Mar 1, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Original Poetry

This is what I posted on Facebook (edited slightly) on Thursday Feb. 27, 2014 — oh, and forgive me for my utter vacuous silliness!

——————————————————————————————————–
About Holly …

(My latest ditty to the tune of “Shiny Little Surrey With The Fringe on the Top.”)

Who’s the silliest Holly ma Holly
She’s the silliest Holly ma Polly
She’s the goofiest golly ma wolly
In our lit -tle house.

Watch that Hol and see how she patters
When she leaps, she’s all that matters
When she slides I keep up my natter
Till her eyes roll around.

She snaps her teeth and chews my hand
She leaps and swoops in the kitchen
She squeaks and squooks to beat the band
And grins while her tail keeps a-twitchin’
….

I’m so happy, I grin like a silly
When I think of our silly ma-billy
When I see our goofy little furry
With the fringe on her top.

Watch her fringe and see how it flutters
When she eats and drinks and she mutters
When she squeaks and sings, she’s a nutter
With a pretty mop …

For she’s a funny little furry
With the fringe on her top.
____________________________________

And so on.
Well, that’s all.
So much for my “creative writing!”

Tags: Holly the Standard Poodle Pup, Holly-days, Puppy love, Shiny Little Surrey With The Fringe On The Top, Silliness with Holly

Feb 28, 2014 Original Poetry

Devil Dog, Angel Pup

A Poem Celebrating Dogginess

By Vijaya Sundaram

February 28, 2014

Rolling black eyes, teeth snapping with a click,

Devil Dog entices with a pink-tongued lick.

Angel Pup, mop-top, furry-snug thing

You lure me when you start to sing.

It’s all music when you whistle high and sweet

I respond to your signal, and the clicking of your feet.

When you’re comfortably fed, your snout, warm and black,

So wet in my hand, says there’s nothing that I lack.

You sigh that sigh of dog-in-its-place

The Universe shifts in a deep, dark space.

You snuggle, little ragamuffin warm and bright,

Claiming me as your own birthright.

Your trust in us, so simple and true

A human and her dog, that’s me and you.

And your sigh, which says that all is well

Fills this room with a flop-eared spell.

Time stands still, then begins once more,

The evening coalesces near the door.

And sudden, the humming fridge ceases to hum

And sudden, another sound starts to thrum.

A truck rumbles by, the highways sing

While soft falls the snow, and the quiet it brings.

The Great Outside where the unknown resides

Is blotted out now – and shunted aside.

But here, now, within, see – dog on my knee

This is peace, true peace, and it rests with me.

__________________________________________________________________

Tags: #Dog, contentment is death, Holly the Standard Poodle Pup, Puppy, Puppy love

Dec 9, 2013 Original Poetry

Tags: #Original Poem, existence, freefall, leaf in wind, random poetic exercise

Apr 27, 2013 Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Poetry

Birthed / Breathed / Bridged
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 27th, 2013

The question always remains:
Am I truly their child?
They brought me into their home
Poured love into my being
Gave me roots to dig deep into
Gave me sunlight to grow in
Breathed life into my struggling lungs
Held me and loved me
Stood vigil by my bed
While I, asthma-racked and
In the grip of death,
Nearly toppled headlong
Into oblivion.
They pulled me back
From the brink,
And kissed me awake.

They are my parents.
I shall always love them.

And yet, and yet,
There’s a faint echo
Of that other mother
Of that other father
The ones who stand forever
In the shadows of my past
Who remain forever and always
Enigmatic and tongue-tied.
Whose profiles, half-turned from me
Reveal … indifference?
Disgust?  Rage?  Sorrow?  Regret?
Was there love there, somewhere?
Or was I begotten in haste,
And mourned since?

I look yearningly into the shadows
See an emptiness in there
Bridged with a bridge of steel
And silk, which brought me
Safely into my parents’ arms.
Terror opens a chasm within me.
My breath fails me.  
My pulse stumbles.
I cannot help it — I yearn
To topple into that gulf and
Seek the bottom of a grief
With no name.

I force myself to look up,
Ahead, not down, and see,
In wonder and understanding.
Across that gulf, beyond those dim profiles
I glimpse the outline of another one —
A Someone who beamed
Me into being, who breathed me out.
She held me across the span of Time
And tided me through the fjords
That might have stopped me
She wanted me to be.
She wanted me to be me.
And I am.

That bridge of steel and silk
Brought me safely to shore.

And my parents will stand guard
Right there, at that bridge
And they will deny that chasm
Its greedy need.
And they will spread a net
under the bridge
And they will fight the ogres
That dwell beneath.
And I want them to.

