inexplicable,
The tsunami flows through
Tectonic fractures.
.It’s what we endure
All of us, the world entire,
Awaiting a shift.
___________________________________
P.S. Don’t worry, friends, it’s just how I feel right now – tired, disgusted by humanity’s failure to be its best, mad at my failure to be at my best when tired. It’ll pass. Everything does. Tomorrow, I’ll be all moonlight and mystery.
Nov 28, 2017 Original Poetry
Mirror-World (A Walk Along the Charles River at Twilight)
©November 28th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The world beside me hung upside-down
Black and grey and gold, wavering.
Trees stretched their upside-down branches
And droves of ducks sliced cleanly through
Streaks of gold and grey, strands of silk.
A mansion stood on its head, lit windows
Inviting me in – a bright, cold welcome.
A goose called to its mate, who answered.
Ethereal waves cut my cell-phone’s power,
Sucking it dry, as I held it up to the sky,
And I was glad. Dark-gold and luminous,
The evening pulled me into its web.
Tail-lights glowed gem-red on its strands.
Uncertainty at dusk mirrored my liminal mind.
______________________________________________
Tags: #Mirror-World, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #River-Walk
Nov 27, 2017 Original Poetry
Folding
©November 27th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Daily-ness clings on
A shrug cannot shake things off
Fall into breathing.
Today was a rose.
Now turns to fast-fading Then
Petals folding shut.
The day spirals down.
A singularity waits.
Beyond that, sweet sleep.
___________________________________
Nov 26, 2017 Original Poetry
Nestling
©November 26th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The air clung to me like an icy lover
As I awoke to today’s call,
Strangely exhilarated, but cautious.
Hope, a baby bird, raises its beak.
I nestle beside it, its companion.
Nascent and unborn though I am,
I feel my companion stir beside me,
Hear broken shell crunching
Beneath its little feet, as it moves.
I feel its huge need, its primeval squall,
For it is calling, it is hungry.
Politics scares me, and people
Are unpredictable. Though ambition
Once thrived, my dreams of what I would be
Have given way to what I am now.
I have nothing more to give,
Not for anyone. I want to do good,
To be of use, to make a difference,
I am still trying, after my long sojourn here,
To crack this shell open, to crunch it down.
I am not Hope. I am something else –
A glimpse of a Promise. Perhaps.
_____________________________________________
(With a nod to Emily Dickinson.)
Tags: #Ambitionless, #nestling, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Nov 25, 2017 Original Poetry
Uncanine
©November 25th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The awareness of the canine
In the other room haunts me.
Her heart beat strong and steady earlier
Today, when, reaching down, I wound
My arms around her in a sudden
Excess of affection and guilt.
Her dark eyes looked blank,
And yawning hugely, she wagged her tail,
Her intention clear: “Let me out!
I have a raccoon to investigate!”
She looks at me, knows more,
So much more than I can fathom,
She knows my tone and strange griefs,
And although they are strange to her,
She is always there, stolid and unsentimental.
I stand humble and ashamed before her.
I know I she deserves more.
Does she? She lives in the present,
As I do, but only I hear the ticking
Of the clock, and of our heartbeats.
__________________________________________
Nov 24, 2017 Original Poetry
Edge
©November 24th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Standing at the edge of sleep,
In a steady, blue rain of light,
You peer deeply into things:
Stray songs, conversations,
People you could have loved,
Things you might have said,
Shapes too beautiful to draw.
You gaze in the face of all regret,
Then, wiping rain off your cheeks,
You laugh, and turn your head,
And see the sweet smile
Playing on the lips of someone
You’ve never seen, never met.
The darkness, once the enemy,
Is your friend now, a known face,
Your beloved, whom you welcome.
______________________________________