Mar 11, 2016 The Daily Post, Uncategorized
(Poem in response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt for today: Flow)
Un-Jonah!
©March 11th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I don’t WANT to go with the flow
It’s too easy for me
Too easy to let things be
I WANT to resist
Lest I be swept away to sea
And die in the mouth of a
BIG, BIG FISH,
And I, a minnow!
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Tags: #Fish, #Original Poetry, Jonah
Mar 10, 2016 Original Poetry, The Daily Post, Uncategorized
Legacy: A Simple Love Poem
(for The Daily Post Prompt for March 10th: Legacy)
©March 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Give me your heart.
I shall always be true.
I shall wind the silk
Of mine with yours
And spin a cloth
That endures.
Give me your trust.
I shall hold it close.
And build for it a room
That opens to the world
And keeps it safe
When it needs a retreat.
Give me your hand
To hold when I’m unsteady,
And, if you have need of mine,
You will have it.
The rocks are hard, and
The hills are steep,
And we have need of
A steadying hand.
Together, we shall advance
Into the sunset.
It’s beautiful sometimes,
And stormy sometimes,
And full of rich color, always.
The horizon beckons,
And night advances.
It does not scare me.
Our laughter, the music of time.
Our struggles, the drama,
Our losses, our joys
The eternal dance
With which we braid
A life together.
Love with you is all I need.
And that will be our
Legacy for our daughter
When we are gone,
And she will hold it
Close to her heart.
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Tags: #Legacy, #Love, #TheDailyPost, A Love Poem
Mar 9, 2016 Uncategorized
Shine On! (Sonnet for Childhood)
©March 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
See yon diamond kite, sweet child of the sky?
Come watch it trail its skeins of sun, and smile.
And see the air move round it in a dance –
You’ll soon, like me, fall straight into a trance.
The world moves fast around, and so do we,
Not knowing if we’re trapped, or if we’re free.
No matter what, if we but laugh in play,
All traps, and chains, and bars will fade away.
If I could find the golden key for you
And carve a doorway to a world that’s new
I’d make it full of light, and play and song
I’d walk in there; but you can fly along!
It’s in your eyes that I see childhood shine
And wish for you that it will not decline.
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Tags: #Childhood's Universe, #Nostalgia, #Original Poetry, #sonnet, Kite and sun
Mar 5, 2016 Uncategorized
At the ICA, in Boston, with Merce Cunningham’s dance troupe on the screen
Photograph@Vijaya Sundaram, January 2016
Still Life. Still, Life …
©March 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
As she leaves the screen,
She stills the terror within.
What am I doing in this show?
And she steps out, shaken.
The pale-and-dark of space
Obliterates memory.
Where was I a moment ago?
Now, all is still around her.
Still life with screen
Captured here, now.
Should I have stepped out?
See art distilled, right here.
A doorless space opens
Into a mystery still to see.
Should I be here? She doubts,
She lingers, thrilled, unsure.
Here’s beauty still. She peers.
Flows into the void,
Remembers. Matters press on me.
Must she go? Life goes on.
An exit sign beckons, greenly
She moves at first, then demurs.
There so much to see.
And still, life beckons.
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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/harmony/
Tags: #Harmony, #ICA Boston, Original Photograph by Vijaya Sundaram
Mar 5, 2016 Uncategorized
Gold and Shadow
©March 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
That reflection you hold
Aloft in your mind’s view?
Find it. Reach it.
Touch it. Understand
It’s the sun.
You’re the one.
(Don’t burn your hand.
Let it teach you.
Don’t let it blind you.)
Turn all into gold.
Don’t let it vanish
Don’t turn your back.
Things can attack
Your dreams. So fight!
Shadows you banish
Come from behind
The light. You’ll find
They gleam. Hold tight!
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Dreams, Gold, Reflections
Mar 5, 2016 Uncategorized
Looking Glass
©March 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Gaze at the looking-glass
See how you’ve changed.
How easy it is to forget!
Remind yourself today
Of who you are now,
Come, take a bow.
Marvel at who, how
You were yesterday.
Who you want to be, and yet
Not change. How strange!
Can this come to pass?
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Looking Glass
Mar 5, 2016 Uncategorized
Flow, Bacchanal!
©March 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Make up your mind!
You flow like water,
Move with the wind.
