Apr 18, 2013 Original Poetry, Teaching and Learning
Soldier
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 18th, 2013
Yes, the world goes on,
The earth swings herself tiredly
Around the sun, sluggishly
Around on her axis
And the tilt of her
And the lilt of her
And the will of her
And the thrill of her
Though she be tired
And old and leaden,
Reminds me that I, too
Must go on, tilting
And lilting, not
Wilting, but willing
To show up for duty,
Across and through a waiting
Universe.
For that is how it is,
Was, and must always
And forever be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Aging, #NaPoWriMo, Planet Earth, showing up, Soldier on, tiredness
Apr 16, 2013 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry
For the Sake of Life Itself
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 16th, 2013
Call me a coward.
I didn’t tell my eight-year old
That an eight-year old died
Yesterday, standing, waiting
To cheer the people who ran.
And his father, who might have run,
But did not, on that fateful day,
Can run and run from now
Until the end of time
And never catch up.
And the beautiful child that son
Must have been (for how could he be otherwise?)
Died in mid-cheer.
He was eight years old.
He held a poster that said,
“No more hurting people. Peace.”
His name was Martin.
How can one explain such a thing
And how can one still stay intact?
For, in that moment when the world blew up
And an eight-year old flew into the air,
Becoming one with the stars and the atoms,
One broke into a million fragments.
But we carry on, for all the other
Children, who wait for us, eyes wide with trust
Believing that there are good people among us.
And we turn to them, in relief and grief.
And I turn to my beautiful
Angel-child, for the sake of love,
For the sake of all the little ones,
And for the sake of life itself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Life, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, Boston Marathon, children, eight-year old, grief
Apr 13, 2013 Original Poetry
Funambulist –Two Haiku
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 13th, 2013
The funambulist
Pauses, poised between two worlds
Then shrugs, and goes on.
And thus, I, poet
In mid-air, on a tightrope
Sway, shrug and press on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #haiku, #NaPoWriMo, Funambulism, tightrope walker
Apr 11, 2013 Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Poetry
The Enemy
Or: To a Non-Friend
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 11th, 2013
This is the day I was surprised.
It’s not my skin-tingling recoil
That surprised me when I saw you.
It’s not my memory of all
The little jabs and major stabs
That you aimed so casually and
So shamelessly at my open
Heart through all these years that we had
Passed each other grim, unsmiling.
It’s not your mockery and your
Usual barely suppressed malice
Which made me stop in my tracks and
Caused me almost to forget
Forget the injuries, insults …
Incalculable pain that you’ve
Caused me, making me want to die,
Washing the rocks on some hillside.
No, it’s not any of those things.
It’s that today, you were not well.
And, in sickness, your laughter bloomed.
You were vulnerable, you were
Shorn of bluster, you were truly
There, truly true, truly open.
You were without defense, or hate.
And you were giddy, funny, good.
And I felt for you a great rush
Of affection, of empathy,
Which bore me away on fair winds
Which made me laugh with you today.
Which made me feel for you, for you,
Of all people, you, who have hurt,
Insulted, derided, questioned,
Rumored, destroyed, rebuilt, torn down.
You altered your face. No longer
Bitter nor hateful, no longer
Jealous nor spiteful. You were real.
You were funny. You were open.
Laughing, you changed all you had been
For one moment, in the blessing
Of the spring, the sunshine pouring
Down on us, through ceilings and roof.
This is what surprised me today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, altered, empathy, Friendship, Hurt, Laughter, mockery, Pain, sunshine, surprise
Apr 10, 2013 Original Poetry
Cessation
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 10, 2013
Ennui drips its grease
Onto my forehead,
Into my soul
Increases my need
To wash and rid myself
Of all that
Wearies me
Frighteningly, forever.
And I’d cleanse myself
Of all that degrades,
All that bores, denudes
Undoes, unravels
Unhinges and enchains
The joy of living.
And I’d be lost,
Before I dissolve.
