#Original Poetry - Vijaya Sundaram

What would you say if I
Took your life and mine
And wove both into a
Tapestry that told a tale
Of two people long ago
Who completed each other
But were complete before
They met each other,
And yet, more so,
After?

Would you say,
That does not make sense
But here, here’s my life.
Take it, weave it, and tell the tale
Of how we were incomplete
Like how the earth and sky
Are incomplete, one without
The other.
Tell the tale of how there was
Hydrogen and oxygen, and
Then there was water.
All are complete in themselves,
But water, more sustaining than the
Sum of its parts.

No matter. Here we are,
Atoms and molecules
In eternal dance, held
By tight invisible bands
Flowing freely, loosely
Together, yet, shaping
Themselves to whatever
Container they fill.

And all this,
A tale told in a tapestry
That someone will
Find one day, perhaps,
Or, which will dissolve
In time, and re-unite
With air and sun
And water.

Completeness and incompleteness
Are only part of a long, long dance
And we’ll never see it to its end,
For we’ll be long gone.

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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Incomplete, #Original Poetry

Missed Step and Hidden Moon (Four Senryu)

Mar 12, 2016 Senryu, The Daily Post

For The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Misstep

Missed Step and Hidden Moon
(Four Senryu)
©March 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Miss, please watch your step!
She makes a misstep, hurtles,
Floating, feather-light.

So easy to see
Now, floating above the earth
So sweet it all was

All the faults, the flaws
Their beauty, his joys, her pain,
Complex chords in songs.

Leaves that float downward
Look too much like autumn tears
The moon hides her face.

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Tags: #Misstep, #Original Poetry

Flow-erings

Mar 12, 2016 The Daily Post

My third response to the March 11th Daily Post Daily Prompt: Flow

Flow-erings
©March 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

When sunlight and life
Flow into the veins of plants,
They burst into bloom.

See that thick sunlight
Flowing around our ankles
Drawing in the bees.

And that slow, sweet light,
The slow, golden flow that glows,
Makes for sweet honey.

See honey flow down.
See how it draws out sweetness,
Makes us swoon with love.

And we taste goodness,
And flowers and sunlight sweet.
Love, let us share it!

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Tags: #Love, #Original Poetry, Flow and flowers, Sharing, Sweetness

Flow-er

Mar 11, 2016 The Daily Post, Uncategorized

My second poem for today’s Daily Prompt from The Daily Post: Flow

Flow-er
©March 11th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

When life tosses a few rocks
I plunge into the stream
Hold my breath, and
Submerge in my subconscious.

Sometimes, I fear I’ll
Never emerge.

Sometimes, I poke my head out,
Disapprove strongly
Shake my head,
Dodge the pebbles
And plunge in again.

Sometimes, I wish
I would never have to
Re-emerge.

The depths draw me
Mysteriously, their dark hands
Pulling me down.

I imagine lying on my back
On a continental shelf
Watching a watery sun
Shine, tremulous and
Tentative, from a great height,
Breaking uncertainly into
Threads of light over
An endless heave of
Brine and blue.

And I borrow the peace
And terror from the greater
Deeps falling away
Beyond my ken.

And a strange knowing
Forms, buds, and blooms
As I flow ever downward.

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Tags: #Original Poetry, Flow, Flow-er

Un-Jonah!

Mar 11, 2016 The Daily Post, Uncategorized

(Poem in response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt for today: Flow)

Un-Jonah!
©March 11th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

I don’t WANT to go with the flow
It’s too easy for me
Too easy to let things be
I WANT to resist
Lest I be swept away to sea
And die in the mouth of a
BIG, BIG FISH,
And I, a minnow!
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Tags: #Fish, #Original Poetry, Jonah

Choice (2nd Poem for the Daily Post Prompt: Contrast)

Mar 10, 2016 The Daily Post

Contrast

This is my second offering for the March 8th Daily Post prompt “Contrast.”

Choice
(Daily Prompt, Single-Word Prompt: Contrast)
©March 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Black is the colour* of his true love’s hair
And black’s in the heart of the racist’s stare

White is the colour of the skin he wears
And white is the colour of the black child’s prayers.

Blue is the colour of her eyes so bright
And blue is the bruise he inflicts at night

Green is the colour of Spring in the air
And green is the colour of jealousy’s glare.

Red is the colour of her lips that shine
And red is the colour of the rage that blinds

Yellow is the heart of a rose so sweet
And yellow the fever of cowards’ deceit

Brown is the colour of earth’s sweet grace
And brown are the shirts of those who deface

Purple is the pomp and power of wealth
And purple the heather so full of health.

Opposites, and contrasts are all of these
Choose not the stains, but colors that please.

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* All these years, I used the American spelling “color,” because I taught in a public school. Now, that I am retired, I am reverting to my Indian/English “correct” spelling of “Colour.”
🙂

(Yes, correct is a relative term, but I’ll go with English spelling!)

And yes, my first line is a reference to the traditional Scottish (later Appalachian) folk song, “Black is the Colour of My True Love’s Hair.” Here’s a haunting version by Nina Simone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJRh7PSaOzI

Here is a moving version by the incomparable Pete Seeger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIx_9deq4Nw

Tags: #OneWordPrompt, #Original Poetry, #TheDailyPost, Choice, Contrast

Shine On! (Sonnet for Childhood)

Mar 9, 2016 Uncategorized

See yon diamond kite, sweet child of the sky?
Come watch it trail its skeins of sun, and smile.
And see the air move round it in a dance –
You’ll soon, like me, fall straight into a trance.

The world moves fast around, and so do we,
Not knowing if we’re trapped, or if we’re free.
No matter what, if we but laugh in play,
All traps, and chains, and bars will fade away.

If I could find the golden key for you
And carve a doorway to a world that’s new
I’d make it full of light, and play and song
I’d walk in there; but you can fly along!

It’s in your eyes that I see childhood shine
And wish for you that it will not decline.

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Tags: #Childhood's Universe, #Nostalgia, #Original Poetry, #sonnet, Kite and sun

Sun in a Universe Blacker than Night (Daily Prompt: Contrast)

Mar 9, 2016 The Daily Post

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

The night presses so blackly
Against my cold window-pane,
That the absurd orange of
Fake cloth flowers holds it back.

Night staggers away, singing –
A drunk in delirium.
I am not fazed. I sit and
Sing my song to solitude.

All around me press the ghosts
Of those past, and those to come.
I greet them and leave them be.
I have work to do right now.

Faraway ambulance wails.
Who goes where at 2:00 a.m.?
– Life so tenuous, like glass
Blown by a drunken artist!

I sit here calmly, knowing
As sure as the sun will rise
That I shall live, and live long.
This is not dumb arrogance.

Somewhere, dawn breaks over hills
Here, though, I fight the night with
Borrowed light, and invite sleep,
Comfort and warmth in silence.

Such foolishness to presume
That such things will always exist!
And yet, what do I gain by
Speculating on disaster?

Somewhere, people fight and die
Somewhere, people starve and die
Somewhere else, women give birth
Till the fields, harvest the wheat.

And it hurts me, every day –
The wounds of all who live, and
The terrors of all who die.
Still, I dream, and sing my song.

And the earth keeps spinning on,
Blue marble seeking her boy.
Her Sun keeping watch in a
Universe blacker than night.

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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Original Poetry, Comfort and Solitude, Life and Death, Speculating, Sun and Space

Vijaya Sundaram

Poet, Musician, Teacher, and Amateur Visual Artist

Posts Tagged ‘ #Original Poetry ’