Apr 20, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry
Questions For A New Odysseus
©April 20th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
All those years ago
Before you were ashes and dust
Before that muddy river bore you
Downstream, before more loss,
Before returning to mundane life,
Did you fall in love?
Did you see a demure golden lady
Perfect and pretty, full of
Doe-eyed allure, swing
Into your irregular orbit?
Did you fall in love or lust?
Did you remember your wife?
Did you remember your child?
Did you fling caution to the winds?
Did you say, “I’m damned anyway,
Might as well give in. My life
Brought some joy, but now
All is pain. I shall surrender –
My flesh is willing, my soul sore.
I need some love.”
And if you did, did it bring
Some joy, some peace, some
Shutting out of remembered loss?
Was there quiet oblivion,
A slow blotting, an erasure
An obliteration?
Did it all scatter like
Dandelion seeds on a
Wayward wind?
If it did, I am glad for you.
But if it did, why return?
And if you did resist, I hope
It brought you satisfaction.
And I hope your return home
Was worth it in the end,
Despite all the gods’ conniving
To fell you in your prime,
Despite all the storm-tossed
Terrors, the betrayals of friends,
The endless suffering you wrought
For yourself and others.
And I am glad for you that you
Came home, and I cannot imagine
How you survived it all.
So broken, so brave,
So ambiguous, so good
So full of doubt,
So full of faith,
So full of wanderlust
So full of homesickness
So full of unfulfilled dreams
So full of familial love
To enfold you, and hold
You until the day
You passed away.
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Tags: #ANewOdysseus, #NaPoWriMo, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #The Odyssey
Apr 26, 2014 Uncategorized
Spring and Rain, and Flowers and Dog
©April 26th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Rain erases with gentle
Pearly, indifferent mercy
All that ever was that died.
And with one wash, she
Brings forth life anew.
Daffodils nod along the paths,
Pink hyacinths and purple ones
Glow amidst a young green
Pushing from a pulsing earth.
Narcissus and Puschkinia
Bright, cheerful pansies,
Close to the earth, but undeterred
All beautiful, all simple —
No terrors, no hopes, no fears,
No egos, no sorrows, no losses,
No working for a living,
No guilt about idleness,
No chasing after dreams,
No saying “no” to things.
All saying “yes” to Life
— Even when it comes along
In canine form, sniffs, springs,
Laughs soundlessly, and
SNAP! A pansy is gone!
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Tags: #Dog, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Rain, #Spring, Flowers, pansy eating dog
Apr 25, 2014 Uncategorized
Catching Up
© April 22, 2014
By VijayaSundaram
It’s not the coffee in itself,
I hope you understand,
I’ve been sitting by myself
And there you are — it’s grand!
It’s the is-ness of it.
The here-ness of it
Not the business of it
Just the cheer-ness of it.
So, let’s have a coffee.
Oh, sometime, you say?
Would I make such an offer
If not for now, pray?
Let’s take the air outside
On these wooden chairs
Let’s watch people go by,
Stare back as they stare.
Let’s sip and sit, and talk awhile
Let’s chat of that and this
And reminisce in simple style
Catch up on things we’ve missed.
Oh yes, the world’s gone raving mad
Oh yes, there’s climate change
And yes, I do agree it’s bad
So very sad and strange!
And how’s your work and married life?
How is the neighborhood?
And how’s the fam. and how’s your wife
Did it all turn out good?
It did? That’s the best news by far!
And how ’bout you, you ask?
Oh, look, it that a red Jaguar?
(I quickly don my mask.)
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Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Catching up, Old friends
Apr 24, 2014 Uncategorized
Handwritings
©April 17th 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
There was a time
When my friends’ rounded,
Precise, neat handwritings carried
A sunlit, sea-magic –
All of them.
There were pearls within,
Each word a pearl
Holding meaning, light
Glowing in them.
I loved their handwritings
Loved the slant or the straightness
The dark or the lightness
The pressure or its lack —
All of that.
Everything spelled beautifully
Thought laid bare,
A revelation of self,
All of it.
And I looked with pleasure
At words that flowed
Across ruled paper
And down the page
Erasing emptiness,
Lapping at the shores
Of silence, their ebb and flow,
Filled with music,
Rich with it.
All those
Careful, controlled
Pearl-handwritings.
Caught carefully in time
Strung together,
Making meaning –
It was all magic,
Pendant with it.
And all I wanted
Was to wade in,
Gather those pearls,
Crunch them up,
And eat them all,
All of them.
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Tags: #Handwriting, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Eating words, Friendship, Words and pearls
Apr 24, 2014 Original Poetry
April Sun
©April 17th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Blueness crowds the sky.
Sun-gold from up high,
Shoots down streams of gold
And pierce the bitter cold.
Breaking into splinters,
Falling shards of winter,
Shatter round my feet
As I walk down the street.
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poem, #Spring, April, The sun in April\, Warmth
Apr 24, 2014 Original Poetry
Dog-Joy (Or: Completion)
©April 15th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I find I take delight
In my dog’s proud walk,
As she picks up a stick
And claims it in the
Name of Holly.
