Dec 4, 2019 Uncategorized
Assemble, Reassemble
©December 3rd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
©December 3rd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I sense Death hovering close by.
This I cannot shake off.
I turn and look, but he isn’t there.
I feel him seeking to claim me,
Standing right next to the cells
Within my slowly aging body,
Millions of little Deaths, all waiting
With a finger on the off-switch,
Waiting to turn things off, as if Death’s
Curious to see what would happen,
(As if it’s never happened before),
Eager to turn things off in me,
Then play alone in the dark,
With the unceasing snow
Coming down, down, down,
As he tries to assemble and
Reassemble all the scattered atoms
Of an escaped consciousness.
While my body lies there,
Switched off, anima and animus all fled.
It must be a lonely business,
The business of switching things off.
Meanwhile that *I* that was
And the *I* that will be
Pass each other somewhere in time,
And do not nod in recognition
When they collide in the *I* that am.
And Death looks the other way.
The suspense is killing me,
And I cannot wait.
I turn and look, but he isn’t there.
I feel him seeking to claim me,
Standing right next to the cells
Within my slowly aging body,
Millions of little Deaths, all waiting
With a finger on the off-switch,
Waiting to turn things off, as if Death’s
Curious to see what would happen,
(As if it’s never happened before),
Eager to turn things off in me,
Then play alone in the dark,
With the unceasing snow
Coming down, down, down,
As he tries to assemble and
Reassemble all the scattered atoms
Of an escaped consciousness.
While my body lies there,
Switched off, anima and animus all fled.
It must be a lonely business,
The business of switching things off.
Meanwhile that *I* that was
And the *I* that will be
Pass each other somewhere in time,
And do not nod in recognition
When they collide in the *I* that am.
And Death looks the other way.
The suspense is killing me,
And I cannot wait.
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Nov 29, 2019 Uncategorized
Silence
©November 28th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I stay up most nights
For silence is scarce
But even past midnight
A harsh sound blares
Like a freaked-out child
Atop a high wire,
This sound swirls around,
And causes me ire.
The thing that I seek
Eludes every grasp
Every breath, every eye,
Every sibilant gasp.
Wires and fridges
And telephone poles,
And clocks and traffic
Cut deep in my soul.
I crave a deep silence
To keep out all strife
And I yearn to cradle
It all through my life.
I look and I look
But the silence I seek
Showed itself once
On a pathway too bleak.
The path is too bleak
To reach what I crave
And the silence I seek
Needs me to be brave.
So, with a long sigh
I tune myself in,
And slip into sleep –
And silence begins.
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Nov 29, 2019 Uncategorized
A Simple Beast Poem
©Nov. 29th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
MY dog is a beast
Who knows what is what
And knows which is which
And thinks beyond thought.
My dog can be bribed
With bananas and cheese.
And for yogurt and rice
She’ll do what you please.
She is a mapper;
Her nose can confirm
What pitfalls exist
In plateaus and berms.
Her tail is just perfect –
A feathery flag.
She knows it is so,
And her step never drags.
Her snout is quite slender
And covered in fur
She likes it when I come
To scritch and scratch her.
Her bark is too loud
For human or beast,
But she is too proud
And her pride has increased.
I care not at all
For whether you think
My dog isn’t great
(But I’ll think that you stink).
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Nov 29, 2019 Uncategorized
Middle
©Nov. 28th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Endings attract me.
Beginnings, too.
It’s just the fat middle
I have to get through.
Things would be fun
If we could just stitch
The start to the end
Or make them switch.
Leave middles behind
Such muddle! Such mess! –
Full of tangles and snarls,
And a whole lot of stress.
Take me back to the start
Of all that I was
Of all I could be
Then, just hit “Pause.”
Endings attract me.
Beginnings, too.
It’s just the fat middle
I have to get through.
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Nov 29, 2019 Uncategorized
Sequence
©November 28th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The upswell is lovely, but I reject it.
For it hints forever at its opposite.
What does anyone want?
What do I need?
Stasis beckons alluringly.
I shrug. Too boring to
Float forever on, moving
From one buoy to another, and
No end in sight.
This might be it, then, the answer:
A friendly stasis, then an upswell,
Then a pull-back, an ebb.
Then, a sudden flash,
And total evaporation.
(I like endings.)
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Oct 28, 2019 Uncategorized
Hermes, Psychopompos
©October 28th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I walk to one side,
Always slightly behind,
Ready to catch you,
And take you swiftly,
Painlessly, to where you need to be.
You never see me,
But I’m there, your faithful shadow,
But I’m there, your faithful shadow,
Attached to you while you live,
Your transport, your guide,
Your truest friend, one who knows the way.
You have others, yes,
But they are creatures of flesh,
And prone to the same things to which you are.
And prone to the same things to which you are.
I, sadly, cannot leave you, or this path you walk.
