Aug 11, 2017 Original Poetry

Undoing
©August 12th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Stubborn and resistant, life persists,
Insists on poking its head wherever
Whenever, however it wants.

Without judgment, without pausing,
It pokes out of the concrete,
Forms inside bellies, bursts out
From exquisite eggs, ripples forth,
Wriggling and indiscrimate, from spawn.

Curious and uncaring, life bursts out,
An anomaly in a cold, dead universe –
An anomaly, thumbing its nose
At that all that leans forward
To negate it, erase it from being.

Life is arrogant and stupid,
But it cannot help itself.
For it thumbs its nose at everything.
And in the end, undoes itself.

And the universe spins slowly
Cold and uncaring, full of star-spawn,
Dead, but waiting to to be born
Again and again, for ever.
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Tags: #Life, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Undoing

Mar 15, 2016 The Daily Post

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

Las hilanderas o La fábula de Aracne, óleo sobre lienzo, 220 x 289 cm, Madrid, Museo del Prado

Drop-Spindle, Spindle-Drop
©March 15th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

How heavy the weight of
All your pride,
How heavy the weight of
Things to come!

How heavy the weight of
Things you’ve done,
(Both good and bad
Some mad, some sad)!

How heavy the weight
Of silken ties,
That hold you down,
And hold you back!

You spin your days
On a spindle large –
And threads of gold
You’ll weave into cloth.

And you hope it holds
But your work cannot stop.
So you dream, while you keep
Spinning on and on.

And the lines you spin,
Lead back to the centre
And keep things going
Through days so long.

But things fall apart
Spin out of course,
And the threads get caught
In a web of dross.

So, drop it for now,
You can pick it back up.
Yes, drop it for now,
Sit back for a while.

So, drop it for now –
And another will spin
She’ll spin for a bit,
She’ll keep it rolling.

So, drop it for now,
Look up to the sky,
Let the world spin on
By herself on her own.

And the spindle you drop,
Gets caught in a gale
And a spin-drift catches
At all your dreams.

And you’ll gaze in awe, and
Catch your breath.
For, the silk keeps spinning
But the spindle’s gone.

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Tags: #Burden, #Drop, #Drop-Spindle, #Life, #Original Poetry, #Responsibilities, #Spinning, #Weaving

Mar 10, 2016 Flash Fiction for the Aspiring Writer

Photo prompt provided by Louise Bunting at The Storyteller’s Abode.

Word Count:  175 words of text, exactly (next time, I’ll go for 150 words!)
Genre:  Realistic Fiction

Plummet
©March 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Rajashekhar had died six months ago.  At least, they’d been childless.  Both his and her parents were long-dead.  She had no siblings.  All very neat, she thought.

Nothing bound Lakshmi to the world.

Alone, she climbed the stairs of the ruined castle she was visiting.   The wind howled through its stony crevices.  The sky bled gold through the gray of grief.
She was tired of the earth.  Too much gravity.  She wanted to be air, wind, light.  She wanted to be Soul without Body.

Humming abstractedly, she reached the top, and prepared herself, with the slightest  plummeting of stomach, to do the deed.  Somewhere within, she still wept, her grief an open wound.

Reaching the top, and taking a deep breath, she stepped to the edge, where a sign warned visitors to stay away.

“Um … could you help me?” said a polite English voice.  She turned.  It belonged to a man, with beautiful, gray eyes.  “I’ve lost my glasses, and cannot read this brochure.”

She stepped back.

He smiled, and she found herself in free-fall.

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Thanks to Priceless Joy who hosts Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers!
Thanks to Louise Bunting for the evocative photo-prompt!
This is my first story here.

Tags: #Death, #FFfAW, #Life, #Love, #Original Flash Fiction, New Beginnings

Feb 4, 2016 Daily Life, Uncategorized

Shadows of the Real
©February 4th, 2016By Vijaya Sundaram

Shadows chase shadows chasing shadows
And mirrors reflect mirrors reflecting mirrors.
And you stand to one side,
A shadow within a shadow,
Leaving behind no dent,
Causing no reflections,
Barely a whiff of air to prove you existed.
So easy to say, “What’s the point?”
As you watch squirrels chase each other
In pseudo-Spring in January.

So easy to feel nothing, nothing at all!
So easy to fold clothes endlessly,
Wash dishes, and see reflections
Bouncing off metal and glass.

So easy to get upset at news
And shrug silently, and watch
Dog settle with sigh upon couch
Knowing all reality is where one is
And yet, knowing that is not all–
Children wash ashore cold and dead,
And children from the cradle of the world
Lie hurt and fearful far away
In cold lands where they would
Rather not have been,
But for the hate and rage of adults.

Contradictions will kill us all
But we butter our toast
And drink our coffee
And read a book,
And wonder where Time went.

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Tags: #Contradictions, #Life, #Original Poetry, Syrian refugees, War

Jan 21, 2016 Original Poetry

Tags: #Life, #Original Poetry by Vijaya Sundaram, #Trees, Woods

Jan 8, 2016 Uncategorized

Advice
©January 8th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

This you shall do*:

Tags: #Life, #Love, #Original Poetry, Advice, generosity, Living

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.

