Dec 9, 2017 Original Poetry
The Goddess
©December 9th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
By Vijaya Sundaram
Brahma dreams of music, and chants
An entire world into existence.
The words escape from his vast mouth,
And swirl into stars, planets, interstellar dust.
He dreams himself into being, dreams that his wife,
Serene and chaste, and seated on a white lotus,
Grows from his navel, holding the vichitra veena
Which she plays, to the rumble of his voice.
There are others who arise from his words,
Which pour out in aeons from his meditating mind.
Darker shadows, hiding under his amygdala,
Emerge, crowding out, shoving aside his words.
They arise, giants and monsters, passionate
Inarticulate, wordless, grunting and pushing.
Meanwhile, his wife plays on, eyes closed, legs folded
Beneath her, on her white lotus, transported. She smiles.
And as she dreams herself into song and life,
She dreams Brahma into being, and his words
Are the words she created with her bicameral mind,
When she lay athwart the void, and yearned for him.
And the monsters, jostling and grunting crowding in?
Those were there, when she turned over the rock
And stooped to see what she could find under it.
Curious to understand, she lets them cavort. She is bored.
But she is the Chaste one, the Pure one, the Singer.
She, who dispenses knowledge, words, music,
She longs for One who will teach her what she knows.
She is lonely. She is eaten up with longing.
She opens her eyes. Her smile fades, for
All around her, when she turns her stone face,
She sees what she dreamed into being: Emptiness.
How can she change this? She closes her eyes.
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Tags: #Brahma, #HinduCreatiion, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Saraswati
Dec 8, 2017 Original Poetry
Citadel
©December 8th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Where is Lysistrata
Where are the womenfolk
Who would stand as a citadel,
Resisting their menfolk,
And decrying war?
The men are at the gates
And among them, those
Who would be with the women
As women, stand perplexed:
When to move into the citadel
By stealth, not force?
When to declare themselves
As not men, but Other?
Beside them, other men – careless,
Arrogant, crude and filthy,
Speak callously of those
Whom they desire, laughing,
Smirking, challenging one another.
Displaying, strutting, stupid
As stones in a field of mud.
Behind them, other women
Eager to replace those in the citadel,
Urge the men ever forward,
Happy to witness the downfall
Of sisters and mothers, friends.
Proudly, they wear their disdain,
For they imagine themselves
As One of The Boys.
Where is Lysistrata?
Where are the women, decrying war,
Who would deny entrance to the men
And the women who support the men?
They are rebuilding their citadel,
They’ve dug their moat.
And the moat now has crocodiles.
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Tags: #Lysistrata, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #WomenSpeakingOut, #Womenvs.Men
Dec 7, 2017 Original Poetry
Morning Commute
©December 7th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Morning comes too swiftly for my taste
I awake, like a forgotten creature
Rising from a black lagoon,
Torpor and languor suffusing bones
That protest the pull of gravity.
I have the pleasure of working:
Earning that which keeps body and soul
Knit, and assures me of my lowly place
In a world run by money without toil,
A world run by greed without end.
I have the pleasure of playing:
Making music, reading, theatre, walking.
And these keep soul and body knit,
Assuring me of my place in the flow
Where the currents of art and life meet.
There are regrets, yes, and sorrows,
But I do not indulge these anymore.
I shrug, and my sadnesses fall off
My shoulders, a weighty cloak
For which there is no more use.
Speculation is useless, but I still
Play the mental game of “what ifs?”
I imagine branching pathways,
Dead-ends, about-turns, disasters.
I will never know, but I still imagine it.
The answer is in my flight-lines.
A V-shaped flight of geese
Scissor the December sky into two,
And light pours down the fissure.
While streams of cars spill steadily
Onto the highway, arterial and venous.
I join the cars, a corpuscle among corpuscles.
I want to join the geese, scissoring a bright sky.
I open the windows, and sing a loud, low note, and,
For a moment, the wind lifts me aloft; I’m in the air.
Then, my turn signal blinking, my mind laser-sharp,
I swerve into the middle lane, and focus.
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Then, my turn signal blinking, my mind laser-sharp,
I swerve into the middle lane, and focus.
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Tags: #CanadaGeeseandTraffic, #MorningCommute, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Dec 6, 2017 Original Poetry
A Response
(To Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” in Rehearsal)
©December 6th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Icy blasts from a sub-Siberian mind
Blinded my vision with snow-drifts.
There were sisters, lovers, friends
Would-be lovers, servants, a conniver.
There were losses, tears, quarrels, a death.
There were those who longed for love,
And those who loved, and were loved,
And those who loved, and were spurned,
And those who didn’t know how to love,
Puzzled always by their ineptitude, but
Holding tight to the object of their love.
There were those who drifted, seaweed-like
Through their days, swaying under currents
Of self-loathing and loss, but still laughing.
There were those who wept for a life
They would never have again,
Entombed in their own grief over the past.
There were those who brought gifts,
And expected nothing in return, as they
Left, laughing and singing, full of cheer,
Like a Season which had done its time.
And, there was one who got all she desired,
Taking, and taking, till she’d sucked dry
All who gave without resistance.
Heralding a new life, knowing nothing,
Nor caring to know of the suffering
She caused, she walked, candle in hand,
Casting darkness everywhere she went.
The one who loved, lost the one she loved.
The one who couldn’t, lost the one who loved her.
The one who longed for love, never found it.
While the Doctor wondered dully
Whether anything made a difference,
The Eldest Sister wondered if they
Could ever know, the One who served,
Found her peace of mind, and rejoiced.
