Feb 2, 2019 Original Poetry
Dark Hours
©February 2nd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The hours past midnight step in softly,
To the insistent hum of wires and weariness,
But sweetly, sweetly, like honey
Coalescing around the dipper.
I am reluctant to leave their company.
The train arrives. I get on.
We reach fingers across, to touch,
But they vanish like vapor, or smoke.
The train plunges into darkness, and the rattle
And hiss of the radiators
Follow me into the limbo of sleep.
Am I happy?
Unhappy?
Do these words mean anything?
I think. I am.
That is enough.
The darkness closes in, but
I still think. I still am.
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Jan 30, 2019 Original Poetry
Climate Change Metaphysics
©January 30th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
When every moment freezes lightly
Over melting glaciers of time,
With hollowed spaces under and beneath,
Will you know when to leap into the air
When an entire continent breaks off,
A holocaust of ice, an ice-melt of regret?
Will you bemoan its breaking
And weep over the rushing ice-streams
Bursting forth, and smashing
Into a freezing sea? Will you cry out,
“If only I’d known, I’d have made a life,
I’d have done something!”?
And when you leap off at that moment,
Arms spread out, will you then be airborne?
Will you come down as rain?
And when you do, will you weep salt tears,
Will you slide into an ocean of nothing,
Never to know you, never to be you again?
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Jan 19, 2019 Original Poetry
From Here to There In Two Stanzas
©January 19th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
A sifting of white like sugar, or salt,
Upon brick and wood, and pines and roofs,
And the hollow light of early evening
Makes the stillness loud with imminent storm.
The humming of wires, the singing of lightbulbs,
The subdued drone of the water-heater,
The hiss of the kettle, steam rising fast,
The shake of dog-collar-tags
From a shifting canine in the other room,
The sense of time being folded neatly
Like a blanket by a tidy housekeeper,
The plumping of feathers by birds
In high branches, where the cold resides,
For whom worry is a state of being,
Inseparable from feeding, or mating,
The snaking lines of hungry cars
Seeking home, seeking shelter, all these –
– And the singleness of attention,
– The pointedness of thought,
– The tip of the arrow that is my life –
I am in all these today, now.
I am in all these, now,
And I know that you are out there,
And you, and you, and you,
All out there, in intersecting lives,
With overwhelming chores,
With imminent sorrows, and soaring joys,
And broken todays, and mended tomorrows,
And hope that rises like steam from your mouths
On a bitter-cold day, hope that rises, always.
The cold steals around your bones, and mine.
For it is always cold where we go.
There is no warmth there, or here,
Except that we make it so, for we
Are flesh and blood, and fire and air,
And water, and earth, and planet,
And sun, and nebulae, and that single point
Before all the cold and the warmth began,
And if we snap our fingers thus, and so,
We make our own fire,
And if we curve in on ourselves,
We make our own cave,
And if we weave our hair thus,
We make our own cloak,
And when we see through the dark,
We make our own stars.
And always, alongside us, feet padding softly,
Walk our familiars, their dog-tags clinking,
And we are glad, for they come from other Gods,
And they are here to teach us love,
When we walk together, eyes hooded
In the cold, dark, falling snow.
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Jan 19, 2019 Original Poetry
Rant
©January 19th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am T(he)Rump,
Destroyer of worlds,
Laughingstock amongst men,
Killer of butterflies and trees,
And animals and lands.
I am T(he)Rump.
I stride through the world
Like a Colossus, but with tiny hands,
And tiny brain, and squirrel hair,
And what I touch shrivels,
And dies a sad, whimpering death.
I am T(he)Rump
I snatch children from parents,
And allow them to die
Alone, broken-hearted, cold
In a new land as hateful as
The one they fled in fear.
I reduce all to barren waste,
Make the oceans acid-bitter,
Then fly to Mars on an Elon Musk-mobile.
I betray all who come to me,
For I am a black hole,
With a pasty face that covers it,
And a smirk that can fool the simple.
And while I fatten up my coffers,
And sit in lonely splendor
On my golden toilet seat,
Wondering why no one loves me,
(Even as I boast that they do),
I laugh, because *I* know
I am the BEST at being T(he)Rump.
No one else can be me.
And I laugh at the skies,
For, conman though I am,
I’ve taken everyone for a ride,
Even me, even me.
And what a ride it’s been, my people,
I give the best rides!
But these are not my words,
For I never faced the truth
Of me, of my place in this world.
My narrative is the narrative
Of one who cannot understand
Cannot feel, cannot think,
Cannot love, cannot taste,
Cannot read, cannot give,
Cannot judge, cannot care,
Cannot love. I cannot love.
And I am terrified.
Never mind.
I am T(he)Rump,
And I am the best one there is.
No one better!
I knew I’d make it as a (r)Resident)
Of this country, of this mansion
Built by slaves for me, ME!
