Dec 9, 2015 Original Poetry
Morpheus Dreams of Sleep
©December 9th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
I sift dreams, and drift through souls
Bringing stasis, wafting through
That place where poppies grow,
Whose redness, like blood,
Makes me nod, and nod,
But I never sleep.
I ache with desire for sleep.
I search, adrift, through worlds
Seeking sleep.
I cast my nets far,
And capture stars and ride the orbits
Of planets, and swim through space,
Seeking sleep.
Making myself small,
I fall headlong into human time,
And fly through their tiny,
Powerful lives, so full of fury
And so full of grace; I fly,
Seeking sleep.
And then, I reach your bed.
You lie awake, lost to all, lost to me.
Your eyes are full of moonbeams.
I am ensnared. I approach.
You don’t see me. You are elsewhere.
I cannot shake you.
I stand beside you, spellbound.
Dreaming with eyes open,
You lie on your bed, and weave a cosmos,
Expanding galaxies of voiceless dreams
Larger than a cranium, larger than
My cloaked, moon-dark self,
Larger than the edges of all that’s known.
And the threads pull me towards you
Like a lover pulls with the moon with her blood.
I see you, and I desire you,
Weaver of spells, my keeper.
For now I know
Why I didn’t find sleep —
I hadn’t found you.
You spin worlds, and I spin headlong
Into them, spiraling into
Quiet breathing, flow of air and blood,
And you draw me within you.
And I find what I seek: Peace.
And the power of you, your sleepless
Dreaming mind, your clenched griefs
Your love of sleep, and of me,
These pull me, and I, Morpheus, helpless
Like a leaf in a current, zigzag towards
Towards the shore of you,
Seeking dreams in you.
You see me now. Your eyes widen,
Draw me in. I am home in you,
Come to rest at last
In the curtains behind your eyes,
Poet of my sleep,
Dreaming of me.
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Tags: #Love, #Writing 101, Dreaming, Morpheus, Poetry Day 3, Sleep
Dec 8, 2015 Original Poetry
I see you.
You lurk behind a mask
But your eyes move,
And in those eyes,
I see desire, I see fright
I see self-effacement
And self-aggrandizement.
I see sadness and loss,
And the bluster and dross of
A life lost to reason
And treasonous hopes fled
As hopes always do.
I see excuses and demands
And your parents’ commands hiss
In your ear.
I see you sneer, but your lip
Trembles, and your chin
Unsteady against the onslaught of
Grief and hate within you.
And crouched beneath it all,
I see you — you, with
A face as bright and young
As a new universe.
Why do you hide that face?
Step into the light, friend.
It’s all around you, this glow.
Shed that mask, shed that past,
Let memory flow through
Your bones and flesh,
The memory of when you stood,
And looked at your face
So freshly made, so young,
And smiled, delighting in your
You-ness.
Stand before me, and
Speak, friend.
Blueness surrounds you,
But you can still speak.
Say these words now,
Say them to me:
Mirror, show your face!
Mirror, erase me.
Start me anew.
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Dec 8, 2015 Original Poetry
Magic-Maya
© December 8th 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sunlight slipped from the tree
Into the palms of my young hands,
And I drank deep of the well of
Green-gold peace,
And found magic.
Chasing after street pigs
In my mother’s hometown,
Laughing in limpid delight
At their tails curling stiffly
Behind them, and wanting
Wanting to gaze into their
Alien eyes, and learn their
Squealing language,
My five-year-old self found
Magic.
I saw things that others did not
Creatures crawled out walls
And leered.
Goblins and spirits made free
With me.
And though I was terrified
And found myself in the old man
Who tumbled down a flight of stairs
In a Dream-Dickensian England,
I was ten,
And even that was magic.
Magic lived in the strings
Of my guitar
And resonated in
The tumba of my sitar,
In my voice that found
Songs that pleased,
And songs that
Hurt so much,
My breath got tangled
Somewhere in my throat.
And the pain swelled,
Like a raisin in water
So sweet, so full,
All those songs
Made for me alone,
In a world of magic
And dreams.
