Nov 8, 2017 Original Poetry
Flesh and Bone
©November 8th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
©November 8th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
And slowly, we grow older.
Our flesh grows heavy with care,
And eyes prop themselves open
With an effort (invisible
Fingers stretching them wide),
And our bones whisper at night, keep
Rustling dryly while flesh sleeps.
Once at home with the spirits,
Now, we wave feebly at them.
Willing them closer, hoping
For escape, evanescence.
Everything is thin, the veil,
Thinner, as we see through all.
The senses prevail, we fall.
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Oct 13, 2017 Original Poetry
Autumnal Fading
©October 13th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Cold air settles like a sigh
Of expectations met.
The earth swings around
Once more towards winter
And leaves begin their downward
Journey into death.
There are pumpkins, yes,
And pies and children’s pleasure in
Scary masks and horror and gore.
And cute princesses, Harry Potters,
Witches and butterflies, bats, cats,
But all I want is to be
Alone, alone, alone,
Fluttering downward, blazing gold,
Red, yellow, holding
Sunlight in my veins, while
I crunch into a million bits of dust.
Sorry I don’t meet your expectations.
Perhaps, I am not American enough.
I will be, though, for my child.
For, on that day, I shall summon
Pleasure in such things, like a witch
Summoning a spirit.
After that, when the wheel turns,
I will flutter down, or float away.
But I promise to return when the earth
Turns again.
I shall return.
I promise.
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Tags: #Autumn, #Halloween Tirade, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
Aug 16, 2017 Original Poetry
A Question
©August 16th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
When those who hate others fight those who don’t,
When those who speak with forked and flicking tongues
Wound with their weapons those who speak for love,
When right meets might, and it’s the righteous who die,
Tell me, please tell me, how can I fight the good fight?
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Aug 14, 2017 Original Poetry
Plant-Pride
©August 14th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
I understand it’s all an accident,
This strange anomaly
Called Life; that things
Came to be from the endless
Intersections of unexpected events,
Careening towards each other,
And away from each other,
Leaving behind life or non-life.
And yet, when I plant seeds
And watch them grow,
Lush, and wild, brimful
Of sap and juice and leaves,
And see white and yellow flowers grow
Into baby squashes which promise
Sunshine and water and earth –
When I see my tomato plants, their
Green globes full of redness to come,
And my smooth, smug eggplants drooping
With sexy purple plumpness,
And my okra growing upright and perky,
Cradled in impossibly beautiful leaves,
And shy, small bitter gourd just starting out,
Emerging from their yellow flowers,
Protected by exquisite trailing leaves and vines,
Not yet scaly and hardened to all things–
When I see my bean-stalks climbing valiantly up
Their strings and poles, small white bean-flowers
Promising bright green beans-to-be –
Nestled among eaves still young
Still fat and rounded and green–
When I see a profusion of oregano,
Tall, spiky lemongrass, sweet lemon verbena,
And lemon balm growing madly, weed-like,
Spreading such verdant, vibrant,
Sun-saturated fragrance that I’m dizzy when I stoop
And inhale their scent –
When I see a bright vermilion rose bloom
In solitary beauty, and cheeky yellow roses nearby,
And delirious blue delphiniums (now sleeping),
And shy purple Jacob’s Ladder,
Pale purple and pink columbines,
And deep violet morning glories,
Growing everywhere, like a weed
Drunk on sunlight and soil and rain.
And many-hued echinacea flowers,
While bees hover, and butterflies zigzag
Drunken and delighted over them –
I feel within me
A swelling of pride,
A quickening of the blood,
A surge of emotion.
I did that, I think. I put those seeds
Into their seedling-pods, and later, into
The quiet, waiting earth prepared for them.
I sang to my seedlings, kissed them,
Watered them, weeded amongst them,
Agonized over their fate, and saw
Them shoot upwards, ready to give all.
Is it any wonder, then, that
Sometimes, for a fleeting instant,
I feel like the Goddess of all things,
Green and growing, in my garden?
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Aug 11, 2017 Original Poetry
Undoing
©August 12th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Stubborn and resistant, life persists,
Insists on poking its head wherever
Whenever, however it wants.
Without judgment, without pausing,
It pokes out of the concrete,
Forms inside bellies, bursts out
From exquisite eggs, ripples forth,
Wriggling and indiscrimate, from spawn.
Curious and uncaring, life bursts out,
An anomaly in a cold, dead universe –
An anomaly, thumbing its nose
At that all that leans forward
To negate it, erase it from being.
Life is arrogant and stupid,
But it cannot help itself.
For it thumbs its nose at everything.
And in the end, undoes itself.