But if I did,
I could cease to be.
The unexpected
And the grotesque
The lyrical, and the poignant,
The beautiful and the ugly,
The untested, the untried,
The sung and the unsung
All these would make
The air that I would breathe.
But now, ennui
Rules my days,
Presses its wet hand
Onto my greasy forehead.
Makes me want to scream,
Unbridled, unceasingly:
An open mouth
To an uncaring sky.
And if I do,
I would cease to be.
And the ears that would hear
Would be stopped by hearts
Too calloused with hurt
Too troubled for love
Too sad to care
For they have their own
Unendurable, unending,
Unspeakable ennui.
And my scream
Would last through all time
And unravel every cell in my being
Every atom of my existence
Until the very last thread
Would dangle in mid-air
Before the wind
Blew it away.
And as I unravel
I would cease to be.
~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Futility, #NaPoWriMo, Ennui, light despair, unravelling, weariness
Apr 9, 2013 Original Poetry
The Hunted
(My Third Poem-Response to “Pigeon” by Anthony Green)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 9, 2013
In the beginning was the Bird
The Bird just was, and then the Word
Was spoken, and its calls were heard
And hate and war were soon bestirred.
Then, trains of death soon came and went
Those death-trains slew all innocents
The guards so cruel, so hell-bent
On uncovering with cold intent
The ones who hid, and who were hidden
And some they spared, and some they didn’t
And hunted by a word forbidden,
Their lives, by hate, quite overridden.
And in the end, lay the forlorn Bird,
Murdered by the hateful Word
And of their cries not one was heard
And in the ashes, no one stirred.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poem, Hunter and Hunted, Pigeon, Poem-Response
Apr 9, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Original Poetry, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8jL1BXMdk]
Response to “Pigeon” by Anthony Green
©Vijaya Sundaram
April 9th, 2013
[The above YouTube video shows the film “Pigeon” by Anthony Green. This was the prompt I put up today on my “smartboard” in class (we have been studying books set in the Nazi-Holocaust period for the past few weeks). Students watched this 11-minute film and then we had a discussion about the significance of the different acts of kindness or unkindness in the film. We also discussed the symbolism in all the visuals (I don’t want to go all school-teacherish on you here), as well as the arresting imagery, acting and directing.
This was followed by a writing assignment. Students had to write a poem-response to this film, telling the story itself, or using the larger symbolism to zoom in on what moved them. They were deeply affected by the film, and the poems they came up with were beautiful.
I told them that I, too, would write while they wrote. So, I managed to write in four out of five of my class periods today.] Here is the first of the four poems I wrote (unedited, sorry, no time to tweak things. Will do that later):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shema Yisrael
Response poem to the film “Pigeon”
©Vijaya Sundaram
April 9th, 2013
Shema Yisrael
Stranded on the island
I await my deliverance
Shema Yisrael
Pigeon at my feet
Crumbs for its survival
Shema Yisrael
I have lost all, lost all
My papers, my self, my life.
Shema Yisrael
I try and sidestep my fate
Waiting is my wasteland
Shema Yisrael
Here are guards, inexorable as death
I die by degrees, in a sweat of fear
Shema Yisrael
Angel in human form sees
My loss, transforms into demoness
Shema Yisrael
I had a wife, and now a new one,
Who beats me about the shoulders.
Shema Yisrael
Guards aim death at her, “Papers!”
She mocks me, her “husband.”
Shema Yisrael
They laugh at us, mock me; they see she
“Wears the pants,” and then they leave.
Shema Yisrael
Bless this angel of mercy, this wife
Who delivered me from death, from hell
Shema Yisrael
May her act not go unnoticed
May she find a place among the angels.
Shema Yisrael
May the pigeons and doves among us
Find their saviors, may they fly in peace.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad
(Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One)
Disclaimer: I am not a Jewish person, nor a believer of any sort. However, I believe deeply in the power of prayer to steady ourselves, when we’re cast afloat, rudderless, on an open sea. It’s a centering mechanism. It’s good. It can only calm us, not hurt us.
