Vijaya Sundaram

Poet, Musician, Teacher, and Amateur Visual Artist

Gibberish

Grock snurple snark!

I like to have a lark.

Cluck, crumple skonk

I want to make a honk!

If this post shows no

Comments

I’ll have to asharofglow

Grarmlents!

Freedom Tracks — A Ditty (Poetry, Day 5)

Freedom Tracks

©December 10th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

See those children skipping rope.

They chant and sing and dream and hope

Playing hopscotch, playing tag

Their minutes stretch, but never drag.

See those dancers, see them swirl

Full of tight control, they whirl.

Gravity is just a word

Freedom is a song not heard,

But felt, in bones that stretch and bend

They dance through lives that have no end.

You toss your clothes, and plunge into

The foaming brine lunging at you,

You lose your fear, you lose your shame

And freedom is your middle name.

And when you find you’re mocked and scorned,

And wish you never had been born,

You drown in sadness for a while,

Then think “This gloom is not my style.

I’d rather read or sing a song,

Think nothing as I walk along.

I’m free! is what I think of me

And enjoy what I’ve come to be.”

You make your choices, moral ones

And answer none under the sun,

You live with love and joy and peace

From rage and hate you find release.*

That’s freedom too, my listening friends

(Though there are fences we might mend.)

When lost and all alone, you find

That time and maps are left behind,

You doff your fears, and make a track

With dog in front, and wind at back,

That’s freedom, darlings, this I know —

I hope to see you where I go.

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P.S. *Instead of that line, I first wrote, “But rage at Donald Trump’s hairpiece.”  I couldn’t help it — I needed to write it.  However, in the interests of Poesy, I had to change it.
Then, I showed it to my daughter, who instantly endorsed it, so I kept it for ten minutes longer, before I changed it.

P.P.S.  I wanted to write a ditty, instead of a deep, winding, complicated, surreal piece, for a change.

 

 

 

Twist of Time (Poetry, Day 4)

Twist of Time
(A Surrealist Perspective)
©December 10th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram

Came a multi-chorused Voice
From the blue-green sphere:
May I have some more, Sir?
Please?  Could I, do you think?
My life’s running out,
My heart’s pumped out dreams
And fear,  desire and grief
My pulse hammers and quakes
In rhythm, in time.

SynchroniCity is the place
I want to be, but the dark
Comes close on my heels,
And my candle gutters
And is unsteady; I’m spent,
Stumbling on these sands
S
ucked noisily, greedily
From the shore, while my feet
Feel the pull of the ocean beneath.

So many breaths spent
On fear, so many breaths lost
On the dreary dark,
So many breaths tossed on
Foolish words, foolish thoughts,
Foolish deeds, for I am a Fool,
Filling the air around me with sound.
How could I do otherwise?
I do but live, it’s what I know.
My tasks, my busy-ness plague me
Where I come and go is Life
All around, within and without.

I need to know this,
And this is all I ask:
Could you spare me a little time?
One more life, perhaps?
Or at least another hour?
Sixty minutes keeping pulse
With my pulse, with the swing
Of the planet in orbit –
Thirty-six thousand seconds –
Could I have some more, please?
That’s all I ask.

And in the sucking whirl
Of the sibilant sea, the crabs
Scuttled and made for the shore,
And the Voice waited, while a clock
Melted somewhere, and a fading Ear
Leaned down to listen,
And a gale swept through space
And the Voice scattered
In feathery bits, till all
Of it vanished, while the
Slowing seconds fell into orbit
Around a black hole,
And fell headlong into
The place before Time.

And the Ear leaned back.
Into its winding passageways,
Flowed all voices, all spaces,
All Time, and its Face folded
Into smooth lines of sleep.
Supremely indifferent,
It dreamed on, while the seconds
In a decaying orbit that never stopped,
Became twisted and wound into
An eternal braid winding around
And around Its memory, and
All was still once more.

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CROSSING THE SEA OF DEATH by Carol P. Christ

The story of refugees fleeing their war-torn homelands and crossing the sea to come to the relative safety of Europe (where they face discrimination in countries like Hungary, but are being shown kindness in some places in Greece, Turkey, and recently, Germany) is most heartbreaking news I’ve been following over the past several months. This post speaks to some of the heartbreak. So much tragedy in such small clothes!

Flower Sack Dresses From the Flour Mills (Historical Kindness)

I found this blog through a friend on FB. This is quite inspiring, and makes me ashamed of how much I waste in my life when I buy store-bought clothes, and don’t even “re-purpose” them.
I love the idea of a Kindness Blog, don’t you?
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Forever Summertime

So, my beloved poet-friend Elizabeth Gordon McKim saw my post on FB about the tomatoes I’d mentioned yesterday (was it just yesterday?!), and commented that she loved “the sorting and the naming…appeals to (her) poet nature…waiting for the taste/the touch/ the aroma.”

This prompted a response from me, and I simply wrote a poem back.  Here it is:

Forever Summertime (Tomato Harvest)

©Ocotber 24th 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

A faint whiff of mischievous fragrance
Like seduction contained in a sphere
Like delight bound within an ovoid
Or, simply a bright, sunlit scent.
Taste their tartness — those saucy imps,
Or temptresses who wave
Their languid, bejeweled hands,
Sometimes wrinkled, never
Apologetic, an eyebrow raised always.
Quizzical, smooth, packed,
Rounded and glossy,
So much ripeness, so much
Immaturity,
Reminds me of when I was young,
And life was long,
And summers lasted forever.

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Dream-Nap (Haiku)

How often do you nap?

This was the topic I got on the Random Questions – Conversation Topic Generator on Dan Alatorre‘s blog, where he issued a haiku challenge (and I got here via one of my blogging favs, Draliman (thanks, Dr. Ali!)

So, how strange that I should get my favorite topic — SLEEP?

The only problem with that question above is that I do NOT nap, or at least hardly ever.  I SLEEP, and that too, often quite late, in the wee hours of the morning.

So, let’s have a go at this thing, shall we?

Dream-Nap

©October 24th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

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Screen-sucked, I hear you:

So, how often do you nap?

I dream my answer.

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Should Teachers Work for Free?

This is a reblog of Diane Ravitch’s piece on her blog.

Three Things to Read to Understand Common Core

More on the same.

Michael Fiorillo on Bill and Melinda Gates: A Literary Reference for Close Reading

Literature holds the mirror up to the truth.
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