Utterly undone, I kneel,
As she twists her whole
Frame in wordless ecstasy
When she sees me —
This smiling curve of dog
And joyful tail,
And gentle teeth
That grab my hand
And nip and hold it in love
Beyond reckoning.
I am complete.
Who greets me like this?
(Oh, I know I am loved,
But like this? This pretzel-
Shaped frenzy of joy,
This luminous, numinous
Delight in my being?
Oh, I know I don’t deserve it,
But who cares?!)
And when she lies near me,
A love unlike no other,
Her soft, puppy fur
On my feet, warming them,
A wild presence at the
Boundaries of my own,
I find my brain
Dissolves in a mist
Of dog-thought.
I think:
Why dream?
Why do anything?
It doesn’t matter,
Not now.
Oh, I know I’ll arise
And go about my duties
And do stuff, but
I don’t really care
For any of it.
I have this dog,
This now-sleeping
Weight of dog
At my feet.
I am complete.
No, there is no despair here,
Just utter, total quiet
A settling, as it were,
Of soul and self:
A house settling deeper
Into earth.
I am complete
With her on my feet.
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Tags: #Contentment, #Dogs, #NaPoWriMo, Canine joy, Puppy
Apr 24, 2014 Uncategorized
Listening
©April 15, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
After you’ve stood
And listened to silence,
Words seem like leaves
Eddies of leaves
Whirling in a flurry of wind
In an empty field.
And yet, it’s nice to stand
To watch and listen
To stand in quietude
In solitude, checking
The wind, sniffing the air,
Looking for signs
Of life in an attitude
Of quiet reverence.
I had thoughts once,
And dreams, and songs
And stories.
I had visions of the future
Of people and things
I wanted to meet, and do.
I had melodies flowing
Clear and bright through
Dark woods of uncleared
Thoughts, once, not long ago.
Yet, today, I am spent
Not sad, almost content
Dreaming dim dreams,
Hearing muffled songs,
Stopping any visions
Of what the future
Could hold.
It’s dangerous to dream.
Needs energy, nu?
Needs courage.
Needs strength
And endurance.
Today, I don’t have that.
Today, I just sit
And listen.
To listen is to pray,
To listen is to look deep
And give the gift of self.
To listen is to surrender,
To disarm oneself.
And so, I listen.
It’s the least I can do.
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Tags: #Contentment, #Listening, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Dreams and Reality
Apr 7, 2014 Uncategorized
Exhortation
(OR Who the Hell Knows What This Is About?!)
©April 7, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Force the wo-
rds
Cor-
ral them, he-
rd them
Cro
wd them, ha-
rass them
Cow them into sub-
Put them on the boat
That awaits all words.
Yes!
(Poetry thrives on this –
The fear of silence.
Prose does, too.
Except that it has
So much more space,
So much more leeway.
So much wind blowing
Madly through chapters,
Stirring our consciences,
Making us stammer out
Confessions.)
And, like a silken thread
Running palely blue and gold
Between words and worlds,
Silence glows,
A Presence
Waiting to be glimpsed,
An Absence
For whom we yearn.
Death can wait.
Death knows how.
Death lies low
Waiting to spring
From the shadowy recesses,
Near where Charon waits.
And Life turns
Her head, as she flees
The Silence,
While the words
Become a ghost,
Wailing for her
Orpheus, us.
And all around us,
Roll her echoes,
As we climb, sobbing
Into the light.
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Orpheus, Charon, Escape from Hades, Life and Death, Sound and Silence
Apr 7, 2014 Uncategorized
What it Means
©April 4th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
To be human
Is to be
Open to life
Open to newness
Open to love
Open to beauty
Open to building
Open to creation
Yet, it can sometimes be
Often so.
It can mean
Being pliant
Giving in
Suppressing need
Caring
Giving
Scattering of self
Nurturing at great cost. And always, it is
For it calls
For tearing down,
Destruction
Undoing
Till, at the end,
All that’s left
Is the kernel of
The original self.
And a whirlwind
Waiting in the wings.
And a field, far, far away
Waiting to receive it.
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Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, humanness, What it means to be human
Apr 7, 2014 Uncategorized
ROOTS
©April 4th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I was in a fruitish mood today.
Brutish and fruitish.
But now, in the still afternoon,
I feel rootish too.
As in, I want potatoes
And carrots and beets
And turnips
And other rootish things.
I want to eat ROOTS!
Roots! The fundamentals,
The basic, the beginning
The origin, the start,
The building blocks.
From the roots, the shoots,
From the shoots, the leaves
From the leaves, the flowers,
From the flowers, the fruits,
From the fruits, the seeds,
And from the seeds,
The ROOTS!
That’s where I wish to be.
Buried deep in soil.
Warm, cozy, at ease with worms
Curled tightly against the cold
Protected from frost and
Protected from callous disregard.
If I were close to the earth,
I should not care
I would not worry
I would rest easy,
Knowing my turn will come.
But once you’re above-ground
You’re easy prey.
Birds, bees, moles, well,
Actually people, seek you out.
You put on a show of greenness
Of flowers and grace
You dance in the vagrant breeze
You give of yourself.
You bend to the will of others.
You forfeit yourself.
You scatter your seed
And you sleep.
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Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Poem, roots