Apr 22, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Housemate, Overheard
©April 21st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

He spoke above the shower –
The water running down –
A waterfall of vitriol,
Gurgling into a drain
Full of rage.

Loud he was, and angry.
I hate you, who-do-you-think-you-are
Strutting around, full of yourself,
Thinking you own the place?
You smug, self-satisfied a–h—.
Playing your music, inviting friends,
Just you wait, you f@#ker!

Downstairs, aghast, 
We looked at each other,
Eyes round like pennies
About to drop.

Jobless, hungry, secretive, single,
He clung to the form of things,
Donning a well-ironed shirt,
Neatly creased trousers, jacket,
Pretending to go to work,
Spending mornings at an Arlington diner –
And afternoons, evenings,
Who knew where?

We paid his share of the rent.
Made sure he ate dinner with us,
Afraid he might die.
Heard him rant against us
In the upstairs shower
Night after night.

Tried to reach his family.
In the end, they arrived,
A kindly old Jewish couple.
Eyes a-brim, hearts broken,
They waited with him, as he packed,
Thanked us, smiled a grateful smile,
Said a quiet, saintly goodbye,
And left.

Loneliness is a shell,
Inside, a voice beats against it
Waiting to get out.

We overheard him.
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The Day 21 NaPoWriMo prompt was to write about something overheard, and incorporate it into a poem.

Tags: #Housemate, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 20, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Games I Prefer
©April 20th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Games?  Like run-jumping?
Or ball-fling-falling?
Or bat-smashing-ball over fences
Or whistling-racquet thwacking birdie?
Or mud-wrestling and arm-wrestling?
Or mashing someone’s face to crowd-boo-cheers?
No thank you!
I prefer no games, save those
That I can play in quiet.
Where no one wins,
And there is no opponent,
And the fun is in the moves,
And the moves are a dance
And the dance is a spiral,
And the spiral ends when
One steps away, hurtling
Rapidly out of the galaxy,
And return in time for coffee.
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Today’s Day 20 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt was to write with a game in mind.
I wrote it before midnight EST, but edited it, and it was a couple of minutes past midnight!
Something is up with the napowrimo site.  It didn’t let me post my poem there.

Tags: #GamesPeopleDon'tPlay, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 19, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Me-creation
©April 19th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

At the very start, before all else,
There was Song.
Fear and phlegm, fatalism and faith
Churned within, too.
Rich blood and love fed a world.

Head and heart, tail and spine,
Fingers and toes, nose and eyes,
Forming cell by cell.
Star-stuff, yes, dark matter, too.
A whole universe, tumbling
In a womb, in the sweet dark.

Songs slipped into bloodstream,
Made their way to tiny ears
Slipped into heart and lungs
Still forming.

Tap-tapping away, a drum-beat
Grew stronger, and the stars
Gathered in eyes.
Playing with the umbilical
Climbing up and down it
Feeling her way in the red-dark.
So secure, so quiet, so sane.

And then, a slipping out,
A brightness, a definition of shapes,
A limit and limitlessness of things.
Skin, meet air.

World still forming,
Centred and eccentric,
Waking and sleeping,
Still, endlessly making.

There are worlds within words,
And worlds without words.
All within, and without,
Liminal, always.
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Today is Day 19 of NaPoWriMo 2017, and the prompt was to write a Creation Myth poem.

Tags: #NaPoWriMo2017, #NewCreationMyth, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 18, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Today, Springing
©April 18th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Dogs a-tumbling down the hill
Grubbling on the grass
Tailashing away in sun-cold Spring.
The air, awash in hound-cry,
Barkling and squeawhimpers,
Blue-ens and trembles
Like a live thing, ready to tackle
The season hovering like a
Butterfly, unsure and zigzaggering
Above a single dandelion,
Which captures all the delight
Of the sun in beam-bloom.
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Today’s Day 18 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads:

Today, I challenge you to write a poem that incorporates neologisms. What’s that? Well, it’s a made-up word! Your neologisms could be portmanteaus (basically, a word made from combining two existing words, like “motel” coming from “motor” and “hotel”) or they could be words invented entirely for their sound. Probably the most famous example of a poem incorporating neologisms is Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, but neologisms don’t have to be funny or used in the service of humor. You can use them to try to get at something that you don’t have an exact word for, or to create a sense of sound and rhythm, or simply to make the poem feel strange and unworldly.

Tags: #Dogs, #NaPoWriMo2017, #NeologisticPoemAboutSpringToday, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 17, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

A Nocturne
©April 17th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Stars collect in violet skies
Like salt in an empty plate
Shaken by an idle hand,
Beautiful and brittle,
White and scattered,
Far, so far away from me.
Walking on this darkened street,
Dog near my feet, there’s
A catch in the  throat,
A sudden ache, a yearning.

Spring air collects in my hair
And around my neck,
Like the hand of a lover
Grazing ever so lightly
The neck of the beloved,
Making her shiver; spring air,
Fragrant with scents  that only
My dog can know, and she’s
Not telling me what she knows.
I do not contend with mysteries.

Doubt and unease collect in my blood
And so do certainty and peace.
They jostle each other, streaming
Through my veins, my arteries,
Beating currents, fast and strong,
Bearing life and death, scenting
Its river banks, urging flowers ,
Silting land, sifting through borders.
I exhale, while swirling currents
Tumble into a waiting ocean.

If I become a bit of shaken salt
In a night sky filled with darkness,
Or spring air stirring lilacs
Awakening all the senses,
Making a human and her dog
Yearn for something with no name,
Would I miss all of this?
Would I know to miss it?
And when all of it is gone
Would the world re-form, or sleep?
_____________________________________________________________________________

Today is Day 17 of NaPoWriMo 2017, and the prompt was, quite simply, to write a poetic nocturne.

Tags: #NaPoWriMo2017, #Nocturne, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 16, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Dear Friend–You–Whom–I’ve–Never–Met
©April 16th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Dear Friend–You–Whom–I’ve–Never–Met
It’s strange to think that you’re out there
Out in a world so far away.

I wonder how you are a you,
Standing so still, with hooded eyes,
Beneath a blinding yellow sun.

You’re waiting for your world to end
While countries that you’ve only heard of –
Send death-heralds with massive heft.

Your family is not with you,
Your friends have died along with them.
Do you not curse my family?

We live, we eat, we sleep, we sing,
We have our friends, some books, a home.
We grieve for you between our meals.

What tea (or coffee) do you drink?
What houses stand where you could live?
Do libraries still have their doors?

What fragrance do you breathe all day
What thoughts occupy all your nights?
What songs hum in your head in sleep?

The birds of spring are singing now.
Our bulbs push up, fighting for light.
Do Damask roses bloom for you?

How will your people rise again?
And who will help you rise again?
In desert heat – desertion.  Heal.

Forgive us all our trespasses
Forgive us all our trespasses
Forgive us all our trespasses.

__________________________________________________________________

Today’s Day Sixteen NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads, in part:

Your poem can be in the form of a letter to a person, place, or thing, or in the form of a back-and-forth correspondence.

Tags: #EasterSunday, #LetterPoem, #NaPoWriMo2017, #Syria

Apr 15, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Photograph of the River Yamuna taken from the Taj Mahal, 2015©By Vijaya Sundaram

मझदार
(Mid-Stream)
©April 15, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Mid-stream, the boat stalls
And turns round and round,
Then, stops.
The compass has broken,
The oars hurt my arms.

The skies wheel around me
Night stars burn cold
And a loon
Makes itself heard;
The air bends to listen.

On the farther shore,
A storm churns the sky
Here, all is calm,
Then, a cry parts the waves
And falls like a stone.

On the farther shore,
Fires burn bright
The night is acrid
Death strains at the seams,
Skies rain down terror.

I remain, stranded,
Midstream, watching.
Fog collects around me.
_______________________________________________________

Today is Day 15 of NaPoWriMo2017, and I was honored to be Featured Poet today for my Three Clerihews from yesterday.  Thank you, all for visiting, and for your kind words!

Tags: #Mid-Stream, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 12, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Ageing: An Alliterative Ambivalence
©April 12th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Glimmering light on golden paper-skin
Glazed with age, making way
For pale cracks in the frail porcelain –
Light settling like a smile on silver hair –
Hair, coruscating like a cormorant
On the wing, wending its white-breasted way
Across a flash of febrile water, agitated
By Spring hurtling pell-mell into heat-hell.
Eyes, deep and wise as a well in the woods
And fingers, gnarled, not nimble anymore
Fumble at their knitting, but the skill’s still there.
Bones like biscuits, ready to crumble,
But still intact, still indicating strength.
Set of shoulders, thin, tight from aching
Under the burden of a full life, betraying
Tension, but not fear, not frustration.
Muscles knotted tight – mere
Massage could never undo them.
For, if they were to un-knot, and the shoulders
Were to relax, she would unwind unawares,
And float away, like dandelion fluff, farther
Than she has ever dreamed of going.

Should she, she wonders dismally, despairing –
Then shakes off the thought, through habit.
There’s too much life left in her light-filled attic.
Dandelion-fluff can wait for another frail decade.
_____________________________________________________________
Today’s Day 12 NaPoWriMo 2017 prompt reads:

Today, I’d like you to write a poem that explicitly incorporates alliteration (the use of repeated consonant sounds) and assonance (the use of repeated vowel sounds). This doesn’t mean necessarily limiting yourself to a few consonants or vowels, although it could. Even relatively restrained alliteration and assonance can help tighten a poem, with the sounds reinforcing the sense.

Tags: #Alliterative Poetry, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Portrait of an old woman

Apr 12, 2017 Bop, NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Pleasure Can Be Worn
©April 12th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

Outside, the sun is proud and strident.
The air hammers blacksmith-blows
Onto exposed skin.  A heavy weight
Settles in the cavity in my chest.
Birds celebrate, loud and defiant
Against a too-early summer; why not I?

Daffodil yellow is my scarf; cheerfulness can be worn.

Sleep is a melody, but my voice cracks like glass
Every day, a gathering of strength
Slow and steady, a fight against lethargy
One succeeds from habit; one smiles, it’s real.
But too much reality radiates jagged lines
From a broken point, and through the break,
Recycled sunshine pours down, awakening
Daffodils in a supermarket; I gaze at them.

Daffodil yellow is my scarf; cheerfulness can be worn.

Your scarf and you belong with these daffodils,
She says to me, her silvery hair and cheerfulness
Making the air ripple, while I gaze at pots of flowers.
The weight, now with attached balloons, floats sunwards.
Too much reality, too many jagged lines, melt
Into bright light, birdsong, simple pleasure in colour.

Daffodil yellow is my scarf; cheerfulness can be worn.
_______________________________________________________________________

This is in response to the prompt for Day 11 of NaPoWriMo 2017.

Tags: #Bop Poetry, #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram

Apr 10, 2017 NaPoWriMo, Original Poetry

Lost Fish – A Portrait
©April 10th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram

The air parts when she moves
Heavy and awkward in her bones,
Graceful, too, like a fish or seal,
Beautiful in her element.

Her eyes hold loss and release it,
As a thirsty child might cup
Her hands at a stranger’s water-pump,
Drinking, letting flow, letting fall,
Evaporating, noting what is being lost.

There is humour there, too
And clarity, and wit.
Eyes that see, and know.
Eyes that break down
The composition of all the loss
That flows, evaporates.
Eyes that are not deceived.

There is love of beauty,
Of music, of art,
But the head interferes,
Muscling in, shoving
All of that to one side,
Coolly calculating loss.

Deep within, loss
Spreads like a pool
At the bottom of a waterfall
On the side of a remote mountain
And holds a single fish
Flashing its fin in the sun
Gulping air, her fish.
And below it, glinting,
A knife.

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This is my response to Day 10 of NaPoWriMo 2017.  The prompt was to write a portrait of someone important.

Tags: #NaPoWriMo2017, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Portrait