Oct 16, 2015 Uncategorized
No poem from me tonight — But there’ll be a sonnet from me tomorrow. Meanwhile here are some sonnets to keep you company and gladden you as you go about your possibly sad and forlorn day, which might, perhaps, be stripped of poetry (I’m just being facetious — I know all your lives and days are filled to the brim with poetry! 🙂 ).
This first one is by William Wordsworth, and is one of my favorites. I have often felt like Wordsworth did, but he lived in the early 19th century, so life should have been less frantic — just goes to show that the times, they aren’t a-changin’– they’ve always been bad:
The World is Too Much With Us
By William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
____________________________________________________________
I love how Mr. Wordsworth’s wants to go back to the times of the Greeks, when the gods were marvellous, mysterious, all-powerful, and all about nature.
____________________________________________________________
Here’s one by that singularly wonderful sonneteer, Will Shakespeare:
Sonnet 18:
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve always enjoyed these lines:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Those are such beautiful and hopeful lines at the end! Such a testament to the power of poetry and art, which confer immortality (although even these fade or fall with time, as we’ll see in the sonnet below, namely:
____________________________________________________________
Ozymandiasby Percy Bysshe Shelley:
I met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;And on the pedestal, these words appear:My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal Wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”
____________________________________________________________
And thus, all the works of men and women come crumbling to dust. A cheering and cheerful thought, no?
____________________________________________________________
And, finally, this oft-quoted little jewel of a sonnet:
How do I Love Thee?
Sonnet Number 43
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of being and ideal grace.I love thee to the level of every day’sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for right;I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I love how she says these lines below — nicely made parallels and anaphoras. And those expected similes are so perfectly expressed:
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
And the idea of immortality shows up again, with the sense that this time, it will not be an ephemeral sort of immortality through art, but a permanent one, through love.
I do not feel cynical here, even though that part of me might want to rear its contrary, twisty head. I’m willing to go with Ms. Barrett Browning’s vision here.
For, as we all like to believe, Love conquers Death.
____________________________________________________________
Sep 21, 2015 Uncategorized
Bright Fall, Cold Winter – Five Haiku
©September 21st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Cold presses palm-down
As the seasons swing around
Bright air sings sunshine.
Though there’s weariness
Tomatoes burst into song
Curtain coming down.
Chickadees flicker
Cardinals swoop down to eat
Trees droop, drop down fruit.
Riches bearing down
But somewhere, a cold whisper:
Winter lies in wait.
Darkness pressing down
Frost whispering down to soil
Bones stiffen and freeze.
________________________________________________________
Tags: #Original Poetry
Sep 4, 2015 Uncategorized
For Jamycheal Mitchell
©September 4th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
A shout curled up out of the depths of his being,
A wisp of smoke, a spiral of defiance,
Seeking air, seeking release.
When it did, it became a bubble,
A blip of air that vanished,
As if a life had never been.
And he lay there, broken, in prison,
For five measly dollars worth
Of stolen chemical-infused food.
Too poor, too addled, too frightened
To defend himself in a cruel world,
Which meant to kill him,
A young, black man died.
And his detractors, no doubt,
Blamed him for being who he was:
A black man, who stole snickers.
And he died, hungry, caved in,
And he died, hungry, caved in,
A life vanished like a bubble
In darkness.
And after that, no doubt,
His jailers enjoyed coffee and sunshine.
And went home to their wives, or mothers,
Or sons or daughters, full of
Repudiation, full of denial,
Casually shrugging it off,
Sloughing off responsibility, like snakes
Shedding skin — just a day’s work —
So easy for them!
And somewhere, a universe caved in,
Collapsed, fell for an eternity
Into a well of hell. Morality was lost.
Hatefulness won. Civilizations crumbled.
And somewhere, a new carcinoma
Of demons set up a howl of exultation.
____________________________________________________
Aug 17, 2015 Uncategorized
Word Count: 150 exactly (sans title, name, etc.)
Genre: Fantasy-mystery
SeeSaw
©August 17th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Getting into my car on Monday morning, I entered another … reality?
You see, I was opening the car door, and … to cut a long story short, I saw this creature sitting in the driver’s seat. It had one eye. And that eye looked at me, and spoke these words (yes, it was a mouth, too): I see absolutely everything.
You and I know that we are always ashamed of something we’ve done, said, or been, in our lives. I felt, um, exposed.
Outraged, I asked, “Really? Everything?”
