Oct 24, 2014 Original Poetry
E Pluribus Unum or A Brush with The Ego
©October 24, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Muted voices, many minds
Jostling, moving in an abyss,
Vie for recognition
Vie for space
Vie for sound.
One of many,
I jostle, and am jostled.
Yesterday,
In blind darkness
Unseeing, flailing,
Bodiless, falling,
I felt the void
Cradling me.
If this is death,
So be it, I thought.
If this is life,
I won’t have it, I muttered.
One of many
You melt and re-shape
The me I knew.
Why? I ask.
You answer:
Out of many, one.
No!
Smelt me, slag me
Cut me, drag me
Back into the me
I used to be.
Take the unused bits,
Make them fit someone
Else, then!
I never want
To see her or him.
He or she is the Many.
You might be the Many, too.
I am always the One.
_____________________________________________________________
Tags: #Death, #Life, e pluribus unum, ego, many, one, solipsism
Jun 13, 2014 Uncategorized
Matrix
(Upon Seeing the Daughter of My Friend Who Died)
©June 13th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Child, whose fulcrum’s gone–
Leaves fall to earth, trees can die.
~ Summer rainshine weeps.
Yet, she plays and smiles
A child with no words for grief
Fish can swim to air.
And you, the father,
Broken, full of promises,
Can you face this child?
Not for me to speak?
Winds blow through the neighborhood
Speak of my friend’s grave.
For shame, you father!
Whose child dances on tightropes —
Honor her mother!
My friend, who died last year
Welcomed death, for cancer’s hell.
Her child breathes her breath.
Remember her child!
Her bones and her blood are hers
Spare love, spare your breath!
You will be your judge
And there will be reckoning –
Kneel, when your light fades.
Yes, you lost her too
To each, his loss, to each, hers –
Honor, cherish, weep!
And child, remember.
Reflections hold memories –
These make matrices.
__________________________________________________
NOTE: The root meaning of matrix is “mother” or “womb.”
Tags: #Daughter, #Death, #haiku, #Original Poetry, death of a young mother, grief, matrices, matrix, original haiku, selfish father
Jun 5, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT
Copyright – Douglas M. MacIlroy
I couldn’t resist another story! Thank you to Friday Fictioneers pioneer, Rochelle-Wisoff-Fields, for hosting, and to Douglas M. MacIlroy for today’s prompt!
Euphemism
(My second 100-Word Response to this week’s prompt)
©June 5th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sleep doesn’t come, despite his silent screams. A feverish disease consumes his bones. He dreams of cool, snow-covered mountains, an icy river, a boat. The darkness floods in from outside, swirling around his prone form.
Raju’s end is near. He is angry, afraid, and impatient.
Beside him, a woman sits, cigarette dangling from her lips, feet on table, three lit candles courting the darkness. She’s tapping a syringe.
There’s a spoon on the table, some jars fading into the mist that’s closing in, and a shell. Faint music wafts from it.
He croaks, “Give it to me.”
Shrugging, she does.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tags: #Death, #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, Euphemisms, Euthanasia, Flash Fiction, Pain
May 18, 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 Lure
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 18th, 2013
How simple it is to abandon all! How attractive an option! Drop one’s bags, walk away, never look back, never return — this image has always haunted me.
The lure of the unknown, and the seduction of a future without any strings, without any knowledge of anyone new one would meet, without any expectations beyond what tomorrow would bring, whispers in my blood — and I want to follow that Sirenic voice.
This must be what makes a few people turn to into vagabonds and gypsies.
I’ll never be one, alas. I like my security too much, and am too attached to my loved ones.
That, however, does not stop me from dreaming. I dream of not being afraid. I dream of walking, walking, with a stick holding a bundle over my shoulder, a guitar slung over my back (strings attached), a flute tucked into a waistband (one needs some air to breathe music into), a bottle to hold water, and a bowl to eat and drink from, one big book (Oscar Wilde’s complete works? Shakespeare?), pens and note-paper, hairbrush and toothbrush in a shoulder-bag, walking towards a hill, because, surely, there must be another town I’ve never seen beyond that hill.
But wait … even those few things I’d be carrying would be things I’ll be needing. Ah well, one must make a few concessions to being human!
