Mar 17, 2016 Senryu, The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Shelf
Shelved – Four Senryu
©March 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Dark, swirling eddies:
Sorrow, rage, hate, all of these
I set on a shelf.
Open the windows,
Let the cold, waiting heart of
Outer Space have them.
When dark thoughts are fed
To the Hungry Thing that lurks:
See how it explodes!
And all will be cleansed
All will turn to sun and air
Taste them, live anew!
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Tags: #Darkness, #Emotions, #Freedom, #Original Poetry, #Shelved, #Space
Dec 18, 2015 Original Poetry
Fare for the Ferry
(Prompt: Farewell; Poetry, Day 10)©December 18th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Goodbye, I said to the clock in the room
Goodbye, it whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the shadowy gloom,
Which said, “Oh, please come back to me.”
Goodbye, I said to the leaning tree
Goodbye, it whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the vanishing sea
It said, “Oh, you’ll come home to me.”
Goodbye, I said to my much-loved books
Goodbye, they whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the Time I took
The clock just smiled and ticked at me
Goodbye, I said to promises made
Goodbye, they whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the roles I played
But they dissolved in mystery
Goodbye, I said to the fish and the birds
Goodbye, they whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said, but nobody heard.
So, I cut the threads, and rose up, free.
And when I arose, and was borne aloft
I floated till the air grew soft,
Till it bloomed into streams and carried me
Where a boatman stood to ferry me.
But I had no coin, and I had no fare
I had to return, and descend the stairs
But I tripped and fell down athwart the skies
And now, I’m a dream behind your eyes.
And, now I sing, Farewell to all
The night is good, it hears my call.
Farewell, I sing, and go to sleep,
And I will weave you dreams to keep.
Just carve me a coin cut from the moon
I’ll give it to my boatman soon.
For I am weary and need my rest
I’ve loved this life, now comes the test.
No, do not weep, and do not moan
No, do not wail and do not groan.
It’s sleepy-time now for my soul
And time for me to be made whole.
____________________________________________
Tags: #Death, #Freedom, #Life, #Writing 101, Poetry, Boatman, Charon, Coin for the boatman, Day 10, Dreams, Farewell, goodbye, My 2nd Poem for Day 10, Rest
Jul 1, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Teaching and Learning
The Beginning
By Dreamer of Dreams
Monday, July 1st, 2013
Dare I say that today was my first day of vacation? Not really. I mean, school ended last Thursday (yes, that late), and I was there on Friday and today, and will probably be there on and off, tossing out old things, and putting away more things. The floor is clean and the custodians can do their work. The shelves are (mostly) empty. The side shelves are piled with boxes and papers. I took down my hanging plants and my odd pieces of interesting artwork and pictures and brought them home.
I boxed up and brought home a big pile of books I’d bought this year, kept on my shelves and never read. I will read them in the next few weeks, dammit!
I tossed out an entire large recycling bin worth of stuff (so much for being green), and felt horribly guilty.
On the plus side, I wiped all surfaces clean, swept the floor and made the room look neat enough. This is that no custodians will curse me into oblivion when they come to strip and wax the floors. Must keep them happy at all costs.
Meanwhile, at home for the past couple of days, I’ve overslept with my family, cooked nice food, visited some friends, done the usual laundry, taken a couple of walks with family, and read most of a large book to S in the past couple of days. Am slowly coming to my senses. Feel like a real person again.
Misanthropy takes a while to dissipate, though. It’s always the result of tiredness, and having to deal with too many people all concentrated in a small space, and at the very end of a rather long academic year. It’s not true dislike, I remind myself. Just heat, endless work and the call to be superhuman.
The school year is always like a strange dream, surreal and strangely contained, filled with its own challenges, some of which are good ones, some of which I can do without. Then, like a release, the holidays come, and I feel the sweet breath of freedom. No doubt everyone does.
I shall not draw any conclusions. I shall probably reach some dire ones if I try.
I cannot afford to.
May 16, 2013 Uncategorized
Prim(at)e Time
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 16th, 2013
They watch me all the time.
I sit here, idly tearing at some leaves.
Stuff, stuff, chew, stare, look away, the sun
pouring silk and desire onto my thick pelt,
I sit, meditating.
I look back at them.
They bare their teeth in a grin.
How I’d like to leap at them!