Magic thrilled the soft skin
On the back of my teenaged palms
And I saw with wonder my blue-green
Veins that popped out
Reminding me I owned a body,
One filled with blood that
Flowed through me,
And I saw that blood,
When I shone a torch
Onto my fingers in the dark.
And my blood whispered:
Magic.
Magic was in the songs the
Water-pump sang to me
In the mornings, as I
Sang along, the fifths
And thirds thrumming
Through me and the pipes;
In the lorries which snarled
And hooted, and the
Cars that honked and
Tooted, and I sang
Every time they sang,
And found their
Thirds and fifths,
And rejoiced in the magic
Of immutable music.
Magic lived in the poets,
The writers who spoke to me
In honeyed language
The language of the
Hated conqueror of my land,
And yet, I loved, utterly
Loved the magic of the words
Of the Conquering Foreigner.
And I dreamed in an alien tongue,
Of alien things that I’d never seen
And dreamed of seeing.
And in the contradictions,
I found myself,
And magic was with me.
Magic lives now in my child
And my dog, and in my
Beloved, who sings, too.
In the forests near my home,
In the flutter and brush
Of woodpecker and chickadee
And tufted titmouse and
Wood dove, as the sun
Drives them to swoop
And land on the bird-feeder
Outside my kitchen window,
Magic lives.
Magic makes me sing
Even when I feel I must die.
And though I walk with spring
In my step,
There is fall in my bones,
And winter in my blood,
And yet, and yet …
The world, so beautiful
So radiant, so cold with death
So warm with promise
So rich with life and
Beauty, so breath-filled
With lost dreams, calls me
Hums to me, nuzzles me,
Soothes me to sleep
Smoothes my face
Tells me all is not lost
All is magic,
And all is illusion.
And one day,
This too,
Will vanish.
And I will cease
To be.
And these words
Will please
Nobody.
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Tags: #Writing 101, Poetry
Oct 16, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201
Immortality, OR: Art Causes Pain and Pleasure
©October 16th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
It’s You of whom (sometimes) I think when I
See people work at art or song or verse
While making beauty with their minds, traverse
The lands invisible that touch the sky.
Your shadows lurk so menacingly stark
For ’tis a place of light and shade, this land
Where dreamers, poets, artists, singers band;
In vain, we seek our songs in brooding dark
We seek You, Immortality, and roam,
Our paintbrush, flute, guitar or pen in hand
And (vagabonds so far away from home),
We spread across these vast, uncharted lands
And hacking ‘cross the tangled brush, we come*
To You, whom now, at last, we understand.
_____________________________________________________________
*Okay, so I took some liberty with the rhyme there, don’t razz me!
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Our Day 10 (FINAL DAY!)’s prompt was: Write a Sonnet, about pleasure, using Apostrophe as your device.
Our esteemed host and Muse @benhuberman had this parting gem:
If you happen to be one of those who find sonnets easy, have no fear — you can still challenge yourself further. How about going for a crown of sonnets? Or branching out to the sestina, another structurally difficult form?
I’ll have my readers know that this sonnet (my first, my first!), which took me TWO FULL hours exactly, I used a Petrachan sonnet form, with a couple of exceptions. So, instead of abba, abba, cd, cd, cd rhyme scheme, I used an abba, cddc, ed, ed, ed rhyme scheme. I also tried, desperately, to use iambic pentameter, reading it aloud to myself as it went, tweaking a word here, or rearranging some words there.
Note: There is another Petrarchan form is abba, abba, cde, cde, which I did not even want to attempt.
(Now, I shall go and lick my wounds, and sorrow over my terrible poem!)
Hats off to those who can do a “Crown” of Sonnets, and Sestinas, to boot! (I’m thinking of you, Melinda Kucsera!)
Anyway, I’m done.
And no, I’m NOT going to attempt a Sestina today. Too much else going on in my life, and writing a meaningful Sestina will take up more time, no doubt.
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Tags: #Immortality, #Pleasure, #sonnet, #Writing 201, Art, Artists, Final Day, Pain, Seekers, uncharted lands, vagabonds
Oct 16, 2015 Original Poetry, The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “A True Saint.”
Patron Saint
©October16th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am a saint. Look at me!
See that halo around my head?
You don’t?
