May 9, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt:  Chaos

Take Off The Lid
(On the Chaos in My Mind)
©May 9th, 2016

Want a peek into pure chaos?
Lift the lid to my brain
Go on, do it!

Ah, I knew you were too scared
Worried about what you’d find, eh?

Here, I’ll take you by the hand,
Shine a torch into the darkened corridors

Let the air in a bit.

Here’s a room filled with insecurity:
Too many doubts, too few doubts,
Too much judgement:
For doing, or not doing,
For being, or not being
This, or that, or the other.
Castigate myself:
Too many moral standards
To vault over.
Too many ambivalences,
Too many opposing pulls:
Should I, shouldn’t I?
Why should I?
Too many fears, unspoken anxieties.
Commitments to flee from
Commitments to bind myself with.
And while loving getting older,
I’m hating it with a passion.
Wishing to borrow this mind
And inhabit my younger self.

Walk cautiously, the dust will
Choke you, trip you up.

Here’s a room filled with joy:
Music, music, music swirling
Like flower-strewn winds.
Rich pleasure in simply being
In my skin, oh how lovely!
Love, so much love, bursting
With love for so many!
Sensuous joy – mine alone.
All that sunlight to drink,
All those colors to steep my skin in,
All those fragrances in which to drown,
All those birds to gaze at,
All those silken scarves to
Brush against my silken skin.
(Older silk is sweeter, by far)
All the love my husband pours over me,
And which gives me life.
The sweet hugs my daughter gives me
When I do some simple thing for her.
All the pleasures of moving
Feeling my limbs working,
Feeling sunlight and warmth
The sliding down of grateful food
The slipping of delicious drink
That soft sigh my dog makes when
The night makes her curl up.
The sense of spinning from
The earth, as I walk gratefully
Upon her, enjoying life.

Walk cautiously, the clamor here
Can be deafening, even if it’s
A noisy celebration, and
The lights are too bright.

And it’s all jumbled up here.
Sometimes, in the midst of
This room of joy, a remembered
Sorrow trips me up.
I could organize all this,
Label them neatly and file
Them away into happy
Memory drawers, a file cabinet of sorts,
But they’re ongoing.  They’re alive,
Not forgotten, not lost.
I need to move some of them
Into another room, larger, quieter,
But for now, I let them lie,
Ready to leap into life.

And sometimes in the room of
Deep insecurity, piled high
With old worries, or privations,
I see a passage of pure light,
Leading to an open window,
And see that I simply need
To chuck most of that stuff out,
But not into the yard,
No, chuck them out, and make
Them vanish with a simple spell.

That would restore order,
But allow some chaos
To linger amidst it all.
I wouldn’t mind that.

For, in chaos,
Surprises lurk, and lie in wait.
And I don’t mind a little dust,
Even if it makes me cough.
And the occasional gleaming jewel
I find, as I pass through, is worth 
A thousand dust bunnies.

__________________________________________________

 

Tags: #Chaos, #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheDailyPost

Apr 3, 2013 Original Poetry

Utopia Will Exist!
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 3, 2013

If I say so, it will be!

When society grows sick and pale
And wan with civilization,
I’ll quietly slip away, vanish
Through its revolving doors, elsewhere.

In this time and place, far away,
The deep forest grows wild outside
My door. And jasmines will bloom bright,
Moon-white, beside a silver stream.

This world will have strange and lovely
Fruit all sweet and rich and light-filled,
And swollen with the sun’s desire,
Pregnant with juice, bright, sinful, rich.

And the bees will buzz crazily,
Greedily around the flowers
Growing bright and sweet and golden
Glowing with nectar and promise.

And the heady scent of it all
Will waft dreamily through the still
Quiet air, slumbering in peace,
Languorous, sated with noon-sun.

And a dreaming child of five will
Lie on the grass beside the stream
And his hair will glow like water
While his dream-mother reads aloud.

And the world’s story will unfold
A new story never been told
And it will be gentle and good
— Wait! There’ll be a hint of chaos.

And I will step closer, impelled
By a strange force, but unwilling
To hear and listen.  But they’re here
In my own world, and how dare they?

When story-chaos enters here,
The very air will shift and change,
And turn on its hinges, away
From my world and its lulling peace.

And I will flee far from that turn,
Chase after that revolving door,
And slip away again, this time
Into a world even farther.

And I will fill this new-found world
With just a few people, and they
Will resemble no one at all
Creatures of light, of air, of song.

And we will sing those songs. We shall
Dwell in silence, and our forests
Will be deep-rooted, strong, with us
In them, singing, winging skywards.

And the air will be strung with beads
Of light, and our songs suspended
Like drops of dew upon the leaves,
While we live in unchanging bliss.

It will not bore me, and slay me
It will not, I say. I like peace
And non-action.  I like being.
And I like all that nothingness.

So, don’t entice me with chaos
Don’t bring storylines and shadows.
And say Utopia isn’t real.
It is, I say!  It exists, here!

And if I say so, it will be!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Chaos, #NaPoWriMo, #Peace, Being, civilization, creatures of light and air, New World, Nothingness, revolving doors, storylines and shadows, Utopia, world's story