Death always awaits, however. Perhaps, there I’ll find what I seek.
The unknown always awaits, looking over its shoulder, half-turned to face me, an arm raised, one finger beckoning, a whisper floating on the breeze towards me, but just beyond comprehensibility.
Hang on … I’ll get there eventually, my friend!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Death, attachment, gypsy, Siren, the unknown, vagabond, wanderer, wondering
Apr 25, 2013 Original Poetry
Abandoning
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 25th, 2013
At the moment of abandoning all,
One feels relief.
Like dropping one’s backpack
And troubles at the door
When one comes home from school.
Or unhooking that bra
And tossing it over a chair
And sinking, boneless
Into the same chair,
Staring, slack-jawed
And unambitiously into
A happy space.
Or like dumping a job that
Has grown like a forest
All around one’s body,
With clinging vines and
Dark underbrush, with
Snakes crawling about.
At the moment of abandoning all,
One feels relief.
If only that feeling
Could sustain itself over the ache
And terror, or weariness
And more tasks
That are sure
To follow!
It’s a sister to that other feeling:
Falling in love.
Dizzying and breathless
Heart-bursting and
Empty-stomached,
Weightless, feathery
In a buffeting wind.
Or like a blazing fire
That starts with a little match
Match-making!
If only that feeling
Could sustain its white-hot
Fire, over the cooling winds
That follow!
It’s a brother to that other feeling:
That of letting go of life,
And whirling, leaf-like
Into blackness.
Weightless again,
Whirling, wind-tossed
Orphaned by life,
Plummeting slowly
And leisurely into death.
If only one could sustain
That mad, exhilaration
That onrush of breathless
Heart-extinguishing
Joy over the vast
Unending desolation
That is sure to follow!
Perhaps, I just need
Some sunlight right now —
A light-hearted stepping out
Into the luminescent evening —
And chase away the shadows.
I know the shadows will wait.
That’s all right — I’m clever.
I can out-wait them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Death, #Life, #Love, #NaPoWriMo, #Waiting, Abandoning, letting go, patience, relief, sustain
Mar 30, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Character Vignettes for Possible Novels, Original Short Stories
Loneliness — A Vignette
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 30th, 2013
The old woman sat, enshrouded in sadness and loneliness.
Her spirit was young, gay, schoolgirilish. Her mind was brilliant, but old. Her heart was carunculated, folded over and over by memories of grief, loss, hatred, jealousy and despair. Her body, though old, was strong, and her face was beautiful, like a translucent paper-covered lamp.
She had always been on the outside looking in. She had never fully understood herself. She understood others, but as an alien might, through long observation, experimentation, attempts to blend in with the locals, and even achieving a measure of success in that, but always with a sense of strange isolation. Humor and a biting wit had sustained her through all that. Faith gave her some comfort, but her mind always interfered.
She was generous with her gifts, but longed for acknowledgement, which she felt she had never got, at least, not enough.
She took care of herself, never imposed on anyone, was independent, hard-working, good and moral. She gave of herself to all who came to her. She sought, and got, contradictions, arguments, verbal sparring. She loved that, but didn’t understand that it distressed others. She was often critical, very critical of others, because no one could match her standards, not even she. This left her feeling desolate and always dissatisfied.
She could never stand anyone for too long. People irked her. They felt like burrs on her clothing, clinging madly, like little irritants, feeling poky and interfering. Yet, it was she who would long for their company, and would ask for it. Now, they bothered her at every turn. She felt as if they interfered, but it was she who interfered when she had a chance to, correcting others, expecting a weird sort of subservience, and hating it at the same time, positively glowing with impish delight when she caused distress of some kind, or disturbed people’s equanimity.
She was a mass of contradictions: A pillow stuffed with confidence and anxieties, pleasures and sorrows, losses and grief, indifference, affection, detachment and attachment, delight and irritation, love and hate.
And she was the loneliest person on the planet. Always, in her mind, her own dead mother’s voice spoke, critical and caustic, seemingly unloving and cold with a Puritan coldness.
The tragedy was that the old lady didn’t love herself. And though she felt herself to be the loneliest person on the planet, she was loved. She just didn’t fully know it, and always rejected a little while after she encountered it. After all, or so it seemed to her, if others loved her, then they didn’t really have any good taste, because she was unlovable. Therefore, she could reject them with ease.