I am the best (t)Rump there ever was.
Even if I (don’t) say so, myself.
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Jan 16, 2019 Original Poetry
Magic Fox
©January 16th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Magic Fox with tail of fire
And eyes as gold as flame,
And ears as sharp as winter air,
And silent feet like ballet shoes
Will you let me come close? –
Magic Fox with fear-filled eyes
With hunger etching ribs
And shrunken stomach full of want
And finest whiskers tasting air –
– Or, will you run away?
Tentative, you stand and stare,
And move your slinking flank.
And edge backwards, then sidle up,
Like half-seen verbs that slip away
Before a sentence forms.
I’ll not try befriending you,
Though I will do no harm.
For if I make you trust me now,
Will someone else cause cruel pain?
And so, I’ll say goodbye.
Goodbye, Fox, I give you thanks
For slipping through my life.
Your flaming pelt and liquid eyes
Will linger long behind my own
In heavy-lidded sleep.
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Jan 15, 2019 Original Poetry
Three Visions
©January 15th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Small things bring pleasure
In a world riven by storm.
Butterfly-chaos.
Against the mushroom
Blooming in the desert air
A rabbit leaps, flies.
The earth tilts a bit
Little by little, it rolls
Oceans roil, laughing.
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Dec 31, 2018 Original Poetry
When Darkness Comes
©December 31st, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
When darkness comes in winter
It’s always a surprise,
Like a guest showing up, unannounced.
And you try to welcome it, warily.
And you set out lights to serve it.
And sing songs and feast,
And keep company with loved ones,
To let it know you are not alone.
The darkness courts us all,
Though it is sudden, abrupt.
Still, we can always prepare.
I will make sweets and light lamps.
So, when I go dancing with the dark,
I will, perhaps, find my way,
And that way will be gentle.
One can always prepare,
Even if one will never know.
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Dec 31, 2018 Original Poetry
Black Squirrel By The Roadside
©December 31st, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Black Squirrel by the roadside
Fallen, perhaps, in the middle of the night,
Asleep in your nest, dreaming of flying,
Were airborne for a brief moment,
And ended there, in the deep cold.
I grieve for you, Black Squirrel.
I grieve for your brief life
With its fidgety runs up and down branches,
And your ceaseless tail-semaphoring,
And your impudent teasing of my dog.
I grieve that your life flashed by,
And none of us paid it heed,
Busy with our own, and
Dismissing Black Squirrel Destiny.
You might have a family somewhere,
And little ones, too.
And they might wonder in lightning-quick time,
“Where’s Mama? Or Papa?”
(Whichever you might have been.)
You might have had dreams of crossing the roadside
Hands in pockets, whistling a tune,
(So to speak), daring cars to mow you down.
You might have raided other nests
And stored up nuts and acorns,
Fearing Climate Change, and knowing
That when the End arrived, you’d be flush.
And yet, not knowing that in sleep,
The cold betrayed you,
Or perhaps it was your heart,
Or maybe your dreams of flight,
You now lie there, disregarded.
I regard you, though.
And I grieve,
As I grieve for everything that passes,
Through this invisible Web.
You did your part.
I shall do mine.
So, goodnight, little Black Squirrel,
I’ll see you in the Dream.
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Dec 29, 2018 Original Poetry
Farewell
©December 29th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Things come to an end
At the exact time they have to.
So it seems, but we know no better.
And so, we withdraw a little
Into our shells, as we prepare
To roll with the waves,
Further and further into the sea.
Perhaps, we’ll land on the beach
Again, or meet on another rock.
In the meantime, the shell
Sings a welcoming song of home,
And we curl ourselves into it,
Each into her own, his own.
And roll softly along
the pebbled, ferny sea-floor,
Full of shifting lights, full of dreams,
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Dec 27, 2018 Original Poetry
Limn-Edge
©December 27th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
The glassy lake faces off a waning moon
And a sole loon cries out a ghostly warning.
Ripples in the ice go all the way down,
Where the face of the universe sleeps
Smiling, eyes closed, frozen.
There are songs in night-time woods,
And fear and hunger, and sudden death,
But mostly, sleep. Sleep lingers on eyelids
Like a mist on a moisture-breathing forest.
Foxes slip through moonlit shadows.
In and out they go, those dream-stealers,
And look for vagabond rabbits,
Scattered lust-crazed, cotton-tailed rabbits
Hopping through the underbrush.
A fawn nestles close to her mother,
Deep in an unseen bower.
Winter will not harm them.
There is still food in places only they know.
I live on the edge of dreams with them.
I live and wait for their stories,
And listen to their heartbeats,
And long to protect all of them.
I can do so only when I walk alone
In the land of shadows and song,
And dreams and nightmares,
Poised at the very verge of waking.
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