I, lord of the leaves,
Lord of all that’s mine,
King of the sun and the sky,
Inheritor of trees and mountains,
I am helpless with rage and love.
For, somewhere inside, a tiny voice
Speaks to me. I could be those …
Two-limbed, loose-armed,
Snoutless things, with pale eyes
So far apart, and teeth that gleam
So frighteningly.
Rage, rage against this glass
This thin sheet of my prison!
Rage against this display.
Rage against this ignominy.
Rage against these weak, helpless
Grinning creatures, and hurl
Them into oblivion, down, down
The mountains of my dream-desire,
Where the mist curls gently
Around our large, thick feet,
And the Clan, of which I am leader,
Lives in warmth and all-encompassing love.
(I have never seen this, save in a dream.)
And the dream is mine, real as these
Creatures staring dumbly at me.
And yet, somewhere, love
Love for those poor, helpless
Peltless, naked, shuffling,
Dream-dead beings, with
Strange, oddly-pigmented covers on their
Pale, dead skins, carrying odd things
On their backs, and their
Squirming, ugly young ones
In their arms, fills me with a fierce pain.
How can I console them?
The thought springs, unbidden in my mind.
And just as suddenly, it is shaken off
When, my child, born of my beautiful wife,
Springs onto me, and charms me
Into play, with foolish antics.
And, before all of us amble off to another
Cooler, sheltered place, far from
Eager, prying, obscene eyes,
To loll at leisure, and lovingly groom
Each others’ fur, I gaze back calmly
At the pale, two-legged ones, thinking:
There, but for the grace of … what?, go I! …
And one of them sees me, gazes a thought-beam
At me and shakes her head, in sorrow.
Then, her young one, quite beautiful for a pale one,
Tugs at her arm, and she, lovingly,
Like me, turns to go where her child leads.
— I wonder where she goes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Freedom, #Love, #Original Poetry, Dreams, empathy, Gorillas, humans and apes, primates, sorrow, zoo
Apr 2, 2013 Original Short Stories
Life – A Story About
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 2, 2013
NOTE:
(Story Begun on April 2, 2013)
(1,969 words during the first half of the
day, the remaining ones post-dinner today.)
Part I (not because it makes logical sense, but because I left it where I left it, to be continued on another day.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The nine-year old boy lay on his exquisitely-appointed, silk-covered bed, and stared at the sparkling gold and blue ceiling. His name was Uyir Arasan, and his name meant Life-King.
He was confused. He thought about things he had never thought before. He didn’t know how to express them.
And he didn’t know to whom he could express them.
He was the product of a social upheaval, the inheritor of chaos and solitude. He was all alone in the world. He had been alone for eight of his nine years. Of the first year, he had no memory.
There were times when Uyir was tired of it all, but he wouldn’t have known how to say that.
He had been in his room his whole life. He wasn’t sure how he got to be there. That was his entire existence. His Keeper was kind to him, but he never saw him or her or it. Food and water appeared miraculously and routinely several times a day. His room was cleaned and tidied daily, probably when he was in deep sleep. He never thought to ask how his sleep was so deep that he didn’t hear any sounds.
There was something wrong with the room. Uyir didn’t know what it was, but you would have known it instantly had you walked in.
It had no windows (he didn’t know that they had been blocked from the outside, and painted over with a pretty scene). It had no observable doors, either (he didn’t know that there were two doors, and both had been blocked up as well, and big door-sized scenes of dragons slaying humans were painted over them).
There was a slot, though, covered over with velvet. Through it, a mechanical arm would extend a beautiful silver plate, laden with delicately prepared, delectable food, fit for a Prince. The mechanical arm would also extend a silver-chased cup filled with water.
(Once, bitten by curiosity, the little boy had lain on the floor, and looked out through the slot. There was a red carpet that stretched in both directions, but otherwise, nothing was visible. In wonder, he watched as a mouse scampered by. He stretched out his fingers, and it climbed onto his hand. He pulled his arm in, and gazed in admiration at the little creature. It did not seem afraid. It looked back at him with little beady eyes, and twitching whiskers. Then, it clambered up his arm, and went close to his neck. It seemed to lean up and whisper in his ear. He loved the feel of it. When he stroked it, it closed its eyes and went to sleep. From then on, the mouse was his sole companion, and kept him from going insane).
When it was supposed to be day, light streamed in, light which emanated from no known source. (Uyir could not have been able to tell you what a true day felt like, although he could dutifully repeat the information imparted to him by an unseen voice.)
Light was gradually turned down, and then switched off when it was supposed to be night. (Uyir could not have told you what night was, either, except to repeat what he had been told.)
He didn’t know what sunlight was, or rain, except from the book that mentioned that the one was bright and the other was wet. He would not have known to ask. How could he, when he had seen neither?
He didn’t know what it meant to have a mother or father, or to have someone love him, hug him and take care of him. The concept was alien to him. How could he know what a mother or father was, when he had known neither?
Someone had taught him language. He hadn’t seen the person who taught him, but heard the voice. Someone had trained him to express himself and his feelings through words, but his face remained, for the most part, immobile. He had no human models to imitate. When he was happy, he would smile, but it looked more like a primate. When he was sad, he felt the sting of a painful substance, which trickled down his cheeks, and could feel his face crumple up. He was told the stinging wet substance in his eyes was known as tears and that tears came when people were sad, or when they hurt, so he supposed that that was what he felt. As for the strange crumpling up he felt his face do, he supposed that that was what the face had to do when the tears trickled down.
So, he lay there, thinking of nothing in particular, and an alien thought entered his mind, that of freedom. He had no word for it. All he knew was that to stay in this room for one more day was insupportable. He wanted to break loose,and dance in the open, where the ceiling disappeared and the walls faded away.
One does not need to learn the concept of freedom from a book. Every living creature knows this feeling in its ganglions, even if she, he or it might not know the word. It is that which makes us happy. It is that which shows us the way to the stars. It is that for which all social revolutions have happened. It is that which makes us human.
The word “freedom” was one which he had not encountered in his daily lessons with the unseen voice. That was one word that was carefully omitted. Only books which didn’t contain that word were chosen for his education.
For he was being trained to be obedient, subservient, and make others in their turn, subservient – to him.
He was a Young Prince: A King in the Making.
A Regent had been appointed in his stead by the people who had overthrown the rule of his father.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
His mother and his father had been slain brutally in the upheaval which had taken place when he was a year old.
His father, the King, had been seen as too idealistic, too modern, too progressive. He was all these, and it spelled death for him in a land where all three concepts were anathema to the ears of the Traditionalists.
For the King had been talking about abandoning the old ways, and about embracing change. He had talked about tapping into the energy of the sun and the winds to create automatic machinery that did the traditional work of the oppressed laborers, who coaxed the fields to yield up their harvest to feed the Fat Ones, who lived in indolence and luxury.
The Fat Ones had a smug certainty about their position in the hierarchy of things. Among the things they were certain about was that they wanted their food grown by hapless humans who were subservient to them. They liked the pomp and circumstance which attended the annual Harvest Festival, with their kowtowing serfs, farmers, millers, milk-maidens and horse-trainers and cow-keepers. They loved the idea of the different Guilds which were required to pay obeisance to them every month in the form of new artifacts and amusing toys. They chuckled with delight every September, when the skilled artisans brought them beautifully wrought gold and silver objets d’art which featured moving, automated figurines that danced, bowed, did cart-wheels and so on.
The Fat Ones considered this their right and that which was justly due unto them.
They did not like the idea of being shifted from one scheme of things to another. The Fat Ones consulted their underlings, and kept their thoughts private, but amassed their own smaller armies. The King had already abandoned the old custom of keeping spies (Why do we need spies if we are honest? was his question, and the ministers looked at each other surreptitiously).
Then, he spoke about allowing men to marry men, and women to marry women. “Why not?” he argued, “It is love, and love is good.”
Oh heresy upon heresy! The populace shuddered violently. The small section of the people among them who agreed with the king couldn’t voice their agreement. It was too dangerous, and might mean death for them. So, they joined in the abuse-heaping that ensued, even more vociferously than the others, for fear of detection.
He spoke about the disbanding of the religion that gripped the land in its vice-like claw. Religion, which made them act beastly and hate and kill. Religion, which made EVERYONE into slaves, even the Fat Ones. Religion, which was always about the ones in power oppressing the ones without any. How did they all buy into that? was his question. I won’t be the one controlling everyone, he asserted. And I certainly will not have the priests ruling us all!
This was the last straw. The pot had been boiling, and now it foamed over.
The ravening hordes arrived, plundered and looted the palace, and killed everything that moved.
The carnage that resulted was appalling. The entrance to the Royal Kitchens was a standing pool of blood. At the edges of the pool were the slain ones, arms outstretched in supplication, terrors in their open, unseeing eyes. The gold-liveried Guards at the front of the palace had been casually killed, their throats cut, or their hearts stabbed. They lay there, like pieces of crumpled grandeur in their gold and red garb. The pretty palace maids clad in sky-blue and white pinafores had been in the gardens, hanging up clothes, or feeding the Royal Chickens, or herding the Royal Geese, or chivvying the Royal Peacocks. They had turned at the sounds and cries emanating from the courtyards, and tried to flee, but had been caught and killed. They lay there, supine and formerly pretty on the painfully green grass, their blood quenching the earth’s thirst, their stunned open eyes gazing up at the absurdly bright blue sky, while birds twittered happily around them.
It is always thus: Calamity and beauty, death and life, all these happen in those freeze-framed moments, when it seems well-nigh impossible that the world, and life, could be anything other than free and lovely, for the taking by all.
Alas, that day, life was taken from some by the others.
The King had been slaughtered with his ministers, where he had sat, holding state. The Queen had raced down the corridors to scoop up her baby and flee, but had been stabbed casually by a passing marauder.
And the baby had lain, warm and happy, gazing up with his bright brown eyes at the gold and blue ceiling of the room which had been his home for that whole year.
Who knew what he thought? Perhaps, he loved that ceiling, even then, and always looked at it. Or perhaps, he hated it, and wanted it to open, and reveal what lay beyond. For even one-year old babies have the urge to go beyond the edges of things and experience free-fall in space.
The baby had been saved, as babies often are in such stories.
How had that come to be?
After the upheaval, only the palace had been left standing, ready to be torched and burned to the ground the next day. The rebels went home, presumably to have a good meal and rest before their next spree. Nothing satisfies the lust for death as much as that which gives people life: Food and sleep. So, they went home, and their wives fed them, and treated them as if they were heroes.
After lusty eating, drinking, and mounting their women, the men went to bed, and had uneasy dreams. They hallucinated about the dead. They swore the next morning that the king had appeared before them all, and his voice had rung out from the edges of death, promising revenge. They woke up trembling and tired.
Uyir’s mother had died only a few feet from him. He might have died too, but for some reason, the marauders had been distracted by a commotion further down the hall, and had gone to add to the killing madness there.
Hiding in the huge closet to his room was his terrified nurse, Chaya. She had seen it all, and it was all she could do to keep herself from screaming hysterically when she saw the men, crazed by their lust for blood, slaughtering the Queen as if she had been a sow in a butcher’s shop.
When the sounds of their butchering spree had receded into the halls down the other end of the palace, Chaya, the maid, had crept out, shaking like the last leaf on a tree in a storm. Weeping bitterly, her hands shaking as though with palsy, she went swiftly up to her Queen, dipped her hands in the Queen’s blood, and came back to the baby. She daubed him with his mother’s blood, and then fled for her life.
She was the reason he was alive.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
I wonder who I am.
The thought leaped unbidden into the young Prince’s mind, swiftly following the first indefinable thought which smelled sweetly of of a thing that we would call Freedom.
Is anyone else in this world besides me?
This thought stayed with him. He knew it to be true, because one didn’t have to be told there were others there. We are like creatures with antennae. Our antennae pick up signals, even in our sleep. We know that that there are unseen presences among us. Our skin registers the shift in the air molecules, displaced by the presence of someone else, even when our eyes are shut, and we are in deep sleep.
I wonder how I came to be.
This thought stayed with him. For some reason, he was acutely agitated.
None of the books from which he was patiently taught by that unseen Voice mentioned parents. Mostly, the books were about science, mechanics, solitary people and adventures in which parents didn’t figure. If they did, he did not register them as possibilities.
Just then, the mouse ran up his arm and squeaked in his ear. He felt an uprush of tenderness. Stroking the quivering little thing with a gentle forefinger, he spoke softly to it. The creature’s presence calmed him, and he was consoled.
—————–To Be Continued———————–
Tags: #Freedom, #Life, #Solitude, Change, Coming of Age, epistemology, Language, Original Story-Part I, tradition, Uyir, young adult