Now, in the closing darkness of the noon, she longed again to be understood. She called her son, and got her daughter-in-law.
Her daughter-in-law, inexplicably, loved her. They both loved one other, even though they each might have got on the other’s nerves from time to time. They spoke. The old lady stated her thoughts about what she had been through recently. Her daughter-in-law assured her that everything would be all right, and reassured her of the love of her children for her. After a few sweet reminiscences about other things, the old lady said goodbye and hung up.
And after that ‘phone call, the daughter-in-law knew this much: Her mother-in-law had achieved a lot in her life, but all that had faded away with the onset of years. Age is a thief, an inexorable, ruthless and hateful thief. It takes away and takes away. When the daughter-in-law was young, she thought it would be lovely to grow old. Perhaps, for some, it might be, but she saw, first-hand that this romanticising of age was just that: A romantic notion. Age was cruel. Loneliness looms large. Loss and sadness linger.
For the sad truth remains: All of one’s achievements are naught beside the huge, pervasive threat of imminent amnesia and death.
So it is with the old lady, and so it will be for all of us, except, perhaps, those who seek immortality through art and music, because, as Nabokov said about Lolita in his immortal, shocking, dark and deeply moving book: I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality that you and I may share, my Lolita.
Finally, this: Ozymandias by P.B. Shelley.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Age, #Death, #Loneliness, #Love, Amnesia, Despair, immortality through art, Long Life, Nabokov, Ozymandias
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Reading, Writing, Thinking
Death, and all that Dark Stuff …
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 29th, 2013
The dead are never really far from us.
I imagine them around me every day.
When I shut my eyes at night, and sink, awake, into the blackness under my eyelids, I feel a momentary sense of terror, as if I’m floating away, unanchored, into space. Then follows a quiet exhilaration. I know sleep will follow, and that’s a lovely, glowing, cushiony thought.
I wonder whether the dead feel this way upon dying. Do they float around in inky blackness, wondering when they’ll awake, but knowing they never will, and so, they burrow under our subconscious and visit us in our dreams, just to feel at home, if only for a night?
Or, do the dead just drift away?
Can we accept the word of those who’ve “come back” just because they came back? How do they know what happens after? They’ve come back, haven’t they? So, they didn’t venture that far.
If only one could write after death. I would love that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~That’s all, folks!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mar 21, 2013 Teaching and Learning
Despair — A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 21, 2013
All this writing is a flailing
All this talking is a failing
All these songs are a wailing
All these stories are a hailing
Of ice onto a desert, frozen
By sun and burned by snow.
You know that, don’t you?
A flailing and a failing
Because the silence waits.
Brooding and unrelenting
Endless and frightful,
The dark and angry silence
Waits.
Jealous of those who speak,
Greedy to suck our sounds,
Enraged by us,
Ready for us,
Eternal and malign,
Silence awaits our sound.
For it will all be swallowed
By the gaping chasm
Yawning like a grin
In the skull of Death,
A chasm that widens
And lies at the very end of
The trail of my words,
And the wail of yours.
Our out-pouring of the chatter
Which approximates thought,
Words, words, words:
Weak reflectors of the
Unfathomable,
Beaming into the blackness
Between our minds,
Create false comfort,
For in our waking sleep,
Creeps in the beast.
All words lead to …
All roads lead to …
All songs lead to …
All action leads to …
So, I know this, don’t I?
And you know this, don’t you?
And yet, I struggle and flail
Throw my songs, my words out,
Hoping some of them will flutter
Onto a Waiting Cliff, bleached
By a starving sun,
Weak but pulsing still.
And you struggle and flail,
Toss out cry after cry,
Song after song,
Story after story,
Hoping they will be
Miraculously delivered
To a faraway shore.
Perhaps a Someone will see
And hear, listen and watch.
See mine struggling,
Loosen their terrified hold,
And set them free.
Perhaps another Someone will see
Your castaways on the faraway shore
Revive them, give them succor.
And they too will be free,
Eternals, all.
And perhaps, mine will flutter
Into a sky that promises
Something unknown,
Unknowable, but bright.
And perhaps, they will call
Into the widening sphere
Hoping to find their mates,
And roost somewhere,
Forever.
And perhaps yours will traipse
Into another sphere and bask
In the light of Imagination,
Ready to be reborn
In another form.
I can only dream of this,
I can only give shape to this
In those very words
Which might tumble,
Echoing eerily
Into that yawning chasm.
For, to think otherwise,
Is to die, not by degrees,
As we all do, and must,
But right here, right
Now.
– And that would never do!
And thus, the false dawn brightens
Our gasping, choking day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Feeling very, very dark today.)
Tags: #Communication, #Death, #Hope, Despair, Eternity, Falling, False Dawn, Flailing, Silence, Words
Mar 21, 2013 Uncategorized
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Legion, One – A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 21, 2013
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How important
How very important
You believe you are, human!
You strut around, chest puffed out,
Dying by degrees, thinking this is life.
You reject and mock
Your neighbor or colleague
With a single statement.
With a curl of the lip,
Your sneer at and spurn your neighbor,
Your teacher, friend, stranger.
With the dismissive gesture,
You dash to the ground
All that your mother, your sister
Gave to you.
With the merest word, you crush
The memory of all
Your brother, or your father
Are to you.
Fattening on hate and fear,
Not knowing, not caring,
Not seeing that it is you.
It is you, you, dear one
Whom you crush underfoot,
Sneer at, mock, reject.
Fearing, dismissing, crushing,
You don’t see the faces
Of those you spurn.
And all the while, you yearn
To be understood, crooned to,
Cradled, sheltered, loved,
Healed, nursed back to yourself.
And all the while, you yearn
For that dream-world, asking
How come and wherefore
Has it not arrived, yet?
Stop! Stop! Stop!
I tell you!
Stop hating.
Stop fearing.
Stop envying.
Stop feeling less.
Start feeling more.
Feel more for
Your neighbor,
Your colleague,
Your friend, sister, brother
Father, teacher, mother.
Feel the same pain
We were born into.
Feel the same sorrow
We face every day.
Feel the despair
That lies, curled
At the very base
Of everyone’s souls.
And walk softly.
Tread softly, dear one.
Tread lightly, for it is
Your face that you tread
Upon, your face you seek
To obliterate.
And it is when you raise
Up your sister, brother, mother
Father, teacher, friend,
Neighbor, colleague, stranger,
Bathe their faces,
Wash their wounds,
Offer them kindness,
Marvel at their unique
Ineffable beauty, their grace,
And their anguished suffering,
It is then that you shall be free.
Know this,
For we are all legion.
But we are all one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Death, #Love, #Original Poetry, Despair, Eternity, Legion, Neighbor, Raise Up, We are all One, Words and Silence
Feb 18, 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
With songs and lines from poems jostling each other to get off, or get in.
I find myself singing a song, then interrupt myself rudely with lines from another song, with no idea that I just did that! So, how do I know? My alert, interested, attentive, bemused, flatteringly fascinated daughter tells me!
Mom, she says, Did you know you just switched in the middle of the song you were just singing to this other song? Surprised and startled, I look up from the mundane task I am doing. I can hear the ghost of the previous song lingering longingly in the the air near my ears — and I laugh.
It’s true, I say, I did just do that –switched to another song right in the middle of this one! And I stop to think in the middle of the song which I just interrupted with another song.
I have this romantic notion that when I am on the point of death, all those songs will come tumbling out of me, winging out into the world, and letting the air take them into the sun, where they belong.
And they will make for me a pillow of song, and I will be borne along on them, higher and higher into the ether, scattering birds and planes, as I turn and turn, spiraling forever upwards into the sun, where they belong, where I belong.
And the crowded bus of song will be transformed into a thing of wings and updrafts, scattering birds and planes, as it lifts itself into the sea of melodies high above the earth, making the spheres hum in their orbits. Not a bad way to go, I think.
First, however, I must make a mental note to arrange for that to happen. I have to find my way to a thought so as to record it in the midst of this unceasing singing in my head.
Sigh! Too late. Another song comes impertinently down the aisle and knocks the thought over, and it falls out of the bus. Still, I can remember it. Quick! Don’t let it be run over. I leap down and give it a helping hand. The songs press back, a little ashamed and mortified. The thought salutes, and goes into the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~