Though I would love to.
I might have had dreams, once
Dreams of becoming flesh, perhaps,
Of treading this path you tread
With real feet, real muscles, real feelings.
I am tired to the soles of my soul, your soul.
Once, I laughed in sheer delight –
For another me had been sending your messages,
In person, and via that unseen route you humans love.
And my various me-s collided with each other,
And you fell down the steps, texting as you fell –
And for one moment, I was free.
And my Psychopompos Self stood up,
Ready and willing to take you to that land
From which you would never return,
But you returned to your self, and others
Carted you off to a place of healing.
I stayed by your side, though.
One never knows, for tomorrow
Arrives hot on the heels of today.
And I traverse both today and tomorrow
With equal ease, for speed
Is of the essence,
My essence.
Still, I am tired, today.
I would like to go home,
And lay down my caduceus,
Would like to be transported,
Instead of transporting.
I’d like to be a simile,
Not a metaphor.
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Oct 24, 2019 Uncategorized
Dog, Dash
©October 24th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Mute as a stone.
Cute as a button.
Beauteous bunny.
Pursuit? Resist? Dog in
Acute distress.
Amused mistress
Opens backyard door.
Scraped kitchen floor (but
No blood and no gore),
Out like a flash, dog
Makes wild dash –
A whiplash
Striking air –but rabbit
Striking air –but rabbit
Vanishes, as if
Never there.
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Oct 11, 2019 Uncategorized
See These Things?
© October 11th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
See these things? These are walls. They are transparent.
See those things? Those are shadows of the outside world on those walls.
See this? These are your hands pressed up against the walls holding you in. Press harder. Do it.
You shift your molecules and atoms to match the configuration of the molecules and atoms of the walls, and you slip through.
Then, you rearrange yourself again into what you recognize.
You’re out! Who knew that would happen?
Wait!
What are these? These are walls. They are transparent.
What are those things? Shadows, again!
And this? Your hands pressed up against the walls, looking for a space within the atoms holding that plane, so you can slip through.
And through you go.
And onward.
You want to stop?
Close your eyes. Open them again. See?
No walls.
You look inside.
What is that?
What is that?
Your flesh?
What’s that pressed up against the inside of your skin?
Is that you? The *you* you?
Press harder?
Back off?
You stand still within, frozen.
Your body keeps moving,
You stand still within, frozen.
Your body keeps moving,
Pushing through the omentum of space.
Momentum.
Momentum.
What do you do next?
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Oct 11, 2019 Uncategorized
When snow falls gently down on silent trees
Which bend their heads and huddle in the cold
That’s when I contemplate humanity
And wish we could go back to days of old.
When seasons gave their wealth, and land its gifts
And people worked together with no thought
But that it might prove helpful to uplift
Not one, but all who toiled as one for aught.
We’ve lost our way, or so it seems to me
The winds and rains lash out at us, but now
Unlike the trees, and people from those times,
We bend alone, but oneness disavow.
The land will teach us what we need to learn.
Or else, we’ll lose the thing for which we yearn.
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Tags: #sonnet, Community, Losing our way, Native American
Oct 9, 2019 Uncategorized
What I Mourn
©October 9th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
©October 9th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I sense throngs of angels
Poised at the edge of my nostrils
Quivering with scent
Fainting after feasting on perfume.
I taste their songs as they hum:
Cucumber and lemongrass,
Melon and berries,
Pineapple and jack-fruit.
My fingers still remember
The brushing of silken wings
As brief as time, and tightly woven as gossamer,
As I picked them up,
One by one, out of the grass
Where I lay, looking up
At a mass of clouds, a throng
Of them, with lutes that split apart
And formed again, making music
That only I could hear.
That is to say,
I cannot describe any of it –
Those delicate, delicious, delirious
Moments,
Growing up, knowing each sound,
Each scent, each sense was the first,
The only time I could know them
As they were then.
The river changed quickly,
And stepping into it, I stepped out,
Only to slip downstream,
And only glimpse a shadow of a memory.
This, I mourn.
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Poised at the edge of my nostrils
Quivering with scent
Fainting after feasting on perfume.
I taste their songs as they hum:
Cucumber and lemongrass,
Melon and berries,
Pineapple and jack-fruit.
My fingers still remember
The brushing of silken wings
As brief as time, and tightly woven as gossamer,
As I picked them up,
One by one, out of the grass
Where I lay, looking up
At a mass of clouds, a throng
Of them, with lutes that split apart
And formed again, making music
That only I could hear.
That is to say,
I cannot describe any of it –
Those delicate, delicious, delirious
Moments,
Growing up, knowing each sound,
Each scent, each sense was the first,
The only time I could know them
As they were then.
The river changed quickly,
And stepping into it, I stepped out,
Only to slip downstream,
And only glimpse a shadow of a memory.
This, I mourn.
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