Apr 4, 2016 NaPoWriMo

Rebirth – A Hopeful Sort of Poem
©April 4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

April is the cruellest month
Taunting and teasing,
Bursting with wickedness,
Squalling winds, blowing snow,
Budding leaves, blooming crocuses,
Cerulean skies, carefree clouds,
Leaden skies, lethargic clouds.

Yes, April is the cruellest month
A harpy dressed as a lady
Full of glee, full of rage,
Full of life, and full of death
Full of bulb-destroying fury.
And yet, and yet …
She brings me hope that
Soon, Spring will rise again.

And when Spring rises,
April will collapse quickly, a
Deflated balloon, a house of cards,
A puff-pastry full of hot air.
And May will arrive, serene,
Beatific, a lady in green and lilac
With zephyrs fanning her brow,
And birds caroling to her,
As she reclines, smiling, upon
A grateful Earth.

And we shall shout for joy
And dance in the green
And make little circlets of
Daisies and pansies for those
We love, and celebrate the
Birth of a New Earth.

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NaPoWriMo prompt for April 4th: 

In his poem “The Wasteland,” T.S. Eliot famously declared that “April is the cruelest month.” But is it? I’d have thought February. Today I challenge you to write a poem in which you explore what you think is the cruelest month, and why. Perhaps it’s September, because kids have to go back to school. Or January, because the holidays are over and now you’re up to your neck in snow. Or maybe it’s a month most people wouldn’t think of (like April), but which you think of because of something that’s happened in your life. Happy (or, if not happy, not-too-cruel) writing!

Tags: #AprilistheCruellestMoth, #Hope, #Original Poetry, #Rebirth, #Spring

Apr 3, 2016 NaPoWriMo

For OFOFW
©April 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Your words shaped worlds,
Rearranged my mind
Wrenched my heart
Sang in my voice
Haunted my holidays,
Made me weep in sympathy.

Your words held my hand
As I tried, halting and bold, both
To shape my own.

Your words, drenched in purple
Clad in gold, dripping with honey,
Bent with sorrow,
Striding like mad, old Lear
On the plain, blind, heartbroken,
Shouting into the cold wind
Of others’ incomprehension,
Spoke to my ears alone.

I, a child of ten,
You, dead for decades,
I, bursting into language
You, sharing it.
I, moved by Basil’s love,
And laughing with Algy,
And shuddering at Jochanaan,
And weeping over a
Fisherman’s broken heart,
And hating a Spanish
Infanta for spurning a Dwarf,

And you, spinning stories
From the ether, threads of
Purple and gold, spinning me
Into a cocoon
Wherein I dreamed and
Grew my own wings.

You were my immortal,
And I, so mortal.
You made me reach for
Your sun-clad world,
Remote as Olympus.

One day, perhaps,
We shall meet.
And I shall bring you
A sacrifice of poems,
A raiment of stories –
You, my first love.

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Prompt for today from NaPoWriMo

Tags: #FanLetterPoem, #Original Poetry, #Wilde

Apr 1, 2016 NaPoWriMo

Lilac-Love
©April 1st, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Purple mist atop green leaves –
Bridal lilacs emerge.
The still morning air blushes.

Hard to believe such beauty
Lives here, now.
Meanwhile, millions breathe only dust.

Translucent motes of morning sound
Gong-like and golden
I stand, lost in reverie.

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(Poem #1 – NaPoWriMo)

Note:  According to Maureen Thorson, owner and operator at NaPoWriPo:  a lune “… is a sort of English-language haiku. While the haiku is a three-line poem with a 5-7-5 syllable count, the lune is a three-line poem with a 5-3-5 syllable count. There’s also a variant based on word-count, instead of syllable count, where the poem still has three lines, but the first line has five words, the second line has three words, and the third line has five words again.”

I went with the latter variant.

Tags: #Lune, #Original Poetry

Mar 27, 2016 Uncategorized

Wormhole – Time Feel
©March27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

The beat took hold of me,
But turned upside down
And inside out,
And I found myself pulled into
A rhythmic wormhole.
And when I emerged on the other side,
The music was over.

