Jan 19, 2014 Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Music
- … And I had no idea that I was going to write a song. These words below flowed easily, as I put some chords together, and the melody came with the words.
- You may not know this, Gentle Reader, but the last time I wrote a song was in the late 1990s.
- Perhaps this will stay, perhaps it might not, but I liked it today. I plan to record a rudimentary version of it tonight on my MacBookPro’sPhotoBooth, so as to keep a record of it. Whether I will post the recording or not, only time will tell. Meanwhile, here it is, raw. And no, nothing at all prompted this. It’s just a story.
- _________________________________________________________
School-Girl with Smart-Phone
(OR: Perhaps it Doesn’t Really Matter)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 19th, 2014
The crystal face she peers into clouds right up.
Not a glimpse of clear sky,
Not a glimpse of hope.
She looks within, no messages pop right up.
No one to miss her,
No way to cope.
Should I stay or should I go?
Should I do my best to know?
Would it be the way for me,
To spread my wings, and to be truly free?
They don’t see her standing here alone so long.
They don’t see all her scars.
They cannot see her.
In the halls, as she walks by invisible,
People seem to stand so far,
They do not stir.
Should I stay or should I go?
Should I do my best to know?
Would it be the way for me,
To cut my wings, and then be so truly free?
Every empty canyon calls,
Every stretch of waterfall,
Every mountaintop so tall,
To each of these she starts to crawl.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
A new sun will rise again
With me here or without.
Morning birds will fly again
With me here or without.
Trees will make their coat of green,
I will try to not be seen.
I will grow these roots and leaves,
And I will plant myself in earth.
I will find a face that’s undeceived,
And find it all to be of worth.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
She turns to her phone
She turn to her phone
Call me.
___________________________ The End ________________________
Tags: #Loneliness, #Original Poetry, Girl with SmartPhone, original song, school
Dec 7, 2013 Uncategorized
Tags: #Life, #Original Poetry, #Singing, dancing, existence, fleeting life, Triumph
May 16, 2013 Uncategorized
Prim(at)e Time
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 16th, 2013
They watch me all the time.
I sit here, idly tearing at some leaves.
Stuff, stuff, chew, stare, look away, the sun
pouring silk and desire onto my thick pelt,
I sit, meditating.
I look back at them.
They bare their teeth in a grin.
How I’d like to leap at them!
I, lord of the leaves,
Lord of all that’s mine,
King of the sun and the sky,
Inheritor of trees and mountains,
I am helpless with rage and love.
For, somewhere inside, a tiny voice
Speaks to me. I could be those …
Two-limbed, loose-armed,
Snoutless things, with pale eyes
So far apart, and teeth that gleam
So frighteningly.
Rage, rage against this glass
This thin sheet of my prison!
Rage against this display.
Rage against this ignominy.
Rage against these weak, helpless
Grinning creatures, and hurl
Them into oblivion, down, down
The mountains of my dream-desire,
Where the mist curls gently
Around our large, thick feet,
And the Clan, of which I am leader,
Lives in warmth and all-encompassing love.
(I have never seen this, save in a dream.)
And the dream is mine, real as these
Creatures staring dumbly at me.
And yet, somewhere, love
Love for those poor, helpless
Peltless, naked, shuffling,
Dream-dead beings, with
Strange, oddly-pigmented covers on their
Pale, dead skins, carrying odd things
On their backs, and their
Squirming, ugly young ones
In their arms, fills me with a fierce pain.
How can I console them?
The thought springs, unbidden in my mind.
And just as suddenly, it is shaken off
When, my child, born of my beautiful wife,
Springs onto me, and charms me
Into play, with foolish antics.
And, before all of us amble off to another
Cooler, sheltered place, far from
Eager, prying, obscene eyes,
To loll at leisure, and lovingly groom
Each others’ fur, I gaze back calmly
At the pale, two-legged ones, thinking:
There, but for the grace of … what?, go I! …
And one of them sees me, gazes a thought-beam
At me and shakes her head, in sorrow.
Then, her young one, quite beautiful for a pale one,
Tugs at her arm, and she, lovingly,
Like me, turns to go where her child leads.
— I wonder where she goes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Freedom, #Love, #Original Poetry, Dreams, empathy, Gorillas, humans and apes, primates, sorrow, zoo
May 10, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal
The Dream That Could Devour
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 10th, 2013
Little bit by little bit,
The fog dissipated
And winter paralysis
Loosened its hold
Upon her mind.
Was it depression all along?
What a dreary word!
Was it dread, then?
How dreadful!
Was it worry and inaction
Born of inaction, perhaps?
How worrisome!
Words can bind one tightly
Words can blind one brightly
Words can find one lightly
Treading the narrow path
Of consciousness
Verging on the forests
Of the unconscious.
Can one be arch
With matters like these?
Can one be coy and drop
Hints like breadcrumbs?
Can one laugh and say
“It’s all made up,
Every single word of it?”
But the facts remain
And the worries were
Possibly real, yes, most
Definitely possibly so.
And the depression
And the blackness of
All-encompassing dread
were most definitely so.
And the deepening fog
And gathering mists
And the muffled voices
Therein were all so real
She could get lost on the hillside.
And, wandering after a faint light,
She would find herself fainting
Into the arms of a mist-creature
Looking in vain for comfort.
And, like a knight, alone at arms and
Palely loitering, near a lake
Where no birds could possibly sing,
She could awake, shake off her stupor
And find herself lost and alone
Forever in the land wherefrom
No one escapes, having
Ventured therein, and seen
The distant, deep green
Eyes of the brooding forest
And the crouched spring
Of the dream that could devour
All sense of the real.