Yes.
Wincing, I remembered what I’d done last night — had it seen?
Even that, answered the eye.
That was too much. Some things are private.
Quick as a flash, I punched the creature. Before vanishing into smoke, the eye whispered triumphantly, I saw that coming, too.
I broke down, and confessed all to my wife that evening.
She took away my saw forever.
______________________________________________________________________________
Tags: Mondays Finish The Story, Original 150-word flash fiction based on a photoprompt
Jul 26, 2015 Uncategorized
Procrastination
©July 26th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Evening comes
Shod in salmon-pink slippers,
While you sit, staring at nothing.
And while you wait, you know this:
Your paper-piles will not lift themselves
Back into files and boxes.
Segments of the past come unmoored.
Do you need any of it?
What you would like is “fast forward” button
For all this seaweed floating back on the tide.
It’s work, that’s what it is.
Simple emblems of a life lived.
Papers, letters, books, plans, lists, emails,
Evaluations, projects …These lie waiting for
Recognition, to be claimed,
Or tossed.
So, do it!
Ah, you won’t, of course not!
You gaze at it all, sifting, remembering,
And they sit in limbo, mute but sly,
Nudging the edges of your vision,
Tripping you up, waiting for you to notice.
Everything has meaning,
And nothing means anything.
You cannot take it with you.
Yet, you linger over these,
Like a lover, tender,
Reminiscent, foolish.
But I await you.
You, who hide in the curtains
Behind your eyelashes,
Afraid to speak your true mind,
Afraid to name reality, to pin it down,
You, who refuse to give to simple things
Their power, to acknowledge the mundane,
Instead, you focus on dreams,
Awaiting a golden morrow
Where your perfect world awaits,
Comfortable, since
It’s what you’ve done,
Since you were a child.
Stop! You’ve waited forever.
Now, this unassailable truth
Grabs you by the shoulders,
Shakes you gently, saying:
This is the perfect morrow.
It is now.
So, get up, start moving!
__________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Original Poetry
Jul 25, 2015 Uncategorized
This is a poem I wrote over seventeen years ago.
Awaiting Form
©January 12, 1998
By Vijaya Sundaram
I await form.
Meanwhile, I am a would-be nude,
Reclining in sensual abandon.
Your touch thrills me,
But you are no Pygmalion,
And I know I am Galatea.
So, I will stubbornly
Resist you, resist all
Other eager, trembling hands,
I will resist you with my
Pliant strength, with sensual stubbornness,
As I await my creation.
I am not a hollow creature,
Nor a stuffed creature,
Nor a creature filled with straw.
Mr. Eliot speaks for himself.
No! I am here, I am —
Contradictory, stubborn, resistant,
Beautiful, magic …
Ensconced in clay, in marble, in stone.
I hide under it all,
Waiting.
Pray if you will, say what you will,
I will not emerge for you.
You, who touch me again and again,
You won’t find me …
I will send forth for you a mere imitation
Of myself, for I know how to draw
The deep night of my disguise
All around me —
A blanket of blankness,
A cloak of clay.
What do I care if you relegate me to
Shapelessness, today or tomorrow?
I will come forth when I choose,
When the artist
Whose fingers tremble with unborn love
Reaches for me.
And I will emerge, whole and clean,
From this clay, my mother.
Jul 22, 2015 Uncategorized
Twist
© July 21st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
What do I see when I narrow my eyes
And stare back into a person I knew?
I see you still.
And you are a wraith,
A twisted, curling thing
Of memory, like a tight
DNA curve of smoke
From a dead fire.
Yes, I see you
Standing within that
Smoke, and I stagger,
Shielding stricken eyes.
You stare back, eyes ablaze,
Your body a fist
Your mind a knot
Your soul a twist
And you throw back your head
And howl at the moon
Which pours white milk
Into your parched throat
You raise your hands, and shout
Into the space between us
Where that which grew, so rich
So green, so luminous with life
Turned into a desert, filled
With desire that tastes like ashes.
You call, but it’s a whisper
Blown aside by a harsh wind.
I see you.
And I rear back, stagger into the wind
Shouting, tasting a thing
Whose name I’ve forgotten,
Whose voice resembles a tenderness
I seem to remember in dreams.
And yet, and yet
I seem to remember
That smile of yours
Filled with hope that raised
Its head, and smiled,
Wings pushing skyward.
We are, and we are not.
Always, and forever.
