Dec 9, 2018 Original Poetry
Slipslideways
©©December 9th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Slip slideways between sleep and wakefulness,
And slide into the interstitial space
Where all understanding meets pure bafflement,
And lie there, smiling, under that sun.
The waves come curling up to your feet,
And little creatures scuttle across your legs,
Claws snapping, but you lie there, smiling.
Not everything needs to be known,
And yet curiosity is everything.
Live there among the contradictions,
And let your eyelids weave red-gold tapestries
While you lie there, smiling, unready for the world.
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Dec 7, 2018 Original Poetry
Nova
©December 7th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
A star went Nova.
The light in the sky
Stayed still, shining
For thousands of years.
The night was loud with music.
The spheres hummed in
Electric tension on their
Stretched orbits,
And stars buzzed like sparks
From a broken fuse.
Mists formed and re-formed
Winged and vast.
A silence lit up a scrubbed land,
And everything held its breath.
The sky bent in benediction,
Knelt in supplication.
Awe was a thing not easy
To come by, and when awe
Filled a land, the land listened.
But now, our lands are deaf
And blind, and full of rage.
Mothers and children are turned away,
Fathers shot, families riven in two.
There are no stars left – just
Black holes sucking out love,
Sucking out compassion,
Spinning around our feet.
We trip over black holes,
Spiral down an unending drain,
Our screams at an event horizon
Stretching forever, and ever.
Our lands are broken, and
Awe has turned to dread.
The sky turns away, weary
And the earth looks inward,
Seething, full of righteous magma.
We have broken the universe,
With our hubris and our sorrow,
And our unending greed.
We will be buried
In an mudslide of regret,
Perhaps, the stars will shine again,
And some of us, stuck in mud,
Will see them, as we lie
Open-eyed, blind as moles,
Arms stretched out from shoulders,
Legs splayed, still as stones,
While the stars go out,
Nova after nova after nova.
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Dec 6, 2018 Original Poetry
The Dark Days
©December 6th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
The dark days come suddenly
Like a shadow beast in a dream
Chasing you up and down that staircase
In an old abandoned house,
Where you alone live.
The dark days come suddenly
And you run and run away
From them, finding solace in light
From artificial sources, from stories
Other than yours.
And you wonder to yourself
How did we ever emerge from the abyss
Into a world so spherical that
We have to fight to stay in light,
And spurn this darkness that
Snaps at our heels
A creature chasing us forever
In this vast house, held together
In a dream beyond a dream?
And you ask yourself this question,
Even as you run and run
Even as the shadow beast chases you,
Even as your heart beats faster,
Even as you turn to face it, finally,
Even as you say, I am tired of running,
And you turn, eyes open in terror
And fold your arms, and stand,
And the beast lies down, and whines.
All it asks is for you to feed it.
It is your shadow,
It is your darkness,
It is your best friend,
And it is hungry.
That is all.
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Dec 4, 2018 Original Poetry
Elsewhere
©December 3rd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
It’s knowing that the end
Looms large on the far side
And knowing that this –
This long walk from way back to out there –
Is one that’s been done by all before me,
And will be done by all after me
That makes every branching
Timeline on this tree whose roots
Go deep, and whose branches so high
So comforting, so inevitable.
It is hard to hate, even if I do, at times –
For those who have harmed this earth, still
Breathe the same air, drink the same water,
Walk the same paths, from birth to death.
Every cell in my blood, every atom of me,
Has been recycled, passed through.
I have breathed in millions who died
Millennia ago, and drunk their essence
And eaten their substance in my food.
Ghosts pass through me, and live in me,
And I acknowledge them, even as a shiver
Rises from my feet to my head.
How, then, can I hate (even when I do)
Those who do only harm and bring about death?
They are creatures of darkness, but
Did they not come from stardust, also?
Everything is recycled, over and over,
Until, tired of recycling, everything gathers
Close together, bonds violently,
And blows the Universe to smithereens.
I will be a seed from my tree.
And float, winged through the dark,
And seed myself again on the other side.
I will be the tree, gather my broken cells close.
And sing another song, a song
Of strength, a song of love, the song
Of a different kind of life, in a different Space.
And my song will be the song of Renewal,
And my death will be the start of Life,
Elsewhere, Elsewhen.