Tags: #humanity, #kindness, #NaPoWriMo, #Resistance, #Teaching, Deliverance, Goodness, Mercy, poem-response to film "Pigeon" by Anthony Green, Shema
Apr 7, 2013 Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Poetry
Portrait of a Fake
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 7th, 2013
It’s in her eyes, you understand.
Her eyes that hold the mistrust, the dark fears,
The resentment, the self-deluding lies.
Too frightened to turn inward and read what’s
Held in the abysmal depths of her heart.
It’s in the insincere smile, the tinkling laugh,
The worried look, the cold self-absorption
That mark her every utterance, her tone,
Messaging deceit too light to notice,
As she slithers forward like a cobra.
She holds her grudges, she clings to anger.
She knows no other way, for her very
Self was build on these, too far from childhood
Take those away, and not much is left there.
Just a void with remnant strands of realness.
So, perhaps those resentments and grudges
Those fake-friendly words and insincere smiles
Are fine as they are, for who can face the
Awful truth of one’s own emptiness and
Remain standing, exposed, and in one piece?
Perhaps it would be better, though, to melt
Away into nothingness, perhaps to
Die and reshape oneself into a new
More real, truer self, unpropped by ego
And held aloft by a true love for all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Love, #NaPoWriMo, #Rebirth, #Truth, deceit, Ego-centrism, falsitude, inward, realness, reshaping self, void
Apr 7, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Original Poetry
Disregard -- A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 7th, 2013
It is only when you sit in silence
Electricity humming in your eyes
That you notice you are grimly angry.
It seems the thought police have invaded
All the spaces, inserted themselves in
All your faces, devoted themselves to
Tracing and erasing all that you are.
“But … But …” you stammer deep within your mind
And now you hope that they will never find
The depth of your disregard for that which
They hold so very dear, so very close
To their lemming hearts, justification
Upon justification to prove that
What they did was always right and always
True, because only they are right, you see.
So, observing all, you reflect and rejoice
That, although they seek to undo your mind
They’ll not find you, for you’ll be gone, a flash
Of laughter and mischief, and that too will
Vanish in the hot sunshine of your words.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poem, Disdain, disregard, free mind, free speech, Freedom of speech, justifications
Apr 6, 2013 Original Poetry
Dancing Bells
(Honoring my Daughter’s First Ghungroo Ceremony)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 6th, 2013
A deity smiles
Benignly down
At the offerings
And the flowers.
Indian food and chai
Compete with incense
The air is quiet
Awaiting blessing.
Today, my girl learns
What tradition is
And she turns on the
Hinge of creation
She to her teacher,
She to her teacher,
Connected by bells
Strung tight together.
Wise words are spoken.
Her teacher evokes
A sense of sweet awe
Reaching for realness.
Hot tears sting my eyes
Mine too, he whispers,
As I dab at them
With my dupatta.
The ceremony
Glows through the morning
A quiet reverence
Saturates the air
Bells on their ankles
Tender and thrilling
Quell their pressing doubts
Render them quiet.
Then, they whirl and twist
They twirl and they stamp
And turn, her young friends
And she, dancers all.
The bells ring out clear
And bright, and tender
The blessings linger
In hands, feet and hearts.
Now, she is one with
Her dancing self and
She sees where the road
Leads. She is unfazed.
She is persistent,
She is stubborn,
Reverential.
These will move her feet.
And her arms will shape
The air into song
Sculpting song into
A pattern for her days.
And her teacher’s words
Will string the small bells
Of each dance into
Bells that ring for life.
For the tradition
Comes through each of them
Through the student and
Into tomorrow.
Tags: #Life, #NaPoWriMo, Anklet bells, dance, Daughter and Teacher, Ghungroo Ceremony, Guru, Kathak Dance, tradition