Expecting nothing, she found everything:
A room, a bed all to herself.
Shelter, comfort, assurance in old age.
What more could one want?
Like shadows in a dream dreamed
By a spirit long gone, the Players
Moved through the words,
Like fish through seaweed.
Disquiet and melancholy held me
Stupefied in their grip, even as I
Admired the artifice of it all.
Back at my home, alone, swimming
Through the murky hours past midnight,
I breathed in a quiet Moment, then
Releasing it, drank a glass of water,
To wash down my day with cold clarity.
Time enough for imaginary sorrows
On the morrow, when I’d visit
Chekhov anew, and hear his voice
Across the desert of dead time.
I went up to my bed, where
Sweet sleep and rest awaited me,
My shelter, my comfort, my assurance
In a stormy world that beat its petrel
Wings against my joy-filled home.
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*A bit rambling, but I wanted to keep to my daily discipline of writing a poem a day for thirty days. Two more days to go!
Tags: #ChekhovResponse, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #ThreeSistersResponse
Dec 5, 2017 Original Poetry
Slip Away, Swim Back
©December 5th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Music from two guitars in the other room
Weaves its way into this one,
And arrests my mind.
Transfixed, I listen.
It takes very little music
To stop me in my tracks.
I am put in mind of a video of
Elephants behind their fence,
Listening to a beautiful singing voice,
Sensing that a different world of perception
Is possible in a flawed universe.
Most days, my home hums and buzzes,
Music vibrating within the walls.
Some days, the silence sings with the memory
Of that music made here.
I am grateful for this.
When I am old, and when my mind
Begins its slow slipping down the slope,
Sifting like sand through my fingers,
Or the tide pulling my toes into its sinuous arms,
The music and the songs will pull me back,
And I will swim ashore.
I will sing loudly.
I will make the winds listen,
And I will stop the sea.
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Dec 3, 2017 Haiku, Original Poetry
Siren
©December 3rd, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon hangs low, close.
Close to a careening earth,
A gleaming temptress.
A lone mermaid sits.
Songs of heartbreak rise upwards
As waves come closer.
Closer come the waves!
Would that the planet could mend!
Would that sirens called!
I will rise song-wards
I will unfurl my wet wings
And fly to the moon.
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Tags: #MoonlightPoem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #RisingTides
Dec 2, 2017 Original Poetry
The Only Experiment
©December 2nd, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
And the rich got richer,
And the poor got poorer,
And they all died unhappily
Ever after, consigned to ash.
And on vast unending plains,
The planet burns, a furnace
That melts all the icecaps.
And as the seas rise,
A single boat floats.
There is no one on it,
Just a very large note
On its starboard:
“We were a failed experiment.
Do not find out about us.
Leave this planet, at once!
Go far, far away,
Evolve sideways.
Never become bipedal
Grow as many legs as you can,
And run, run, run!”
No one sees the note.
There is no one to see.
They’ll never come to visit,
Because they never were.
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Tags: #ClimateChangepoem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #ResponsetoGOP, #thehumanexperiment
Dec 1, 2017 Original Poetry
Jangle
©December 1st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Too many words can cloud
A day full of quiet.
Too much quiet can condense
Into a cloud around words.
In the daytime, people are
A jangle of voices, a jostle
Of wrestling minds, striving furiously.
At night, we sleep, restless and lost,
Floating among words that fly
Silently on pale wings through
A hushed, listening sky.
Inside my head is a gong,
And the silence around me
Now rings with it, my skull the bell-tower.
There is no escape, none.
To dissolve, to split into atoms,
To speed away from all parts of me,
So I need not hear myself think –
This is my dream. I need to un-be.
A pearl of great price gleams
Between the lips of silence.
When I was born, and without words,
Was it the silence which formed me?
Out of the darkness comes light.
Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!
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Nov 30, 2017 Original Poetry
Swell
©November 30th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The earth turns herself around
In her sleep.
She is uneasy, and clamorous,
There is pain, pleasure, triumph.
She dreams you into being,
And me, and all her daughters.
Spun from the same stuff.
We, her daughters, look into each other’s eyes,
And we know who stands behind
Those curtains – yes, you, and you,
And I and I, our surfaces stripped away.
All of us, spun from the same stuff,
Even the lying, thieving, enabling,
Hateful versions of her dream,
The ones who tear down their own,
Who line up in droves, to push each other
Aside in their haste to prop up the sons.
Who dreamed up the sons?
The earth turns herself around.
Deep in her sleep, she mutters
A name, but it floats away on
The rising swell of voices
Naming names, damning them,
Those who give nothing,
Those who take it all.
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Tags: #Daughtersandsons, #Gaia, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #RiseofWomen
Nov 28, 2017 Original Poetry
Mirror-World (A Walk Along the Charles River at Twilight)
©November 28th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
The world beside me hung upside-down
Black and grey and gold, wavering.
Trees stretched their upside-down branches
And droves of ducks sliced cleanly through
Streaks of gold and grey, strands of silk.
A mansion stood on its head, lit windows
Inviting me in – a bright, cold welcome.
A goose called to its mate, who answered.
Ethereal waves cut my cell-phone’s power,
Sucking it dry, as I held it up to the sky,
And I was glad. Dark-gold and luminous,
The evening pulled me into its web.
Tail-lights glowed gem-red on its strands.
Uncertainty at dusk mirrored my liminal mind.
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Tags: #Mirror-World, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #River-Walk