Turn like the tides,
You, Dream’s daughter,
Streaming through
The void of this life,
Don’t avoid strife!
Be wild, be a child,
Dance in beams of light
Wild girl, bacchanal,
Bell-voiced, laurel-leafed
Tread and stomp and whirl
Poised to jump into cool,
Thin air, in relief, never
Return to burn on earth.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Bacchanal, Flow like water, Wild girl
Mar 4, 2016 Uncategorized
Descent
©March 4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
First comes desire, an urgent
Pressing need to do:
I want this, I want to do this.
Next comes resistance:
No, I don’t!
I won’t! I cannot!
Then comes stasis.
And the minutes tick away
Lifetimes slide past,
Looking sorrowfully
Out of the corners of their
Eyes, moist with promise.
And grey ghosts crowd at the door.
Beckoning through the wood.
(They can see through it, you understand.)
And one says, “Do you practise?
Do you practise your literature?”
Practise my literature?
What sort of question is that, Dad?
A dream nudges memory:
Carrying a third of an appalam
To Appa, lying on the floor above.
He smiles, pale and alive.
But he’s dead, don’t you remember?
Been dead a few years!
Dust on the floor makes faces
Faces gleam through air and mist.
Faces gibber and point in mirrors.
Faces emerge from bones in dreams.
I like this one best!
Fingers trace patterns on coverlet.
Geometric ones, beautiful,
But gone forever, air-molecules
Carrying away pictures
Into the dustbin of time.
And the music stays on
And on, and on, like madness,
Like a tap that someone forgot to
Turn off.
Turn it off!
Turn it all off!
String together this lute.
Play it on the edge of a cliff.
Start singing to the sun.
Let the song grow.
Get UP!
Descend the stairs.
They never end.
Tags: #Contradictions, #Original Poetry, Descent, Resistance and need
Feb 12, 2016 Uncategorized
Away! (An Aubade)
©February 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Night comes quietly,
Eager to court me,
And pay me tribute.
Soft is the pale cloud
On which we both lie,
And converse, entwine.
Colors flow like songs
And music slides in
Hues beyond my ken.
Sleep is my lover.
We keep our dream-tryst,
Short though it might be.
All is color and wild sound
All is tapestry and string
All is narrative and haze,
Till you arrive, Dawn.
What mean you by this,
Your rude intrusion?
Take yourself back to
Night, where old Tithon
Awaits you, trembling.
And tell your brother
We no longer need
His bright chariot.
Goodbye, O Eos!
Goodbye, Helios!
Stay, O Oneiros!
Let’s go through the gates
Of horn, and never
Come back to this world.
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For those who wish to know, an aubade is a poem about lovers who separate in the morning after a tryst. For more, see Aubade.
Glossary:
Eos — A Titaness, the Greek Goddess of the Dawn
Helios –A Titan, her brother, the Sun, who draws his chariot through the sky
Tithonos — the immortal, but endlessly aging, husband of Eos
Oneiros — Dream personified in Greek mythology
Tags: #Aubade, #Original Poetry, Eos, Greek Myth references, Helios, Lovers, Oneiros, Sleep, Tithonos
Feb 10, 2016 Uncategorized
To a Spider
©February 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
With eight eyes, what do you see?
The universe is an octagonal thing.
And all the sounds of it must be
Octaves of sensation!
Do you see eight worlds?
(Allow me my fancies.)
With delicate, eight-legged gait,
You, a creature from another world,
Inhabit the same physical one as I do.
Do you compute in base eight?
And those perfect eight-pointed webs —
How do you calculate them?
(I do wonder at you.)
So many perceptions,
So many perspectives!
So many pensive hours, patiently
Spinning a web, perfectly woven.
(I wish I could love you).
And some shriek in terror
When you swing down, delicately
Putting out your bridges
From one world to the next.
(I do admire you.)
And yet, we don’t hesitate to sweep
Away you and your children,
All that work, aeons for you
In the making of your home,
Gone, gone in a whoosh of vacuum
Or a swish of broom.
(With only two eyes, we don’t see.)
Do you consider us?
Do you fear us?
Do you note us
As living beings?
Or, are we magnified
Monsters from a nightmare
Advancing towards you,
As you scurry to hide?
(Forgive us our trespasses.)
I am
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Octagonal world, Ode, Perspectives, Spider