Feb 10, 2018 Daily Life, Original Poetry
In The Nursing Home
©February 10th, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
I have no words tonight,
None that would suffice, anyway.
I want to be pure and simple –
Simple in thought, word and deed.
The humming of the world increases
In this room, this bed, this confined space.
A lifetime can be summed up thus:
I lived, grew older, fell, moved, died.
Perhaps, the world was changed by me
Perhaps, I was changed by it.
It matters not, not now. At present,
I am content-not content with these:
This bar of chocolate, this clementine,
These earrings, this necklace, this ancient
Gold watch that belonged to my mother’s mother,
That ring, my mother’s engagement ring,
These paintings, full of life and colour,
And talent – mine, my joy in seeing beauty –
These reminders of someone, a stranger
Who lived long ago, vibrant and witty,
Full of ambition and love of poetry,
Pretty and scholarly, and generous
Sarcastic, hurtful, loved, but not always liked,
Always striving to do what was right.
Rain comes down like regret,
And I forget why, although I weep.
The silent woman seated in the other bed
Speaks, and is silent again, staring fixedly at
The silent television, its screen dark.
Perhaps, it’s raining where she sits, too.
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Tags: #Futility, #VisitingMotherinLawinNursingHome, #Waiting
Apr 10, 2013 Original Poetry
Cessation
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 10, 2013
Ennui drips its grease
Onto my forehead,
Into my soul
Increases my need
To wash and rid myself
Of all that
Wearies me
Frighteningly, forever.
And I’d cleanse myself
Of all that degrades,
All that bores, denudes
Undoes, unravels
Unhinges and enchains
The joy of living.
And I’d be lost,
Before I dissolve.
But if I did,
I could cease to be.
The unexpected
And the grotesque
The lyrical, and the poignant,
The beautiful and the ugly,
The untested, the untried,
The sung and the unsung
All these would make
The air that I would breathe.
But now, ennui
Rules my days,
Presses its wet hand
Onto my greasy forehead.
Makes me want to scream,
Unbridled, unceasingly:
An open mouth
To an uncaring sky.
And if I do,
I would cease to be.
And the ears that would hear
Would be stopped by hearts
Too calloused with hurt
Too troubled for love
Too sad to care
For they have their own
Unendurable, unending,
Unspeakable ennui.
And my scream
Would last through all time
And unravel every cell in my being
Every atom of my existence
Until the very last thread
Would dangle in mid-air
Before the wind
Blew it away.
And as I unravel
I would cease to be.
~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Futility, #NaPoWriMo, Ennui, light despair, unravelling, weariness