And the universe spins slowly
Cold and uncaring, full of star-spawn,
Dead, but waiting to to be born
Again and again, for ever.
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Aug 10, 2017 Original Poetry
Reading a Script in Revere
©August 10th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Marshlands stretch towards the horizon,
Quiet under a darkening sky.
Gold-red-green-white lights blink
In faraway, receding Boston,
While behind me, the sea lies still
Beneath an orange moon, which rises lyrical
And lush, a pale grapefruit swollen with air,
While eight of us, earnest, intent,
Read through the lines of a play
That unfolds, surreal and nightmarish,
Full of mute early twentieth century terror
Disguised as domestic foreboding in 2015.
Meanwhile a resurgent reality washes
And swirls around our feet,
As the forces of destruction marshal their forces
Far away, but not far enough away, from us.
Still, we keep reading, and the evening coalesces.
We keep reading, because to not do so
In the face of what is coming,
To not think, or speak up, or act
In the face of that which approaches,
Will undo us all. And in reading,
We resist an approaching paralysis.
The sea moves slowly along the shore,
The marshlands send forth their mosquitoes
The director’s Papillon comes up,
Offering blank canine sweetness
For a few tail-wagging moments.
Crackers and cheese, and lemonade and wine
Chips and dips, and chocolate cake, and
After-script-reading conversation,
Remind me that in belonging to civilization,
We have to be able to excise that which wounds us all.
A paintbrush is more than a paintbrush.
A pen is more than a pen.
A picture is more than a picture.
Words are more than their meaning,
Yes – but if we do not see the true face
Of that suave Visitor from other times,
Whose honeyed voice awakens us
To false and incomplete notions of purity,
Who lulls our suspicions with talk of
A thousand years of a golden age,
Who talks of music and art and literature
But with a sub-textual menace,
We are doomed.
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Tags: #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Reading a Script, #Resistance
Aug 9, 2017 Original Poetry
Ars Longa
August 9th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Wanting to be everything at once,
Dazzled by life and people, and birds,
She lunges into the air, grabs
Every passing fancy, every fleeting thrill,
Learning, leaving, moving on,
Soaking in all that rains down.
What she wants is to be everywhen,
To be new, and young, and middle-aged, and old
To push into the cocoon before conception,
To peer around the rich red womb,
To slice through her days like a swallow
Slicing through a rain-storm,
To part the heavy clouds after she dies,
And soar, spiraling, into the endless sky.
Then, remembering hunger and thirst,
And chores and unfinished dreams,
And playing the part she’s meant to play
The part she wove into her own nest
As she spun out her days, she retreats,
Finds a patch of sun on a branch,
And hums her life into existence.
This is good, she thinks, humming.
This is life, full of fineness.
The sun glows gold, the branches hold,
Here is food, and shelter, love, joy,
Leave striving behind, and ambition.
Leave the unrelenting stress,
Of things needing to be accomplished –
Leave it all, sit and stare, and hum.
Ars longa, vita brevis,
Ars longa, vita brevis, ars longa …
The humming becomes louder,
As the sun sinks in the saturated sky,
Here is a piece of beauty to be carved out
and reshaped, to gaze at and adore.
What can she do, but adore it?
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Jul 27, 2017 Original Poetry
Rain-Haiku
©July27th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Green rain sliding down
Invisible ropes of light.
Clouds huddle, sullen.
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Jul 1, 2017 Original Poetry
Near-Death of A Friendship
©July 1st, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Words fly between us
Anger strewn like autumn leaves
Each misunderstands.
One wants to be seen.
The other longs to be heard.
Both shoot darts, don’t miss.
We hear what we want
We stick sharp pins in ourselves
You explain, I hear.
The currents flow fast.
Eddies form around us both.
I speak, you don’t hear.
Not rage, but sorrow,
Not dislike, but compassion
Now, do you hear me?
The weight to forgive –
I carry this, and drop it.
Can you see this truth?
Catching in one’s lungs,
A trapped bird, beating huge wings
Blood overflows banks.
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Tags: #CulturalMisspeak, #Forgiveness, #FriendshipEndings, #Miscommunication, #Misunderstandings, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram
May 19, 2017 Original Poetry
Color–Mind
©May 19th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
Green on my mind
Green, like tenderness
Green, like newness
Green. like young Earth.
Blue on my mind
Blue, like mother-water.
Blue, like summer-sky.
Blue, like before-birth.
Carmine on my mind.
Carmine, like pure blood and blush
Carmine like a sunset air-brushed
Carmine like a womb’s onrush.
Purple on my mind
Purple, like grapes grown old
Purple, like poetry on hold
Purple, when sorrow burns cold.
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