Mar 10, 2019 Uncategorized
Dreamer in Ice
©March 10th, 2019
By Vijaya Sundaram
Under ice, deep under water
Gazed a face so still, so still that
Not a ripple on the surface
Creased the Dreamer’s face below.
No air bubbles, no struggling breath
No gurgling cries, no troubled eyes
No searching for aeons gone by
No yearning for all those who’d left
No wants, no needs, no flaunting deeds
No ghosts, no lives, no breaking rules
No pain, no hunger, loss, or gain
Could move the Dreamer’s watching face.
The eyes alone gazed up, and saw
The stars burn up, and suns explode,
Saw space grow large, grow larger still
Until it filled the dreamer’s eyes.
The ice cracked then, and broke apart,
The water flowed away, and down.
And back into the caves below,
The Dreamer dreamed herself away.
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Feb 21, 2019 Uncategorized
Life is pretty brutal, rushing us along like a swollen river overflowing its banks, causing mudslides everywhere. Then, we see a harvest mouse sleeping inside a flower, and, for a brief moment, we smile.
Dec 6, 2018 Uncategorized
Trajectory
©December 5th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am at once the projectile
And the trajectory it is on,
Forever constant, always moving,
Aimed from where I know not,
Headed to where I know not,
All I feel is the air rushing past,
Faces appearing, disappearing, with their words,
Their deeds, their hurts and fears,
And I fly by them, and they by me,
And all is passing, passing,
Passing strange, this path I’m on.
And we amuse ourselves along the way,
With passion, and indifference, and compassion, while always below us,
Like the bourdon tones of an organ
Played in a vast cathedral,
Fear and relief chase each other.
I listen to that drone, and hum quietly,
So that only relief will remain when my trajectory reaches
The place it was aimed at,
And I will find my mark.
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Mar 12, 2018 Haiku, Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Birthday Presence
©March 12th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Dog leaping through snow
Chases after flung snow-balls:
Arcs of glee in light.
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Massed clouds, snow-pregnant
Swoon against the horizon.
The sunlight glows, fierce.
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At once young and old,
The lilac-trees bloomed purple
Last year, when I dreamed.
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Nov 13, 2017 Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Dampnation
©November 13th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Pearl-gray skies drop down.
See a world saying goodbye.
Layers peel away.
It is always thus.
Rain-dark afternoons beat wings
Yearning for lift-off.
Lift-off cannot be
With damp thinking in damp skies
Fold your wings. Go home.
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Aug 8, 2017 Uncategorized
Map-Lines
©August 8th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Lie on that map
Mark that spot right there,
See that city?
Trace a line to it,
Dig canyons into being,
Spring trees into greenness,
Rouse the grass and the brush,
Build roads, along the way.
Now, watch a tiny, tiny car
Move under your finger
Along that line.
Lie on that map,
Chin on folded arms,
Let your eyes rest on names
Beautiful and strange,
Names impossible to speak,
Easy to say aloud,
Names of places, rivers,
Lakes, mountains, states,
Cities, plateaus, valleys.
Let a song meander riverine,
Rushing headlong through
Your folded mind, as you whisper,
Phoenix, Albuquerque, Oklahoma,
Wichita, Galveston, Oh, Galveston!
And then you see it:
The lineman sits atop a pole
The distant night approaches
Hesitant, eager, waiting
To swallow that loneliness,
While your map expands like
A vast voice, repeating names
Of places you’ll never see.
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Aug 7, 2017 Uncategorized
Everything that Lives
©August 7th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Drowning in words,
I turn to the woods,
Where the swell of the sound-tide,
Roaring around my ears
Ebbs to somewhere below chin-line,
And I can breathe, quietly,
And gulp a vast gulp
Of quiet air.
In these woods,
Where the crunch of leaves
Under rhythmic feet,
And the padding of dog-paws
Scouting before me,
And retreating behind me,
And circling around me,
Match a heart-beat that began
When time began on Earth.