Tags: "knight at arms along and palely loitering", #Fog, #Original Poetry, depression, dread, inaction, mist, paralysis of the will, possibly self-referential archness, reference to Keats, the real and the unreal
May 4, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal
A Random Moment
©By Vijaya Sundaram
May 4th 2013
The constant, low humming
Of my child in her room
The constant low thrumming
Of my head in my gloom
The unceasing tingling
Of my hands and my feet
My senses now mingling
In the cold and the heat
All of these remind me
That the real is as real
As my dreams, which will find me
On the edge of the surreal.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Original Poetry, a moment, surreal
Apr 30, 2013 Teaching and Learning
A Final Judgement
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 30th, 2013
It’s always about the hierarchy —
Who’s above whom, and who’s below
And who’s stacked at the top
And who’s down at the bottom.
But who am I to approve or not,
If I am not, myself, perfect?
So, if I judge them or evaluate them,
Should they not judge and evaluate me?
And won’t the judging stand in our way?
And is not all this an artifice, a construct,
A means to justify ourselves to each other?
A means to prove our worth and our realness?
And perception of power and position
And the dull echo of a lack of power
Give a false sense of place
To the judge and the judged —
One seated above, the other
Waiting, humbly at the lower step.
One looking down, kindly or not,
And the other looking up, grateful but resentful.
At other times, it’s about the
Mutual acceptance of a smiling,
Shared understanding, where
One bows to the other, and asks
For judgement, and sometimes,
For praise, and sometimes,
For forgiveness, the one submitting
To the will of the other, willingly.
And would the judgement
Stop us from seeing the true face
Of our humanity, and our
Shared fates? Could we judge
Without judgement, without harshness?
Could we judge with love and kindness?
Would that be judgement? Could we judge,
And let go of our judgement?
We are not God, except that we are.
And the only being who could
Ever judge, and from whom we
Could hope for understanding, is
Our downcast, sorry selves, not a figment.
It is we who hold in our hands the key to
That final forgiveness and that
Final Judgement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Forgiveness, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Understanding, Final Judgement, Hierarchy, Lack of Power, Mutual acceptance, Power
Apr 26, 2013 Uncategorized
Listening to Poetry
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 26th, 2013
The children listen, in a spell
As the words of the poem we
Read aloud together in class,
Unreel and hook them, unawares.
Poetry, that smiling looter
That thief of all cynical hearts
That bandit of their mundane minds
Captures them, binds them all, tightly.
For a moment, cynicism
Is suspended, pushed, held at bay
By words, written quite long ago
Among differently moulded minds.
Then, mundane memory floods back
And, unwilling to be found out,
They replace their masks and move on
To the next silly or sublime sphere.
If I could capture their quiet
Concentration, their absorption,
I’d create an essential oil
With which to make a sweet perfume.
I’d keep it at my lonely desk
Spray it into the air near me,
And inhale deeply when sudden
Unexpected despair grabs me.
I’d forget my ache, then, and smile
I’d remind myself that this is
Why I love to teach and why I stay:
Concentration concentrated,
The shared delight, the rich shaping
Of our mutual enjoyment:
Pleasure distilled and stoppered in time
And fragrant in our memory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Concentration, Pleasure in poetry, students and teacher, Teaching and Learning, Teaching Poetry, Writing
Apr 21, 2013 Uncategorized
Adam
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 21st, 2013
The world tilts dizzily
And I lie here, with you waiting
For me to speak.
My tongue is curled
I’m on the edge of things.
On the edge of my life on this
Planet which took so much
And gave so much
And from which I got
The rich milk of my
Soul’s sustenance.
And which curdled in my stomach.
For I allowed myself
To taste of the fruit
Of evil. I was tempted.
And you were loyal.
I offered it to you,
Then blamed you for it all.
And I ask your forgiveness
For all that I did
For all that I did not do
For all that I said
For all that I did not say
For all that I’ve been
And for all that I was not.
For through me, not you
Came this sorrow, this rage
You tried to put it back,
But one cannot ever undo
Only do.
Forgive me,
For I have sinned.
And my sin is beyond name
And beyond recall
And before memory
And after my death.
And if I could have
Another chance, I would take it.
But now, I shall fade
Forever away, into the mists
Of memory, and no one will
Care to name me
Or what I did.
But I will prevail,
And you will sorrow.
I’m sorry.
~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, Adam to Eve, Evil, Fruit, The Apology
Apr 17, 2013 Uncategorized
Spring, in Pigtails
©By Vijaya Sundaram
April 17th, 2013
The sun shone, jubilant, joyous, gold.
The grass was new-born, bursting forth
Like song from pursed, pinched lips.
The sky shone cold-blue, flooded with warmth
The children played on slide and swing.
I sat and watched my little girl
Racing about, her beauty breaking through
Like Spring between the cracks in the
Winter-clutched sidewalks.
Italian ice, lemon and watermelon,
Cold water chasing it down,
Brought sweetness and surprise.
Flinging herself into the air,
Her Groovy Girl Doll(Nicole)’s
Sheer joie de vivre, matched
My little girl’s, her pigtails flying.
And these:
My pink and blue-clad child,
Flying about, glee-filled, singing.
Reminding me that this is life.
Dogs surging about, teenagers skipping
Parents calling, sunshine dripping
Down on my upturned face.
And for a moment, grief and rage
Scudded away, clouds driven by sun
Into a corner of the sky.
And in that moment, peace bloomed
And momentary joys took root.
Of these, are our memories made.
Upon these, are our lives built.
Today was beautiful,
And I was glad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Daughter, #NaPoWriMo, #Original Poetry, #Spring, Happiness, Italian Ice, Joie de Vivre, Playground, sunshine