Hang on, I’ll adjust it.
No, it’s not there!
Where did I put it?
Yikes! Here it is,
Shivering in the refrigerator,
Along with sagging beans
Bought at the Farmer’s Market
Bursting at the seams of their pods
While I burst with good intentions.
No, wait for me, Halo!
It’s gone — vanished in a trice.
Ah, here it is,
Lurking in the Blue Room,
Piled high with boxes brought
Home by me three months ago,
And dumped willy-nilly from my
Teacher-life of seventeen years.
(I’ll sort through them, I shall!)
Wait! Vanished again!
Look! Here it is, hiding under
Beautiful tulip bulbs, in their paper bag,
Clutching forlornly at
Their Spring promise of life
Muting their hysterical cry of color,
Waiting for me.
My halo trembles there,
Beckoning timidly at me
With halo-ey fingers.
I reach for it, but no, it
Vanishes again.
Ah! Foiled once more!
I am ashamed, truly.
I know this, though:
When I go soil-wards,
Spade in hand,
Bulbs in bag, it’ll reappear.
When I go room-wards,
Roll up my sleeves,
Sort, rearrange, dump
Discard, put away,
It’ll reappear.
When I chop up those beans
And parboil them,
And freeze them,
Oh, so prosaically,
While putting poetry aside,
(Just for the nonce),
It’ll reappear.
And then, I’ll grab it,
Stick it behind my head,
Where it’ll shine
Proud and assured.
I’ll point at it,
(In case you didn’t see it)
Dance a little dance,
And sing (humbly, you understand):
I am the Patron Saint
Of Good Intentions!
See me shine
Brilliant and beatific.
Come, I shall bless you.
Come, join my canon!
Together, we shall
Create more Good Intentions,
On our merry way to Hell.
But first, there’s work to do!
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Oct 14, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201
A Cold Christmas Pine-Tree
(Writing 201, Day 9: Shape Poem/Anaphora/Epistrophe/Symploce)
©October 14th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
______________________________________________________________________
‘Tis
Almost winter.
And chill will soon set in
And bitter snow will quickly fall
Before the Fall comes
Tumbling down, before the leaves
Come tumbling down,
Before green apples turn to brown, before
Our smiles turn into frowns, when bitter
Cold will curl your hair, your skin, and then, with
Blank confusion, you’ll begin to
Layer up, and slide down streets, and find that you can chatter
With your mouth clamped shut,
And what you say, or dream, or write, or think won’t matter.
Too soon will pine-trees don the frost
Of tinsel, paper flakes of snow, and lights of gold with pride and joy
And hope and peace and love enwrapped.
And shining gifts will glow beneath, a star above,
Who cares a whit if you seek and find your love of Soul
In other domains, other spirits, other lands? Who cares a whit?
That matters not!
This matters–not
What you say, but
What you are by
Night or day — a
Shining, lovely star!
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Tags: #Love, #Soul, anaphora, christmas, Christmas tree, cold, epistrophe, fall, gifts, joy, Pine-tree, shape poem, Shape Poetry, spirit, star, symploce, Winter chill
Oct 14, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201
Elegy for a Dying Earth
(Day 8: Flavor, Elegy, Enumeratio)
©October 15th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
I fear the earth has come to reap what we have sown
In haste, we sowed the breeze, and reaped this hateful wind
And through this storm, we’ll miss those things we loved so well
The rain, the snow, the flowers, this land– for we have sinned.
Not sins against a God, or gods, or goddesses
But sins against the likes of us, of you and me,
Against our children full of confusion and hurt
To whom we give our ravaged earth, and dying seas.
I’ll miss the scent of rain on dusty earth, the scent
Of budding rose, and jasmine sweet, and marigold.
We’ll see the ponds go dry in summer months, and geese
That leave in droves, will seek new lands, and mourn the old.
Now, storms and hurricanes ravage our broken lands
And dolphins strand themselves, and turtles gasp, and more —
Asphyxiated fish that choke in netted seas
Lie dead and blind upon our broken, littered shores.
I mourn them all, the birds, and animals, and plants
I mourn us all, so smug, so proud, so full of greed
With eyes of death, he chokes our breath– that demon, Wealth;
And laughs at us, although we cry; for mercy, plead.
