Apr 19, 2013 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Poetry
Whirlwind
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 19th 2013
Brother down. My brother down.
Could it be, could it possibly be
That guilt gnaws at his spine?
He sits there, crouched
In an anonymous room
Or backyard,
The incubus of death
Possibly trapped to his chest,
Making breath
Difficult, and making sobs
Harden into shrapnel.
He awaits the end,
Undecided about dying.
It’s clear he wishes
To leave on his own terms.
The fog comes and goes.
Mist along the alleyways
Of a labyrinthine mind.
Angelic face, dark eyes
Innocent and disarming,
Armed with what could
Only be a death-wish.
How can hatred catch such
A beautiful-seeming young man?
What does he think,
Crouched there, seeing
The faces of the innocents
Slain by the bombs that
His brother and he placed
In their bid for … what?
Who caught him when he
Grew up, far from parents,
Vulnerable to hateful words,
Prey to delusions of matyrdom
(For what else could it be,
But his need for such a terrible end?)
Did his life lack purpose?
Did his honor embrace darkness?
Did his heart get clutched
By loneliness and despair?
He had friends, they say.
So, why didn’t that save him?
A fog envelops the mind
Of the young man, as he
Awaits the raging
Firestorm he has begun.
For he knows, somewhere in
In his twisted soul, haunted
By an eight-year old’s smile,
(No more hurting people.
Peace.) that he is doomed.
Haunted by a beautiful Chinese student’s
Steadfast gaze, by a young Medford woman,
Twenty-nine years old, who
Served food and life to people,
He awaits his turn
At the grim table laid for him.
He has sown the wind,
Now, he will reap the whirlwind.
Before that, we want to know:
Why? Why? Why? Why?
And even when he, shouting, answers,
Bitter and vengeful, or
Weeping and ashamed, or
Laughing and scornful, or
Guilt-racked and tormented,
We shall never find out.
And the whirlwind will carry
Away the shouted words,
And we know we can never get back Kansas again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Waiting, Boston, Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Reap the whirlwind, sadness, terror, We can never get back Kansas again
Apr 15, 2013 Uncategorized
Boston, In Grief
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 15th, 2013
When fear develops teeth and claws
And opens wide its angry jaws
Can people turn around and fight
And slay that Grendel with our might?
Do people have the time to teach
Can love expand to hatred’s reach?
Go tell that to the ones who died.
Go tell their families that you tried
To stop the fear, to stamp out hate
Extend a hand, help grief abate.
But while we rage amidst our grief,
And seek to find the hateful thief
Of life and freedom and of peace
We know we need to find release.
Revenge is bitter, hate is cold.
We seek in lead that which is gold
Alas! What can we try to do
But face our grief, and start anew?
~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Boston, grief, marathon, Starting anew, tragedy
Apr 15, 2013 Current Affairs / General Interest
Copley Square, Boston
I was going to write a poem today.
I am struck dumb.
How can I write?
Take care, my friends.
Will be home soon.
In Sorrow for the dead and for the injured.
With Love,
Dreamer of Dreams
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, attack, Boston, marathon, sorrow
Feb 19, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
The Red Rectangle © By Vijaya Sundaram Written on Thursday, Jan. 25th, 2006 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am an imposter in the world of the real.
Yesterday, I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and had an atavistic encounter with art — in the room that contained the “red rectangle.” I cannot remember the name of the installation artist, because my mind was busily paper-shredding all the petty numbers I had to rustle up to “feed the beast” (that remarkable phrase which my husband kindly created for me when I ranted petulantly about submitting quarterly grades for my eighth graders). This beast demanded a sacrifice. Numbers satisfied it.
So, there I sat on a subway train rumbling angrily through Cambridge into Boston, seated beside my Head of the Department of English, while internally stacking up inventive curses against an administration which demanded that we turn our grades in before noon on an “Early Release Day.”
The rest of the afternoon was to be a “professional day,” with the English and History departments taking a trip to the ICA. Most of us wanted to be back at school, being PROFESSIONAL, and doing our grading without the added pressure of taking the “T” all the way to the waterfront by 12:30. p.m. Three, tearful, silent meltdowns between school and there and out did not make me look very professional, I admit, but I didn’t care. Weariness was hugging my bones, and exhaustion was curled up in a fetal position in my cerebral cortex, hiccuping, vibrating in my ganglions.
So, there I was at the ICA, not in the least bit in the mood for modern art, fully prepared to be cynical and criticize everything, just because … and there it was: The Red Rectangle.
It looked kind. I looked, hypnotized, into that glowing red rectangle, and walked towards it, thinking, “Is it real?” It seemed to be a bi-dimensional red thing on the wall, pretending to be art. I walked closer, impelled, in spite of myself, by its arterial redness, a translucent ruby-red, space-less projection – and bumped into a wall that stopped at my waist.
I put out my hand, thinking, “It’s not real, is it?” My hand went through the redness, catching air, crimson air that escaped easily. I had been expecting a wall. Instead, beyond it was space – a red space, like a room that was hard to see. It seemed like a cradle for a star or a planet. It was outer space in an alternate reality. It carried the primordial promise and message of blood. It was a womb. It wasn’t an angry red. It looked peaceful.
I felt my breath turn into a many-edged diamond in my throat, crystallizing into sharp points. I looked vaguely about me, and everyone who was there seemed to recede into the far reaches of reality.
What was I doing here, on the outside? I needed to be in there, inside, in that alternate world. I would make my home there, in a nest of straw, a nest of dreams, and plump myself up, ruffle my feathers, stick my head in softness that was everywhere and nowhere, curl up, and fall fast asleep never to wake up for a hundred years, waking up in dream-time. I would escape reality forever. My home was in the land of the unreal, more real to me than this world.
The diamond dissolved. This was home.
It would be the world of the unreal real.
I would not be an imposter there.
And I would carry that red rectangle back with me, deep within my womb back into the world of the real.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TheEnd~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Peace, Art, Boston, Dream Time, Dreaming, grades, Institute of Contemporary Art, teachers, womb