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Tags: #Original Poetry, #Rhythm, #TimeFeel, #Wormhole

Mar 27, 2016 Senryu

Smoke and Tears (Three Senryu)
©March 27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Another blast, and
Another hole torn right through
The fabric of life.

Smoke and fumes and blood
And the rain of tears cannot
Quench the reign of fear.

Please stop, please stop, Oh
All of you who shed such hate,
Please spill mercy here.

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Tags: #Brussels attack, #Ivory Coast attack, #Lahore attack, #Original Poetry, #Turkey attack, #Yemen attack

Mar 27, 2016 The Daily Post

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

Pebble Games
©March 27th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

She has an edge
They say,

He has an edge
They nudge each other

We need to smooth them down
They nod

Take all the sharpness out!
Round out the corners!
Make them smooth as a pebble,
Made small from rock!

Now, we can play with them
Pebble games!

Hold them in your palms.
Slap four down, toss one up.

Catch!
So smooth!
No cuts.
No cutting edge!

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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Edge, #Original Poetry, #TheDailyPost

Mar 26, 2016 The Daily Post

In response to the Daily Post’s Daily Prompt:  Fearless 

 Fear Less
© March 26th, 2016
By Viajaya Sundaram

Everything contains dust
Everything cradles fear.
Everything contains death.
When these arrive,
I shall discard the dust
Of my self.

I shall become particles of air,
I shall become one with the stars.
From the stars I came,
To the stars I shall return
On rising spirals of song,
Leaving only dust behind –
Fear only the dust!

Fear the dust, for it infects all
Keeps us earth-bound,
Dreams small dreams,
Quails before power.

Fear the dust, for here
Danger and anger live.
And when dust pierces
Through every cold atom
Through every singing cell
Through every forgetting fold
Every warm space within
Like a dull knife, I shall
Let the fear bleed
Out, and close
The wound after.

For many things bend
Before absolute fear
Save the skeptic.
Yet, all things point to death,
So what is there to fear?

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Tags: #Fear Less, #Fearless, #Original Poetry, #The Daily Prompt, #TheDailyPost

Mar 20, 2016 Uncategorized

The Peel’s The Thing
©March 20th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Everything is camouflage,
All of it, all.
So, who are you, really
When you don’t blend in?

Under all those words,
Under all those deeds,
What is your true
Immaculate, perfect Face?

You peel and peel away
Each layer of self
Until you reach the core,
And it’s not there!

Perhaps, the mistake
Is in assuming there is one.
Perhaps the peel’s the thing
Perhaps the core’s a dream.

Metaphors fail us
When we need them most.
And what are we without them?
Just a trace of ourselves, mere ghosts.

Mere constructs we are
Of memory, of love, of lust
Of DNA strands coiling
In eternal dance.

Constructs which think
Constructs which grow
Constructs which reflect
Themselves in fun-house mirrors!

And with these peeled shadows,
These confused reflections,
These strands of DNA which dance,
You make a life, and await death.

Tags: #Constructs, #Original Poetry, #Reflections and Shadows of Self, #Sui Generis

Mar 20, 2016 The Daily Post

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

Window – A Junction
©March 20th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Your eyes, her mind
Your picture, her frame
Her universe, your telescope
Your song, her bar lines.

No, you cannot own her.
Nor can she own you.
What you see is just
An aperture, a capture.

The window makes
All reducible, accessible
Conceals the mystery.
And you will forever
Create the back-story.
So, it must be.

For this is where your worlds touch.
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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Metaphorical poem, #Original Poetry, #Window

Mar 20, 2016 Haiku

Rhymed Season:  Winter – Haiku 4
©March 20th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

White and cold and stark
Snow falls in the glooming dark.
Winter makes his mark.

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Tags: #Original Poetry, #Rhymed Haiku, #Season Haiku, #Winter