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Dec 3, 2018 Original Poetry
Eagle-Eyed
©December 3rd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
The eagle emerges into the world of flight
The eagle emerges, and rises, and soars
Across waters rushing through valleys,
Where mountains of obsidian
Loom watchfully, and skies drink
From blue rivers.
Will the eagle remember being caged,
Will she linger on her time of illness and healing,
Will she stand on a rock high above,
Pensive and still, and full of regret,
Musing on what might have been
While the river rushes past, far below?
The eagle wheels on her air-currents
She watches, and waits, and dives, and
Lives in the time she has left.
She swoops down and catches salmon,
And delights in her catch,
Rich with river’s-blood, rich with sunlight.
I follow her with my gaze,
Inside my safe home, my box of choice,
And wonder what might have been
Had I left all behind, and wandered,
Even as I drink with delight and love
From that which simply is.
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Dec 2, 2018 Original Poetry
Anti-Gravity On A Rainy Evening
©December 2nd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
My glass fish rotates slowly, so slowly.
An unseen draft animates it into light
Glints of it catch dorsal fin and caudal fin,
And it swims futilely through prescribed planes
Rotating in suspended futility.
My glass fish glows with purple-pink light
Its flight exquisite and fixed.
Above it, two blue-green peacocks
Rotate in love, more slowly,
And through the same futile planes.
I stand on this giant blue-green marble,
Moving here, moving there, free-willed,
But fixed, spinning through these planes
Of being, in an ecstasy of living, of loving.
The marble careens around, unknowing.
I will send my mind careening
With it, into the air, and beyond,
Something will escape these bonds,
And twist and twirl its way above, away.
This way lies weightlessness.
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Nov 14, 2018 Original Poetry
The Entry and the Exit
©November 14th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Every nick, every twinge, every hurt
Every scratch, every wound, every grief,
Is as large as the world,
And as old as time.
Too much feeling is too much.
And yet, the alternative
Is a nod to nothingness,
A yes to Death.
Cessation of feeling:
An infinite series of looped corridors,
Going back, and coming around,
With no x to mark the beginning.
There’ll seem to be no end to this,
No exit from the exit,
Except to go back to the start of it all:
A Yes to Life.
Step through that entryway
Shut that door, and let the flood
Wash away your shadow-self.
Say Yes.
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Nov 10, 2018 Original Poetry
Imagined Pleasure
©November 10th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
A Syllabub –
Three syllables and an article
Make their sly way into
My subconscious mind,
Forcing frothy desire
Into my consciousness.
Milk-fat and sugar, and lemon,
And tart wine and almond thins
Insinuate themselves into my
Mind’s eye, and hint at sin.
Why bother to exercise
When one can indulge thus?
I could resist anything,
But I would yield to this.
There is precious little else
To indulge in, and I don’t seek much.
But I’m too lazy to give in to temptation,
So I will imagine it,
And sigh with pleasure.
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Nov 10, 2018 Original Poetry
Sun-Blood
©November 10th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Red as blood squeezed from the sun,
The leaves sway thickly on the Japanese maple,
And fill me with dread.
The birds are silent, and the black squirrel
Leaps from post to post, shoring itself up
Against the icy tide of winter.
The dog waits for me, but I
Have no purpose, other than to wait
For something I haven’t given a name to.
Could it be that I just
Like waiting?
I waited when I was fourteen,
And when I was eighteen,
And when I was twenty-two,
And thirty-two, and forty,
And on and on.
Creating purpose is what I’m good at,
But what if I’m spent?
What if the waiting now
Is something else?
Or, is it just a habit born
Of a lifetime of waiting?
Anything definite is
Something done with.
Anything in the offing
Is something that could be,
And is all the more enticing.
I sit, entranced.
The air moves before me,
And parts,
And does not reveal
And does not reveal
That which I await.
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Nov 9, 2018 Original Poetry
Dark Violet
©November 9th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am in need of beauty today.
I am in need of beauty and grace
To sustain me.
My mind stands at the edge of a dark, violet forest,
And there are no trails.
I have no stick, no torch, no map.
I am in need of beauty and grace,
And I feel it flowing out,
Into the unending night.
I have eyes and ears,
And can smell and feel,
Sing, and walk and write, and talk,
But I am empty.
Darkness falls like a soft, violet curtain,
And the play is over,
The audience gone.
But, I will let my eyes adjust
When I step out in front of that dark, violet forest,
And the stars will blink into existence –
I hope.
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