I could walk into silence
And never return.
I could sing out loud,
And the birds would
Fall silent, listening.
I could lie flat on a rock,
And let the Earth eat me,
Sucking me into the ground,
And I’d return as a tree,
Growing soundlessly, sending
Shivery sub-sonic fungi-network
Messages to my fellow-trees.
The world and its noise,
Its clamorous minds, its incessant urge
To speak, to shout, to scream,
Voices spinning the planet
Faster and faster on its axis
With the sheer wind of its volume,
Makes me yearn for the silence
Of death.
A silvering, greening brook
Gurgles under a bridge,
A rabbit hops into the underbrush,
A flash of doe and fawn
Leap away on a farther rock,
Soundlessly, but the rocks whisper
And my dog listens, stares, entranced,
While I ache with the beauty
And the sadness of everything that lives –
Here, everywhere.
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May 27, 2017 Uncategorized
Thoughts Upon Waking UpMay 27th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
What can grow in the land of chill?
What can grow on a barren hill?
What can grow where it glows too hot
What must grow where it surely cannot?
Indifference grows in the land of chill
Silence grows on that barren hill
Hate can grow where it glows too hot
Love must grow where it surely cannot.
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Apr 24, 2017 Ekphrastic poem, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Monastic Illuminations
©April 24th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Snails and horses, sex and darts
And armored men with enlarged parts
And women with distended hares
Extended branches, full of snares.
All jokes aside, are these sad hearts?
Devoted to their prayer-books,
Deprived of hugs and loving looks,
These monks, lacking another’s love
Are raised, instead, to worlds above.
Are these, then, thoughts they cannot brook?
Or, do they thrive on scenes like these,
While singing psalms on bended knees,
Laughing with well-disguiséd mirth,
At things that cannot live on earth,
But which they gaze upon with glee?
Were they the precursors of crazed
Apocalyptic painters, dazed
With visions of another world,
Where those from paradise were hurled,
And found themselves down here, amazed?
Warrior snails and valiant knights
Flatulent and naked, sights
As one would never want to see
When thinking thoughts of piety
Enough of this, out with the lights!
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Today is Day 24 of NaPoWriMo 2017, and it’s time for Ekphrastic poetry, another thing I’d not previously (consciously, at any rate) essayed to do.
The prompt reads:
Today, I challenge you to write a poem of ekphrasis — that is, a poem inspired by a work of art. But I’d also like to challenge you to base your poem on a very particular kind of art – the marginalia of medieval manuscripts. Here you’ll find some characteristic images of rabbits hunting wolves, people sitting on nests of eggs, dogs studiously reading books, and birds wearing snail shells. What can I say? It must have gotten quite boring copying out manuscripts all day, so the monks made their own fun. Hopefully, the detritus of their daydreams will inspire you as well!
Tags: #Illuminations, #medievalmarginalia, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Apr 9, 2017 Balassi Stanza, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Ride the Wave
©April 9th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The past does not live here
The future interferes
This place is for the present
Free yourself as you fall
The sea is for us all
Your splash is phosphorescent.
Count every glowing wave
And ride it to your grave
You are not convalescent.
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NOTE: I used the Balassi Stanza for my nine-line poem, and it goes thus:
Rhyme scheme: a. a. d. b. b. d. c..c. d
Syllable count: 6. 6. 7. 6. 6. 7. 6. 6. 7.
Our NaPoWriMo Day 9 prompt was this:
Because today is the ninth day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like to challenge you to write a nine-line poem. Although the fourteen-line sonnet is often considered the “baseline” form of verse in English, Sir Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene using a nine-line form of his own devising, and poetry in other languages (French, most particularly) has always taken advantage of nine-line forms. You can find information of various ways of organizing rhyme schemes, meters, etcetera for nine-line works here. And of course, you can always eschew such conventions entirely, and opt to be a free-verse nine-line poet.
Tags: #AdvicePoem, #NaPoWriMo 2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram