May 25, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Fault-Lines
(For The Border-Children)
©May 25th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
You wait.
Hollow as a reed,
Empty as the sky,
You wait, liminal.
Child that you were
Child that you are in a
Childhood that you can
Never again have,
You sit mutely,
Eyes avoiding the big men
With their predator eyes
And cruel teeth, and you crouch
Among silver sheets
Flimsy as yesterday’s dreams,
Your face bruised, rib-cage
Pushing against skin, from your
Heart trying to burst out,
Escape all your confines.
Others among you, like you,
Wait, in a solitude that crushes –
Like an entire ocean
Flattening bodies down
At the bottom of a trench,
So that any breath you take
Isn’t even yours, it’s pure
Mechanics, split from your body.
You wait – for a parent,
Or for the kindness of strangers,
Or warmth, or a kind kiss, but
Now, you know – even as
The weeks and months
Crawl by on bloody knees,
And even as your mind
Collapses under all that weight
Of waiting in absolute solitude –
That you will never find them.
And is there room within
For rage, or for memories of love
Of home, of a mother and father,
Of walking, bruised, footsore, hungry
Across a cactus-riddled desert?
Do you remember a coyote, a fox,
Men with guns, blood-lust in their eyes?
Do you remember the predator
Who seeks your body at night?
Do you obliterate all feeling?
At what cost, survival?
And where in this cold world
Is a warm voice, a soft touch,
A return to love?
Those are the questions
For times of comfort.
Now, you simply lie, or sit,
Or stand, or crouch,
And wait, numb and stunned.
Something will happen.
You might not be there for it.
The fault-lines open wide.
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May 24, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Aphrodite Unmade
©May 24th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Out of the roiling, boiling
Churning, coiling, burning
Deeps, arises a simple
Creature, fully formed.
The ocean that caused her
To be, pulses in her ears,
And sea-flowers foam at her feet.
But there is no such thing
As a simple entity.
She is a composite.
She chooses simplicity.
She thinks any other choice
Would doom her.
But even as she chooses,
She hears the ocean
Pulsing in up ears.
Humming to herself,
Not listening, she stops up
Her ears with denial.
She is calcified, calm,
Created entirely from salt
And water, breathing in air.
This element hurts her.
The ocean pulses louder.
Okay, I give in, she shouts.
Seaweed and foam clasp at
Ankles and feet, as the water
Sucks at her toes, pulling at her.
Dissolving, unmade now,
She falls back into water
With barely a sign or splash
To mark her unbecoming.
The water closes over her hair.
She was never here.
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May 23, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Unmoored
©May 23rd, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The tiny boat floats, unmoored,
The oars have fallen away.
There might be eddies,
There might be typhoons, or
The doldrums might suddenly
Take over.
The boat floats, and the sky
Floats above it, like a kite.
You lie back, and feel
Nothing.
Your eyes reflect sky.
Your hands push the waves
Of an unfathomable
Ocean, pointlessly.
You might perish.
You might fall over and be
Utterly consumed.
You close your eyes.
It is too much to even
Think.
The ocean pulses underneath,
With roiling currents, and creatures
Rolling far beneath,
Living, fighting, dying,
Pointless, desperate.
An uncaring sky carries on
Being blindingly blue.
You live for this moment,
You think.
There is no past.
There are no people in it.
Everything you achieved
Is a bubble, and a dream.
The future shrinks till it
Fills your eyes, pricks
Your pupils, scoops out your mind.
Empty now,
You open your eyes, and
Gaze up with a fixed smile.
The sun turns black.
The ocean rises.
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May 19, 2019 Daily Life, Uncategorized
Big emotions are exhausting.
I’m going to choose small ones today – like a small bit of happiness that the rain stopped, and the earth smells divine.
I’m not going to spend time grieving that the good earth is in her death throes.
I’m going to smile at the flowers hanging outside my kitchen window.
I’m going to brush my dog’s unruly fur, and enjoy that sensation, and feel gratitude that I can feel things physically and emotionally.
I’m going to eat a popsicle, and delight in it.
May 18, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Sharpened Knife
˙May 18th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Leader:
Woman with her womb so red
Could come to birthing
To be dead.
Chorus:
To be dead.
To be dead.
Could come to birthing
To be dead.
Leader:
Man, holding penis small
Comes to birthing
Not at all.
Chorus:
Not at all.
Not at all.
Comes to birthing
Not at all.
Solo Voice:
With heart of stone
And will of steel, he
Bends the law
And does not feel.
Control is all he wants to own
And fear is what he carries.
Then, let him learn to live alone,
And let no woman harry.
