Apr 20, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Original Poetry
Djinn
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 20th, 2013
Today, an imp found residence
in a strange place: my lamp-mind,
which needs polishing.
And it chatters, natters, patters
ceaselessly, unceasingly, incessantly,
because it wants out.
It wants to be let out, it says.
Out it wants to be.
Can’t you see? it says.
I need to be.
If you let me out,
I will be your slave.
For my mind is the lamp that
holds it captive, and all I ask
from it is three wishes.
But that tosses me
On the precipice
Of my conundrum,
Which yawns open below me:
How can the container
ask a wish of the thing
It created, and which is
contained in it?
~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, conundrum, creation, Creativity, Djinn, Imp, Magic, magic lamp, mind-chatter
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Reading, Writing, Thinking
On Neil Gaiman and Fearlessness
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 29th, 2013
Ever since the day I first encountered The Sandman series, I have loved and admired that possessed writer-and-venturer into perilous territory — Neil Gaiman.
He takes his books, his themes and characters far afield, into terrible, sometimes disgusting, sometimes amazing territory, but somehow, he tends to bring our favorite people safely home, and as in Coleridge’s poem, his characters and his readers often wake up, “sadder and wiser” on the “morrow morn.”
I love how he shares his work, his advice and his ideas so generously. Like all true writers, he seems to sense that we draw from the same deep well of stories that have moved, nourished or startled our spirits since time began.
I recognized Neil as a fellow-dreamer when I first read The Sandman series. I, too, had strange dreams. I, too, imagined the Lord of Dreams, because I had steeped myself in Greek mythology since I was a young girl. I wrote stories and songs about these well before I had read his work. Then, I read him, and he blew my mind with his tender blend of love and terror. His imagination is completely unfettered, and his intellect is a joy to behold.
And he always goes farther into scarier territory than many writers (and I don’t mean in the realms of horror, per se, just imagination), farther than I have dared in any of my stories — and his books, The Sandman series, American Gods, Neverwhere, Coraline and The Graveyard Book have pushed the edges of the story-telling universe.
And he inspires me to find my own way into those places — and again, I don’t mean horror, just daring, the kind of daring that makes a person take one step back, and then take a flying leap into the abyss, with absolute certainty that he will land on his feet.
Thank you, Mr. Gaiman!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: Creativity, Fearlessness, Neil Gaiman, Writing