And though I shall always wonder
About the bottom of that chasm
And yearn for the shadow-parents
I will not yield to temptation.
For nothing is more tempting than
Grief and yearning,
And nothing more dangerous.
So, I shall step forth
With light step and light heart,
Knowing my bridge of silk and steel
Will remain for all time.

And I shall go forth to build
My own bridge, and stand guard there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Chasm, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poem, Adopted child, bridges and birth, character vignette, fiction, Fictional character, silk and steel, vigil, Yearning

Apr 25, 2013 Original Poetry

Abandoning
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 25th, 2013

At the moment of abandoning all,
One feels relief.
Like dropping one’s backpack
And troubles at the door
When one comes home from school.
Or unhooking that bra
And tossing it over a chair
And sinking, boneless
Into the same chair,
Staring, slack-jawed
And unambitiously into
A happy space.

Or like dumping a job that
Has grown like a forest
All around one’s body,
With clinging vines and
Dark underbrush, with
Snakes crawling about.

At the moment of abandoning all,
One feels relief.
If only that feeling
Could sustain itself over the ache
And terror, or weariness
And more tasks
That are sure
To follow!

It’s a sister to that other feeling:
Falling in love.
Dizzying and breathless
Heart-bursting and
Empty-stomached,
Weightless, feathery
In a buffeting wind.
Or like a blazing fire
That starts with a little match
Match-making!

If only that feeling
Could sustain its white-hot
Fire, over the cooling winds
That follow!

It’s a brother to that other feeling:
That of letting go of life,
And whirling, leaf-like
Into blackness.
Weightless again,
Whirling, wind-tossed
Orphaned by life,
Plummeting slowly
And leisurely into death.

If only one could sustain
That mad, exhilaration
That onrush of breathless
Heart-extinguishing
Joy over the vast
Unending desolation
That is sure to follow!

Perhaps, I just need
Some sunlight right now —
A light-hearted stepping out
Into the luminescent evening —
And chase away the shadows.
I know the shadows will wait.
That’s all right — I’m clever.
I can out-wait them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Death, #Life, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, #Waiting, Abandoning, letting go, patience, relief, sustain

Apr 23, 2013 Original Poetry

Mute
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 23rd. 2013

It’s hard to write when you’re sad.
It’s hard to write when you’re mad.
It’s hard to write when you’re sleepy.
It’s hard to write when you’re weepy.
It is hard to write when you’re working.
It’s hard to write when you’re shirking.
It’s hard to write when you’re alone.
It’s hard to write when you’re a stone.

I have nothing to say.
Nothing to say.  Not today.
Nothing to say.  Can’t stay.
Nothing to say.  Can’t play.
Nothing to say.  Going gray.
Nothing to say.  Start to sway.
Nothing to say.  Take me away!

~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #NaPoWriMo, creative aridity, gray day, poem about not being able to write a poem, sadness, uninspired day

Apr 22, 2013 Original Poetry, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

Daily-ness and Disaster
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 22nd, 2013

How banal, how mundane
How silly, how pointless
Our lives seem!

Sitting in class, pencils in hand
Trying to be good, while
The teacher gazes on.

Stern she looks, and somber
Trying to be vigilant
Wasting time on gum-chewers
And time-wasters.

When elsewhere, lives end
Abruptly, pointlessly.
Grief and loss bloom
Like a mushroom cloud

Over a teeming populace
Wiped out by violence,
Riven by famine and flood.

And children torn from the arms of love,
Watch as parents are afloat on a sea
Of uncertainty.

Where food comes from
Hardly matters, when
They worry about whether
It comes, at all.

Whether school is up and running
Seems to matter so little, and yet
Someone is shot at brutally,
Risking her all, to reach school.

Elsewhere, in the city, last week
A child of eight died, in mid-cheer
Abruptly, pointlessly, painfully.
A shining being, ready for greatness.

And here, in the humming peace
The strumming quiet
The numbing apathy of daily life
We sit, pretending what we do matters.

It may all seem pointless now,
In the aftermath of recent tragedy.
And I might be right.

But I’d like to be hopeful
I’d like to say it matters
I’d like to say, “Everything,
But everything matters.”

Writing matters, reading matters,
Being hopeful matters, being good
Matters a whole lot.

And I would be right.

~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Hope, #Learning, #NaPoWriMo, #Teaching, Boston Marathon Bombing, classroom, famines, floods, global disasters, Goodness, Malala, reading, Students, wars

Apr 20, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Original Poetry

Djinn
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 20th, 2013

Today, an imp found residence
in a strange place: my lamp-mind,
which needs polishing.

And it chatters, natters, patters
ceaselessly, unceasingly, incessantly,
because it wants out.

It wants to be let out, it says.
Out it wants to be.
Can’t you see? it says.
I need to be.
If you let me out,
I will be your slave.

