Sep 4, 2015 Uncategorized
For Jamycheal Mitchell
©September 4th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
A shout curled up out of the depths of his being,
A wisp of smoke, a spiral of defiance,
Seeking air, seeking release.
When it did, it became a bubble,
A blip of air that vanished,
As if a life had never been.
And he lay there, broken, in prison,
For five measly dollars worth
Of stolen chemical-infused food.
Too poor, too addled, too frightened
To defend himself in a cruel world,
Which meant to kill him,
A young, black man died.
And his detractors, no doubt,
Blamed him for being who he was:
A black man, who stole snickers.
And he died, hungry, caved in,
And he died, hungry, caved in,
A life vanished like a bubble
In darkness.
And after that, no doubt,
His jailers enjoyed coffee and sunshine.
And went home to their wives, or mothers,
Or sons or daughters, full of
Repudiation, full of denial,
Casually shrugging it off,
Sloughing off responsibility, like snakes
Shedding skin — just a day’s work —
So easy for them!
And somewhere, a universe caved in,
Collapsed, fell for an eternity
Into a well of hell. Morality was lost.
Hatefulness won. Civilizations crumbled.
And somewhere, a new carcinoma
Of demons set up a howl of exultation.
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Jul 26, 2015 Uncategorized
Procrastination
©July 26th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Evening comes
Shod in salmon-pink slippers,
While you sit, staring at nothing.
And while you wait, you know this:
Your paper-piles will not lift themselves
Back into files and boxes.
Segments of the past come unmoored.
Do you need any of it?
What you would like is “fast forward” button
For all this seaweed floating back on the tide.
It’s work, that’s what it is.
Simple emblems of a life lived.
Papers, letters, books, plans, lists, emails,
Evaluations, projects …These lie waiting for
Recognition, to be claimed,
Or tossed.
So, do it!
Ah, you won’t, of course not!
You gaze at it all, sifting, remembering,
And they sit in limbo, mute but sly,
Nudging the edges of your vision,
Tripping you up, waiting for you to notice.
Everything has meaning,
And nothing means anything.
You cannot take it with you.
Yet, you linger over these,
Like a lover, tender,
Reminiscent, foolish.
But I await you.
You, who hide in the curtains
Behind your eyelashes,
Afraid to speak your true mind,
Afraid to name reality, to pin it down,
You, who refuse to give to simple things
Their power, to acknowledge the mundane,
Instead, you focus on dreams,
Awaiting a golden morrow
Where your perfect world awaits,
Comfortable, since
It’s what you’ve done,
Since you were a child.
Stop! You’ve waited forever.
Now, this unassailable truth
Grabs you by the shoulders,
Shakes you gently, saying:
This is the perfect morrow.
It is now.
So, get up, start moving!
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Tags: #Original Poetry
Jul 25, 2015 Uncategorized
This is a poem I wrote over seventeen years ago.
Awaiting Form
©January 12, 1998
By Vijaya Sundaram
I await form.
Meanwhile, I am a would-be nude,
Reclining in sensual abandon.
Your touch thrills me,
But you are no Pygmalion,
And I know I am Galatea.
So, I will stubbornly
Resist you, resist all
Other eager, trembling hands,
I will resist you with my
Pliant strength, with sensual stubbornness,
As I await my creation.
I am not a hollow creature,
Nor a stuffed creature,
Nor a creature filled with straw.
Mr. Eliot speaks for himself.
No! I am here, I am —
Contradictory, stubborn, resistant,
Beautiful, magic …
Ensconced in clay, in marble, in stone.
I hide under it all,
Waiting.
Pray if you will, say what you will,
I will not emerge for you.
You, who touch me again and again,
You won’t find me …
I will send forth for you a mere imitation
Of myself, for I know how to draw
The deep night of my disguise
All around me —
A blanket of blankness,
A cloak of clay.
What do I care if you relegate me to
Shapelessness, today or tomorrow?
I will come forth when I choose,
When the artist
Whose fingers tremble with unborn love
Reaches for me.
And I will emerge, whole and clean,
From this clay, my mother.
Jul 22, 2015 Uncategorized
Twist
© July 21st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
What do I see when I narrow my eyes
And stare back into a person I knew?
I see you still.
And you are a wraith,
A twisted, curling thing
Of memory, like a tight
DNA curve of smoke
From a dead fire.
Yes, I see you
Standing within that
Smoke, and I stagger,
Shielding stricken eyes.
You stare back, eyes ablaze,
Your body a fist
Your mind a knot
Your soul a twist
And you throw back your head
And howl at the moon
Which pours white milk
Into your parched throat
You raise your hands, and shout
Into the space between us
Where that which grew, so rich
So green, so luminous with life
Turned into a desert, filled
With desire that tastes like ashes.
You call, but it’s a whisper
Blown aside by a harsh wind.
I see you.
And I rear back, stagger into the wind
Shouting, tasting a thing
Whose name I’ve forgotten,
Whose voice resembles a tenderness
I seem to remember in dreams.
