Apr 25, 2016 Original Poetry, sonnet
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Whisper
Whispers of Another Land
©April 25th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
To wave your oar at every ship that goes
Upon the waves on which you row your boat
Is foolishness, for all it does is show
The world around you that you are afloat.
The whispers of a land from far away
Are just the wake in which your vessel flies,
But now, distracted by the waves that play
You turn around with wheeling seabirds’ cries.
When whispers of another world are drowned
By shouts of glee and mirth that pass like mist
In mid-day sun before you run aground
You push your oar into the waves, resist!
When distant voices try to reel you in —
Come, let them pull you up above the din.
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P.S. I seem to want to keep writing sonnets nowadays!
Tags: #Daily Prompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #The Daily Post, #TheDailyPost, #Whisper
Apr 24, 2016 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry, sonnet
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Borrowed
The Star-Poacher (On Borrowing)
©April 24th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I was hungry; food had been denied me
I went abroad, my trusty net in hand
To hunt down stars which had been snagged by trees
I brought them down to eat, though they were banned.
I chased after a shooting star, but found
‘Twas full of salt and rock, and oily ore.
Besides, I liked to eat the light and sound
Of things I’d stolen from the Big Bang’s store
The moon came swimming by into my ken
I spread my net to catch her, but alack,
I fell in, but was hoisted there and then
Upon a passing comet’s friendly back.
Now, borrowing this comet’s tail I ride
To space to hunt and eat the stars that hide.
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Note: I already wrote a Petrarchan sonnet yesterday for NaPoWriMo, but I thought I’d write a Shakespearean sonnet as well for today’s The Daily Post prompt, and cross-post it to NaPoWriMo.
(Somewhere deep within, I think I was inspired by Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, although I didn’t think about it consciously while writing this sonnet! Calvino rules!)
Tags: #Borrowed, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Shakespearean Sonnet, #TheDailyPost, #TheDailyPrompt
Apr 23, 2016 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry, sonnet, Uncategorized
Curtain-Close
©April 23rd, 2016By Vijaya Sundaram
When the curtain falls, and it’s time to sleep
The long sleep, I’ll give thanks for life, and go
To where my spirit takes me, and you’ll know
‘Tis not the time to mourn – so, do not weep.
There are things I will toss, and things I’ll keep
Resentment and regret, these shall I throw
Disappointment will soon be next to go
Grief is harder, for it is far too deep
For tears or fare-thee-wells, with ties that bind
Us all across our flesh and blood and cell.
So do not cry. For I’ll emerge from night
(Though I shall miss all those I’ll leave behind)
When I step forth among the stars to dwell
In clouds of nebulae to rest in light.
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P.S. This is my VERY FIRST Petrarchan sonnet (and I tried my hand at sonnets as a form only since October of 2015)! Yay! Another form I finally tackled (and one I’d hitherto avoided, because I was worried I couldn’t do it)!
Petrarchan Sonnet: a sonnet form popularized by Petrarch, consisting of an octave with the rhyme scheme abbaabba and of a sestet with one of several rhyme schemes, as cdecde or cdcdcd. Also called Italian sonnet.
And finally, our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to write a sonnet. Traditionally, sonnets are 14-line poems, with ten syllables per line, written in iambs (i.e., with a meter in which an unstressed syllable is followed by one stressed syllable, and so on). There are several traditional rhyme schemes, including the Petrarchan, Spenserian, and Shakespearean sonnets. But beyond the strictures of form, sonnets usually pose a question of a sort, explore the ideas raised by the question, and then come to a conclusion. In a way, they are essays written in verse! This means you can write a “sonnet” that doesn’t have meet all of the traditional formal elements, but still functions as a mini-essay of a sort. The main point is to keep your poem tight, not rangy, and to use the shorter confines of the form to fuel the poem’s energy. As Wordsworth put it, in a very formal sonnet indeed, “Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room.” Happy writing!
Tags: #DeathandBeyond, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Petrarchan Sonnet