For my mind is the lamp that
holds it captive, and all I ask
from it is three wishes.

But that tosses me
On the precipice
Of my conundrum,
Which yawns open below me:

How can the container
ask a wish of the thing
 It created, and which is
contained in it?

~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #NaPoWriMo, conundrum, creation, Creativity, Djinn, Imp, Magic, magic lamp, mind-chatter

Apr 20, 2013 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry

The Place I’ve Come to Live
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 20th, 2013

I wish I knew more about everything
And I wish I didn’t.
I’d love to know the names
Of those little blue-edged white flowers
Growing close to the soil amidst ferns
Which we planted years ago,
Probably memorizing their name.

I’d love to know the names of the trees
Pushing their way into Spring,
In all kinds of weather
In the woods close by, where
Invisible animals come out to play
In the moonlight, and small snakes
Slither away in April.

I wish I knew why music moves me so much,
And has taken residence in my body
So that I cannot move without
A beat or a song pulsing in my blood.
I wish I could tell you why the face
Of my daughter, or of all children
Fills me with the greatest urge
To protect, to cherish, to save.

I wish I could say that I would
Have run, without a thought
Towards that explosion, despite
My fear of what it could do,
But I do not know whether
I would have been a heroine.
(We’ll never know, will we?)

I wish I could tell you that
I would have been the first
To rush up and pinch a bloody
Artery or vein of a man in shock,
Who, having lost both legs,
Managed to write the words:
Bag.  Saw the guy.  Looked right at me.

I wish I could tell you that
I’d know exactly what words to say
To those who lost their legs:
I know how you feel?  I feel your pain?
My father lost his left leg
And some toes on his right?

I wish I could say: Kill the man
Who did this crime, maim him,
Torture him, make him scream.
But something doesn’t let me,
Like a hand, pulling me back, putting
A calming palm on a fevered
Forehead, making it cool down.

And, meanwhile, elsewhere,
Millions live their lives
In fear, unplumbable sorrow,
Unfathomable hunger and rage.
I wish I could say something
To everyone, be everywhere,
Do something useful.

But I sit here, paralyzed, mute
Looking out at a quiet, peaceful
Backyard, with those little
Blue-edged white flowers,
Growing close to the soil,
Which I planted years ago,
And whose name I’ve forgotten.

I wish I could say something
About more what happened this week.
All I can say is I’m glad it’s over.
But it’s never over, is it?
Knowing more doesn’t help.
Not knowing is unbearable.
But I have to accept this, for
This is the place I’ve come
Finally, to live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Spring, Boston after the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Heroism, I wish I knew, sorrow

Apr 19, 2013 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry

Whirlwind
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 19th 2013

Brother down. My brother down.

Could it be, could it possibly be
That guilt gnaws at his spine?

He sits there, crouched
In an anonymous room
Or backyard,
The incubus of death
Possibly trapped to his chest,
Making breath
Difficult, and making sobs
Harden into shrapnel.

He awaits the end,
Undecided about dying.
It’s clear he wishes
To leave on his own terms.
The fog comes and goes.
Mist along the alleyways
Of a labyrinthine mind.
Angelic face, dark eyes
Innocent and disarming,
Armed with what could
Only be a death-wish.

How can hatred catch such
A beautiful-seeming young man?
What does he think,
Crouched there, seeing
The faces of the innocents
Slain by the bombs that
His brother and he placed
In their bid for … what?

Who caught him when he
Grew up, far from parents,
Vulnerable to hateful words,
Prey to delusions of matyrdom
(For what else could it be,
But his need for such a terrible end?)

Did his life lack purpose?
Did his honor embrace darkness?
Did his heart get clutched
By loneliness and despair?
He had friends, they say.
So, why didn’t that save him?

A fog envelops the mind
Of the young man, as he
Awaits the raging
Firestorm he has begun.

For he knows, somewhere in
In his twisted soul, haunted
By an eight-year old’s smile,
(No more hurting people.
Peace.) that he is doomed.
Haunted by a beautiful Chinese student’s
Steadfast gaze, by a young Medford woman,
Twenty-nine years old, who
Served food and life to people,
He awaits his turn
At the grim table laid for him.

He has sown the wind,
Now, he will reap the whirlwind.
Before that, we want to know:
Why? Why?  Why? Why?

And even when he, shouting, answers,
Bitter and vengeful, or
Weeping and ashamed, or
Laughing and scornful, or
Guilt-racked and tormented,
We shall never find out.

And the whirlwind will carry
Away the shouted words,
And we know we can never get back Kansas again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Waiting, Boston, Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Reap the whirlwind, sadness, terror, We can never get back Kansas again