All that we once knew
All that we once were
All that we will be
All that we saw
All we will see
All pour into this
Crucible.
If it can stand so much,
How much more will it take?
This container for the
Thing contained?
All will melt
In this crucible,
All will meld
With the crucible
And time will twist
It into its own
Möbius strip.
Then, you and I
Will stand front and back,
Back and front,
Full of desire
Full of want
Full of despair
Full of disgust
Full of each other
Twisting like a snake
In the space of our
Limbic life, while
The moon pours her milk
Into our parched,
Shouting, aching throats.
While the past and the present
Curl, nesting into each other
We walk through the fire
Of our eternal days,
Turning into smoke.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Original Poetry, Memory
Jul 21, 2015 Uncategorized
Breath-less
©July 21st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
The Guru sits, enthralled,
Arms out at knees, palms upwards,
Hair in a knot, eyes closed,
Deep in the blood of you,
Quiet behind your eyes,
Gathering visions.
And the world spirals inwards
And ever inwards,
Until you reach the core,
Where burns a sun
As still and blue
And molten and plasmic
As every dream you
Ever had, ever held,
As it, too, vanished in a breath
Of the OM you breathed
In your gathering of,
And your letting free, the air
You so desperately needed
To live.
Just sit, breathe, dream,
Envision, desire, grasp, sorrow,
And let it slip away, let it all
Vanish in that breath,
And let that breath go.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Breath, #Original Poetry, nirvana
May 15, 2015 Uncategorized
Illusion – Homan Square and Worse
©May 15, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
How can I smile?
The sun shines muted and somber
The children’s cries of glee on the fields
Seems removed, like sounds heard through glass.
The sky bends, an old woman with a bundle,
Inverted, back broken, over an earth which
Spins only from duty and habit.
How can I smile?
I read things, things about blood
And things about pain
And about cruelty, torture
And rape.
In Chicago’s Homan Square,
A Black Site, mini-Guantanamo,
Men in blue, with blood-lust
And guns ready at the hip
Explode with hatred, and
Engorged with power,
Devastate a life, far from
Prying eyes or help.
And I read, and my gorge rises
And a canyon opens below.
How can I smile?
You want to tell me that we
Are creatures of compassion
And kindness, and love?
You want to tell me that we care
For our fellow brothers and sisters,
That we are merciful?
You want to tell me that
All is not lost, that
Goodness still exists?
Very well! I’ll go along
With your fiction.
I have no choice, but
To die, here, now.
I cannot do that.
Duty compels, and love,
Family ties me with silken threads.
And this body that
Still thirsts, still hungers,
Still rejoices in air and light
And food and music
And words and touch …
These tug at me.
If it’s fiction, and all existence
Narrows down to that perfect point
Where death pinches out life,
I don’t care.
This fiction prods me on.
This is all maya.
And though I laugh in your face,
And my heart is a fist, and the fist,
Is formed from blood and tears,
And I lie in a dark room,
Somewhere
Far away,
Shaking,
Broken,
I will create this fiction.
For I have no choice.
Out of fiction
A genie emerges,
Arms folded, forbidding,
Good, powerful:
Could this be Truth?
I will ask three things of it, then.
And if it doesn’t give,
I will force it back into
Its metallic, negative space.
And spin a wilder
Brighter, kinder fiction,
Which will coalesce,
Transforming this world
Into something that might
Nearly resemble Truth.
I could live with that —
Perhaps.
_____________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Injustice, #Original Poetry, Chicago Black Site, Homan Square
May 12, 2015 Uncategorized
Becoming a Balloon
©May 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Detaching from something is a curious sensation,
Sad and joyful, exhilarating, downcasting.
Liberation can be scary. Who wants to be free?
Is this why so many of us choose our own brand of slavery?
Better to be attached to something, anything, than to float away, unmourned, forgotten.
Is that it?
I would like to be a balloon.
Yes, a balloon is what I want to be
I want to fill with something lighter than air,
A thin membrane separating me from
Complete dissipation.
And, bringing joy to a child’s life, or an adult’s,
I will let myself be held lightly by a hand or two.
And then, let the winds tug at me,
Snap me loose from the hands that hold me,
And float away, so quietly, so softly,
I won’t hurt any bird, I promise,
Nor trouble any airplane’s engines.
Just float away, that’s what I’d like to do,
Until I reach the moon, or become one.
Tags: #Original Poetry, Balloon, detachment, Floating away, Lighter than air