What hope have we, who heed his lusty, tempting call?
What chance this earth against that mighty money-song?
If we but stop and turn things round (turn off the lights!)
We might yet live, and save what’s right, avert what’s wrong.
So, close your eyes, and step outside, while life yet thrives
And taste the beauty of this fragile Earth, who gives,
Such wealth, her fruit and flowers, and these, our forests wild,
So fragrant, fresh and sweet, in places that still live.
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So, our assignment today was: Write an elegy, use flavor in your poem, and try the rhetorical device of Enumeratio
Alas, I attempted the Elegy form, but gave up almost instantly. Still, just to challenge myself, I tried rhyming (It’s hard to resist a trite and easy rhyme scheme, but I really tried). I’ll probably go back to tweak this poem! This is only my second draft!
Also, I remembered almost too late that I needed to incorporate “flavor,” so I tried that, too.
My Enumeratio needs work, but I tried, I tried!
So, just as I did last week, when I attempted a classical Ode, and followed it with my next (non-Classical) Ode, I shall aim for another Elegy, but that will come later. I have to run, now)
Thanks for reading, all!
(P.S. So, I went back in just now – and tweaked three or four lines, just rearranged some words, cut out some, added an “and” or a “so,” and suchlike. It’s at times like these that I remember my favorite Oscar Wilde, who once said words to the effect of, “I’m exhausted. I spent all morning putting in a comma, and all afternoon taking it out.”)
Tags: #Elegy, #Life, #Love, #Writing 201, Beauty, Change our Ways, Climate Change, Commas, Dying Earth, Oscar Wilde reference, Save the seas, Savor the sweetness of this planet, Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind
Oct 13, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201
My Dog’s Neighborhood — And Wilderness is Paradise, Enow*
[Day 7 – Ballad (sort of), Assonance, Neighborhood]
©October 13th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
This is a tale of her and me
The human and the canine soul,
My tail’s aloft, my nose so keen
And wilderness our goal.
My nose, so sensitive, so black
Tells me tales I can’t resist,*
Leads me on to unknown places
Hints of those I might have missed.
With such a nose, you really know
What loveliness resides
In every corner of this world
Where I, a dog, abide.
Behold! My neighborhood so fine,
Full of racoon, rich with skunk,
Redolent with pine and flower
Makes me feel completely drunk.
Here comes my human, full of smiles,
Thinking I don’t get her talk.
She speaks to me as might a child,
And says the magic words, “A Walk?”
I bound right up, my ears aloft,
My nails go skitter-scritch
My tongue lolls out, my tail’s a-wag,
With wanderlust, I itch.
We walk on past the neighbor’s house,
Onto the next, we go,
I hear the buzzing of his bees
Like traffic streams, they flow.
Then, past those sullen houses grim,
Where no one that I see
Comes running out to say hello,
Or smile, or wave at me.
And then, that house right down the street
With great, big, droopy dog.
He yells insulting epithets
Like “Daughter of a Frog!”
Forget that dog — just look at us —
A human and a canine soul,
My tail’s aloft, my nose so keen
And wilderness our goal.
My human walks across the bridge
With monsters right below
I yearn to make a bolt for it,
But walk along, head low.
Then, joy, into the woods we run!
Past leafy underbrush,**
Past muddy pond where once last year
Some geese thrived in the rush!***
I paid no heed to them, because
They tend to hiss and run
And hissing creatures put me off
They really are no fun.
And, now, unleashed, I walk along
My human by my side.
Then, bolt in front, and rush behind
And check the woodland wide.
We walk past rocks, and leaves and bogs
We race on up the hill,
Until she stops, and pants, and rests
Upon a rocky sill.
I see a squirrel, want to run,
But hold myself in check
Let me be honest, ’tis my boss —
Her hand upon my neck.
Behold, these woods, so rich, so green
So full of scents divine,
So fresh and full of beastly smells,
But not a beast I find
There is no need to long for them,
When so much wealth is near,
For I’m a dog, and life is good,
(Oh, look, there goes a deer!)