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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

Nov 15, 2015 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction

PHOTO PROMPT – © J Hardy Carroll

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

© November 15th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

Genre: Realistic Fantasy Death-Fiction

Word Count:  100 words of text exactly

So much sorrow in the world, so much war, so many dead!  All that waste, all those fathers gone, those flowers with their heads in the dust make me thirst for life.

I sit day after day in this cemetery, not because I love death, but because I mourn life.  I tend to the graves of those whose families have forgotten them.  That woman and her child over there come every day.  They are beautiful, enshrouded in mystery.

The woman looks up, sees me, pales.

I try to send reassurance her way.  My scythe gleams.

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With thanks, as always, to our Fairy Blog-Mother, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for being a lovely host to all of us who write as Friday Fictioneers, and to J. Hardy Carroll for that touching photograph.
I type this at my brother’s home in New Delhi, India.  I’ll be leaving to go back to Pune, India, where my mother lives, to spend the rest of the following week there.  Back in the US on the 23rd.  Missing you all.  Sorry about not being able to comment much — Internet connectivity is an issue.

Tags: #Death, #Life, #Peace, 100-word original short story based on a photo prompt, War, Where have all the flowers gone?

Nov 5, 2015 Friday Fictioneers, Original Flash Fiction

Wife-Earth-Mother

©November 5th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

I walked in her footsteps.

Grace had tended our arid acre of land, pouring her spirit into it.  That which was infertile, she’d made fertile, and that which had died, she’d made live.  For twenty years she grew corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers – enough for our family of three.  Her love fed and nourished us.

I had gone to work in the coal fields, and my lungs rattled and hissed.

My son had died in a war begun by evil politicians.  Then, Grace died, heartbroken.  With her gone, the land died.  I was alone.

I picked up a shovel.

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(P.S. Thanks to Rochelle, our beloved Fairy Blog-Mother as I dubbed her, for hosting Friday Fictioneers each week.  Thanks, also, to Connie Gayer …(Mrs. Russell) for her evocative and sombre photograph.)

(P.P.S I’m heading off to India tomorrow morning via Emirates, so I may not be able to read people’s posts today, unless I can find a few minutes (haven’t packed yet!).  Please know that I will check out your stories, and respond to anyone who makes a comment at some point before next Wednesday!
Love to all, Vijaya)

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Tags: #Death, #Dirty Energy, #Life, #Loss, #Love, Climate Change, Original short story based on photo-prompt, Politics, War

Oct 14, 2015 Original Poetry, Writing 201

Elegy for a Dying Earth

(Day 8: Flavor, Elegy, Enumeratio)

©October 15th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

I fear the earth has come to reap what we have sown

In haste, we sowed the breeze, and reaped this hateful wind

And through this storm, we’ll miss those things we loved so well

The rain, the snow, the flowers, this land– for we have sinned.

Not sins against a God, or gods, or goddesses

But sins against the likes of us, of you and me,

Against our children full of confusion and hurt

To whom we give our ravaged earth, and dying seas.

I’ll miss the scent of rain on dusty earth, the scent

Of budding rose, and jasmine sweet, and marigold.

We’ll see the ponds go dry in summer months, and geese

That leave in droves, will seek new lands, and mourn the old.

Now, storms and hurricanes ravage our broken lands

And dolphins strand themselves, and turtles gasp, and more —

Asphyxiated fish that choke in netted seas

Lie dead and blind upon our broken, littered shores.

I mourn them all, the birds, and animals, and plants

I mourn us all, so smug, so proud, so full of greed

With eyes of death, he chokes our breath– that demon, Wealth;

And laughs at us, although we cry; for mercy, plead.

What hope have we, who heed his lusty, tempting call?

What chance this earth against that mighty money-song?

If we but stop and turn things round (turn off the lights!)

We might yet live, and save what’s right, avert what’s wrong.

So, close your eyes, and step outside, while life yet thrives

And taste the beauty of this fragile Earth, who gives,

Such wealth, her fruit and flowers, and these, our forests wild,

So fragrant, fresh and sweet, in places that still live.

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So, our assignment today was: Write an elegy, use flavor in your poem, and try the rhetorical device of Enumeratio

Alas, I attempted the Elegy form, but gave up almost instantly.  Still, just to challenge myself, I tried rhyming (It’s hard to resist a trite and easy rhyme scheme, but I really tried).  I’ll probably go back to tweak this poem!  This is only my second draft!

Also, I remembered almost too late that I needed to incorporate “flavor,” so I tried that, too.

My Enumeratio needs work, but I tried, I tried!

So, just as I did last week, when I attempted a classical Ode, and followed it with my next (non-Classical) Ode, I shall aim for another Elegy, but that will come later.  I have to run, now)

Thanks for reading, all!

(P.S.  So, I went back in just now – and tweaked three or four lines, just rearranged some words, cut out some, added an “and” or a “so,” and suchlike.  It’s at times like these that I remember my favorite Oscar Wilde, who once said words to the effect of, “I’m exhausted.  I spent all morning putting in a comma, and all afternoon taking it out.”)

Tags: #Elegy, #Life, #Love, #Writing 201, Beauty, Change our Ways, Climate Change, Commas, Dying Earth, Oscar Wilde reference, Save the seas, Savor the sweetness of this planet, Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind