Apr 21, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

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

Locked Wor(l)ds
©April 21st, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

In a room so far away
A lady lives a black dream,
Locked away from
Everyone she ever loved.

Cold she is, and full of dread
For, soon one day,
She’ll be dead to all,
And no one will ever
Know that she lived,
And loved, and danced
And sang, and made
A whole world come alive
Painting by painting,
Dance by dance,
Song by song,
Word by word.

The earth grew things
Under her words, and
Animals took shape
And so did birds,
Titans and gods walked,
And people stood upright.
Rivers flowed silver-clear.
Oceans grew whales,
And fish and lobsters,
And the sky grew birds,
And the land grew trees,
And the trees grew people.

And the people saw her,
Mocked and teased her,
Saw her fright, laughed
In fierce delight,
And sent her far, far
From them in loathing.

Now, disease grew
Death came, clothing the land
In Stygian gloom.
Rivers flowed blood-red
And brooks flowed mud-brown
Songs of joy soon turned to
Songs of sorrow, while
People paddled barges of dirges
Through water-hyacinth-clogged
Lakes, through rivers that
Slowed with time, which swung
This way and that, a pendulum
Between one world and the next.

For still, she made worlds,
Still she sang – her words were daggers
A piercing blade, full of rage,
Blind fury, love thwarted.

Staging a coup, her people
Found her, flung her in a tower
A star leaned down, single and cold
And a moon cut away a sliver
Of itself day after day – her moon,
Her star, her world, her doom.

And here she lies,
Alone, outcast, the Mother
Of all, the Maker of beasts,
The Giver of all things
Mutely, she stares
Into the glaring darkness
Of her locked room,
Blind with sadness.

Now, slowly, slowly, in a
Dream, she takes the key
(For she made it), kisses it,
Flings it into the
Waiting arms of night,
And slowly, slowly
She unmakes herself,
Taking her locked tower,
The people, the animals,
The fish and whales,
The birds, the rivers and brooks,
The star and moon,
Disease and death, barges and dirges
Hyacinth-clogged rivers,
Songs and dances, and words,
As she vanishes into a dream.

And somewhere, the key
Floats along on a stream
Of stars, far, far away.

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Tags: #Locked, #NewFairyTale, #NewMyth, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #TheDailyPost, #TheDailyPrompt