This is a tale of her and me
My human and my canine soul
My nose finds tales, my tail’s aloft
And wilderness our goal.
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In the heading: *With apologies to Omar Khayyam, for stealing his phrase “And Wilderness is Paradise enow!”
*My family thought the earlier line, “Tells me tales of that and this” didn’t work well with “missed,” so I changed it to “tells me tales I can’t resist.” Now, it works!
**I have to credit my husband for finding a flaw in this stanza where I’d written “leafy undergrowth” and I’d rhymed it with “some geese plighted their troth” in my earlier version. He said it didn’t work. I flailed around, and then … my daughter came to my rescue (see below).
***And I have to thank my daughter for suggesting that I change it from “leafy undergrowth” to “leafy underbrush,” and also for suggesting that I change that last line from “some geese plighted their troth” to “some geese thrived in the rush.”
Thanks, loves!
Tags: #Writing 201, ballad, Canine tales, Dog-story, Neighborhood, Wilderness
Oct 12, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201
Wide Awake, Dream in Lilac Time
©October 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Wide Awake*,
I shut my eyes
in order to see.*
Visions of
Outsider Artists
hang like menaces.
What lies
Within us, and
Within us,
What lies!
Between the lashes
Of your eyes,
Dream in Lilac Time:*
Illusions of perspective
Unmatched in translucence.
Casual waves from the
Pattern of punches.
Selfies might be another matter.
Here, then are faces!*
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile
rock.*
How quiet the truth and falsehood
Of different selves!
_____________________________________________________________________
Note: ALL THESE LINES are from the following:
A sticker for the Wide Awake Bakery (owned and operated by my brother in law) (on our refrigerator)
I shut my eyes in order to see is from Paul Gauguin– refrigerator magnet
What lies within us is from Emerson — refrigerator magnet
All the rest are from a magazine I used, opening randomly to lines and phrases in different pages — Artscope Sept. Oct. 2015 (dubs itself “New England’s Premier Culture Magazine”).
“Dream in Lilac Time” is the title of Gail Skuder’s foot-wide scroll-artwork, described as a “physical manifestation of lyric and melody.” (from the same magazine, Artscope)
*Here then are faces and The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile
rock are lines from Leaves of Grass:: Poem of Faces by Walt Whitman
Tags: #Writing 201, chiasmus, faces, Found Poetry, Hallucinations, Visions, Walt Whitman
Oct 12, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201
I have NEVER done “Found Poetry,” nor have I ever attempted chiasmus as a device, although I knew of it, and had encountered it. It seems that these days I’m doing things that I’ve never attempted. In any case, today’s (Day 6) assignment, in brief, was:
Create a “found poem”
Make it about “faces”
Use “chiasmus.”
I’ve typed up the text of my found poem, which I assembled from tea-bag covers, junk mail, an art catalogue, and a plastic bread-bag. Not having a working camera currently, I took an awkward picture with my MacBook Pro’s PhotoBooth. So, the picture below looks, let’s face it, bad and blurry. However, I shall remedy that when I can get a clearer image with a working camera. In any case, here’s the image, and then, my typed-up text below it, for those who cannot discern the words.
(Oh, and I was thrilled to FIND my chiasmus in the process of looking for words! The first line occurs on line 10 (after the heading, which is “Not When Pigs Fly”): The Power of each woman’s face. The second part of the chiasmus occurs as the punchline, the end: “Face each woman’s POWER.”)
Here’s the poem, in its entirety:
Not When Pigs Fly
©October 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
We are women —
Friends of the earth,
Hope,
The People,
wise,
The Majority.
We shall converge on LITTLE DREAMS,
GIVE Clarity.
No Blisters.
Guaranteed.
VISIONS OF THE UNCANNY —
THE POWER OF each woman’s face
EXHIBITS passion,
SUPPORTS MEMORY.
SURVIVING THE ELEMENTS,
ULTRA CONCENTRATED,
OUR MUSIC ROLLS ON.
WE ARE PEACE.
WE ARE the Earth.
face each woman’s POWER!
Tags: #Face, #Hope, #Peace, #Writing 201, chiasmus, Dreamer of Dreams, Found Poetry, poetry challenge!, The Earth, The power of women