And yet, and yet
I seem to remember
That smile of yours
Filled with hope that raised
Its head, and smiled,
Wings pushing skyward.
We are, and we are not.
Always, and forever.
All that we once knew
All that we once were
All that we will be
All that we saw
All we will see
All pour into this
Crucible.
If it can stand so much,
How much more will it take?
This container for the
Thing contained?
All will melt
In this crucible,
All will meld
With the crucible
And time will twist
It into its own
Möbius strip.
Then, you and I
Will stand front and back,
Back and front,
Full of desire
Full of want
Full of despair
Full of disgust
Full of each other
Twisting like a snake
In the space of our
Limbic life, while
The moon pours her milk
Into our parched,
Shouting, aching throats.
While the past and the present
Curl, nesting into each other
We walk through the fire
Of our eternal days,
Turning into smoke.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Memory
Jul 21, 2015 Uncategorized
Breath-less
©July 21st, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
The Guru sits, enthralled,
Arms out at knees, palms upwards,
Hair in a knot, eyes closed,
Deep in the blood of you,
Quiet behind your eyes,
Gathering visions.
And the world spirals inwards
And ever inwards,
Until you reach the core,
Where burns a sun
As still and blue
And molten and plasmic
As every dream you
Ever had, ever held,
As it, too, vanished in a breath
Of the OM you breathed
In your gathering of,
And your letting free, the air
You so desperately needed
To live.
Just sit, breathe, dream,
Envision, desire, grasp, sorrow,
And let it slip away, let it all
Vanish in that breath,
And let that breath go.
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Tags: #Breath, #Original Poetry, nirvana
Jun 16, 2015 Light verse
Deeper than Silence
©June 15th, 2015
Vijaya Sundaram
gentle twang of strings
thrilling to ten-year old
tender fingers in golden
room filled with sweet childhood.
clicking of keys on computer
here in room awash in
sweeps of scarves and sheets.
whoosh of cars outside
dividing rain-washed streets
flinging aside water
cutting through space
hiss of electricity
the steady hum of it
permeating the air
outside my ears makes me
still, stiller than still
retreating to a place
deeper than silence.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, Daughter playing guitar, Rainy day, Silence
Jun 14, 2015 Free Verse
Tags: #Original Poetry, #Original Short Story by Vijaya Sundaram, teacher retiring
Jun 5, 2015 Free Verse
Darkly, but Darkly
©June 5, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
I am here, and yet
I am not. I exist somewhere.
You look at me,
Eyes opaque with layers
Of expectation, with preconceptions
Which pull like weights,
With ghosts that float upwards
From the wishes of others
Crowding around behind
Your gaze, hot and oppressive,
Dark, without stars.
What do you see?
Why this mockery?
Why this scorn and laughter?
Why the curled lip, the sneer?
Why this disrespect, this
Lack of courtesy?
Am I there for you
As a person, a teacher, a woman
A girl, a child, a student?
I am here, and I have been torn
From the womb of a richly
Happy, pregnant universe
That hummed to me
And lulled me to sleep
As I was being rocked within
Her spiral galazies.
In your gaze, here now,
I am reduced to a thing
A person who simply stands
In your way, speaking words
That ring hollow and meaningless,
While you chew on your gum,
Mindlessly playing with
A trivial toy.
In your gaze,
Am I narrow and tall
Or short and dark and wide
Like a spinning earth,
Whose equator grows,
And whose poles get flattened,
And whose gravity deepens
With time?
What do you want from me?
What does anyone want?
What do I want from you?
Probably nothing, really.
Or maybe, everything –
Everything that has no name,
That slides smoothly
Sideways between layers
Of a real world, a real life,
Slivering and splintering
That which is real into
Reflections upon reflections.
So, you want something, or nothing
From me, and so do I, from you.
Yet, here we are, fascinated,
Irritated, angry, disinterested,
Engaged, detached, leaning forward,
Pushing back, turning sideways.
Would you like to hear me speak?
You do?
I do.
First, you are filled with admiration,
And now, your head droops.
Is it too much, what I say?
Is it all too much,
All those words, those
Endless streams of words
Sweeping away all protest
All other things you wanted to say?
Am I real in your eyes?
Are you real in mine?
We see each other but
Through a glass,
And as we reach out,
Touch fingers, palms, hands
Shake hands,
The glass cracks and shatters
And we get cut to the quick.
So, we back away, and quickly
Conjure up another glass in its place.
In this, our world, things
Shift shape, scream, scatter,
Reform, melt and blend,
And blur, and re-form, all figures
In a hyper-real dream.
For, reality is
Entirely too much.
You see me.
I see you.
And we won’t know each other again,
As we gaze through a glass
Darkly, but darkly, searching in vain,
For all will have changed,
And we will not see us.
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Tags: #Communication, #Original Poetry, Expectations, Mirrors and reality, What others see when they see us, What we see when we see others