Take them, take them all away
Men with hearts as dark as night
Take them ere the break of day
And pen them close, as we take flight.
Leader:
Woman with her womb so red
Is born to love and work and life,
With, without, a child to raise
She shines alone,
A sharpened knife.
Chorus:
A sharpened knife.
A sharpened knife.
She shines alone,
A sharpened knife.
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May 18, 2019 Uncategorized
Post One a.m.
©May 18th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am aslant,
Athwart,
Diagonal.
I am sidewise,
Crabwise,
Orthogonal.
I am stranded,
Wind-beaten,
Eroding.
I am sinking
Wave-sucked,
Corroding.
I am rounded
Pebble-smooth
Rolling.
I am sanded
Smooth-grained,
Unscrolling.
I could curl up
Shell-shocked
In the deeps.
I could swirl up
Hell-hocked.
Lose your sleep!
Call me, catch me
Sing to me!
Fall into sleeplessness.
Bring to me
Stories, sea-songs,
Strength to bear
Catastrophe. Leave some
Love to spare.
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May 17, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Cri de Coeur
©May 17th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Fish fly, birds swim,
People walk on stilts.
Pigs come and live in houses
That the humans built.
Topsy, turvy,
World spinning down.
Orbitally diagonal,
Sky on the ground.
Blood flows, bones break,
Coyotes laugh.
Trees bend in howling winds,
Then they break in half.
Heart beats faster,
Dark slanting in.
Night walking barefoot while
Earth forgets to spin.
Take me, hold me,
Steal me away.
Far from this planet,
‘Fore the break of day.
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May 12, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
My Mother
©May 12, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
My mother grew like a flower
In the midst of plenty and lack.
She formed like music welling
From a young throat,
And played like water over pebbles,
A happy child, laughing,
Flying down the street,
Skipping, and playing kitti pille and pandi.
And responsibility weighed on her,
As the years unfolded, and she learned
What she had to do:
Bathe her siblings,
Comb their hair, get them ready
For the day, for school,
All the while keeping her mind
Quiet, attentive, learning
Her place in a tilted world.
And she helped her young mother
In the kitchen, where the
Clay and straw and wood stove
Burned steadily, while she blew
Through a thin pipe, and stirred the sambhar,
Made the curry, cooked rice,
Mashed keerai in a stone pot.
And she went to school,
And learned that education
Was a gift that could be
Taken away when she reached
Sombre teenage-hood.
And she learned the ways of
An older world that I glimpsed, fascinated
When she, herself now a young mother,
Sang us into being, made new life.
My world flowed differently,
And I went to school, rode my bike,
Spoke boldly, read poetry,
Played the guitar, ignored the old ways.
And when I learned how things worked,
In science, or in books,
I’d tell her, and she’d smile, mysteriously.
She’d make our lunches, our dinners,
Give us our privacy, let us be.
And the household moved like a solar system,
With her singing, her work, her love
An absolute, a constant
At our very centre.
And she is still that:
The absolute centre,
The constant unchanging sun
Of our wheeling, busy worlds.
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May 12, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Thankfulness, Fullness
©May 12th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The hiss of the pressure cooker
Dispels silence.
Steam rises up, dead kidney beans
Giving up the ghost,
Imbued with peppers, onions,
Earthy potatoes, ginger.
Rice cooks in another pot, and
Steam fogs the kitchen window over the sink,
And the grey air clinging to the panes,
Gets pearly and soft.
The dog leaves the room.
This hiss is more than her canid brain can bear.
There’s nervousness in her manner,
And I feel a rush of sympathy.
But food is food, and it needs to be cooked.
Somewhere, long, long ago,
A canid sat behind a tree
And watched, as strange two-legged beasts
Made fires, roasted meat, ate it,
Tossed the remains into the shadows,
Where they knew their shadow companions waited.
Life and death dogged each other’s steps,
And food was a welcome respite.
I would not have been such a hominid.
Would have existed only as an idea, not even.
I am grateful to be here, now,
Not there, then.
My canid will still be fed.
Life flows more softly, her fears are gentle,
And the purple darkness
Unsticks from the windows,
And there is no fear of starvation –
Not yet.
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May 11, 2019 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Undoing
©May 11th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
The thread unspools,
Rolls along the corridors,
Searches for a horned beast
Deep in the heart of a cave.
There is danger here
And deep thrill.
All the threads in all the spools
All the arteries and all the veins
All the nerves and all the sinews
Become one thread
Going inward, seeking the beast.
Follow that thread
And meet that beast.
And undo what makes you you.
This is what you were meant
To do from the moment you arrived
Here, all spooled and ready,
Perfectly formed, complete,
A miracle.
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