Aug 29, 2016 Ramblings and Musings, The Daily Post
Speak Out
August 29th, 2016
Vijaya Sundaram
Bear witness to injustice.
Hold the mirror up to the haters and the corrupt.
Tell the story.
Speak out.
Support.
Help.
It’s the least we can do in a world riddled with those who possess power, and who hurt others intentionally, because they can.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost, #Witness
Aug 29, 2016 Free Verse, The Daily Post
When the obvious is obscured
When vision is clouded
What do we see?
Whom can we trust?
This, then, is the goal:
Sweep away the clouds.
Toss out old curtains.
Wash the glass.
Open the windows
Open your eyes.
See what is there.
Leave behind desire.
Abandon supposition
Forsake need.
Desert all that you feel.
Go forth through the fog,
Seek what is true.
Find what exists.
Learn to respect it,
Treat it with care.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Obvious, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost, #Truth
Aug 29, 2016 Ramblings and Musings, The Daily Post
Small
©August 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I’ve always loved small things.
I loved the little plastic animals that came with Binaca Flouride Toothpaste when I was growing up, a wonder-struck child, in India. I was entranced by little glass animals as a child, and even now as an adult, I cannot resist getting them for my daughter if I go to the local zoo. I gazed at stones and seashells and saw worlds.
I loved the tiny bronze Buddhist monks and other figurines that a friend gave me. They have pride of place at the window display in my room, as they solemnly stare into endless space.
When I get a small object for a present, I am happier than when I get an embarrassment of riches.
I love small marbles, small semi-precious stones, the broken opal from a ring I still have, the cracked ceramic swan the size of my thumb.
I wish I were small.
Small wonder it is, then, that I love this song by Suzanne Vega. It speaks to me like no other song has spoken to me in recent years.
I wish I were a small, blue thing, forever falling, never hitting ground.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #miniature, #Postaday, #SmallBlueThing, #Suzanne Vega, #TheDailyPost
Aug 29, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Learning Beyond
©August 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Don’t take me away!
She cries to Death
Who comes quietly
And waits in shadow.
And Death asks in a voice
As dry as deserts:
Why do you seek to stay?
And she replies,
With thirst in her throat:
There is much to learn
And I’m not done
This life still calls.
Death’s voice is warm
Caressing her like a lover,
As he replies:
You cannot stay.
Your time is up.
Why prolong misery?
It’s peaceful out there
Where I’ll take you.
Come. Come. Come.
With honeyed voice,
He opens his arms in invitation.
She gasps. His cloak is endless.
Shadowy shapes sweep across
Moving tapestries, skulls
With wine and roses,
Ancient stories full of blood
Destruction and endings,
And creation and infinity, and
Songs like childhood’s end.
Beauty like sunlight folded
Into itself, over and over.
Stars winking out, one by one,
Spiraling into darkness.
And she is impelled
By a strange new thirst
She wants to know.
She has to know
What lies in the folds
Of that cloak.
Death speaks again, his voice hard:
You have no choice.
She smiles.
I do.
She steps forward, lithe and young
Her laughter shakes the air
Like a girl shaking water
From her hair, as she flings
It away from her drowning face.
Death gazes at her now,
Spellbound, in love.
Throws wide his cloak
She slips into its folds,
And they swirl away.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Learning, #MetaphysicalMusing, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 29, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Jeu Parti
©August 29th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I want an even chance,
Says Man to the Fates
They cluster close, white and black,
They laugh in his face,
As they rattle his bones.
The dice are loaded against you.
No matter what you choose,
You will face us someday.
But go ahead,
Hedge your bets.
You will lose.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Fate, #Jeopardy, #Loaded, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 19, 2016 Original Poetry, Senryu, The Daily Post
Eyes Spy
©August 19th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
A curtain comes down.
Windows to the soul, well, yes –
I see closed windows.
And what will it take
To throw wide those blind shutters?
A drowned child’s closed eyes?
J’accuse say these eyes:
A child in an ambulance
Looking out at us.
Somewhere, their eyes close.
Choosing not to see, helpless,
We open ours, weep.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Eyes, #haiku, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 18, 2016 Free Verse, The Daily Post
Moon-Walk
©August 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon comes down to me at full-tide time
And says, “Come outside, take a walk with me.”
I put on my shoes, and walk in the shadows
Emerging in the light, along the silvery paths she makes,
And when I go down towards the Church of St. Francis,
I see the white statue of that kindly Saint on a hilly rise.
The moonlight glows on him, and on the kneeling Nun
In her white-shadowed moon-grotto, and they are beatific.
How beautiful, these eerie shadows of trees
Hurling themselves against the eternal stone of the spire!
And silent the buildings stand, while the moon
Pours down her milk into my upraised throat!
I walk alone along the moon-paths and the dark,
And as I walk, moonlight pours into my eyes, blurring
Car-lights, brash and gold, which compete with the night,
While street lamps clash, unreal colors against silvery-blue skies.
The moon sails on between waves of clouds scudding by,
And we smile at each other, earth-bound and orbit-bound.
So simple a thing makes my body relax its vigil on ache.
There might be suffering ahead for me, or not.
There will be losses, because to live is to lose to death,
But the moon will shine behind my dark irises, in memory.
When I die, turn me moon-ward, to her shining silver face.
Enfold me in night, and I will heed her mystery as I move on.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Moon, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 17, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, Uncategorized
Ghost
©August 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Every day, a ghost visits me
Formless and opaque, she fools me;
I see her as a wisp of air,
A shade of light,
A spectre of cloud-moisture.
She follows me and needles me
And pokes and prods and pushes me
And mocks me, and jeers and gibes at me,
And asks me in a susurration of curiosity:
So, how did you spend your time today?
And I turn and see her face
And know that I can never escape.
My ghost is mine alone,
And I can never run from her.
My ghost holds a mirror up to me
And asks me over and over again:
How did you spend your time today?
And I stammer and reply:
I did this and I did that,
I took care of an urgent matter,
And strove against time
To complete my tasks.
And my ghost asks, quietly:
Did you sing today?
And did you dream?
Did you weave tales
From light and air,
And did you feel free?
Did you help someone?
Did you feed the hungry?
Were you of use?
Did you speak words of love,
Words of praise,
Words of thanks,
And words of hope?
And my answer to these
Is in the face of my ghost.
And my ghost asks, quietly:
And did you feel happy?
And my answer to that
Is in the face of my ghost.
My ghost is satisfied,
And walks away into the night.
I know she will return tomorrow,
And I brace myself.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Ghost, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 16, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Things I Carried
©August 16th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sitar and a suitcase, and a carry-on;
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde;
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare;
Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali and other poems,
T.S. Eliot’s poetry and William Wordsworth’s poetry
A slim volume of French poetry and my poetry,
And Jane Eyre, the heroine who overcame all odds;
A past life in a little pocket of memory;
A history of an ancient people, my people;
The home left behind, alive in my mind
Dreams of a new life waiting quietly for me;
And vibrant rhythm within, and so much music!
Absolute certainty in a life that lay beyond.
Oh, and no money at all –
Just youthfulness, and a sense of adventure,
And faith in a Benign Fate, and always, always
Love, love, love, love, crazy love.
And all this carried me here,
Twenty-eight years ago,
Where you waited for me
And welcomed me home.
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Tags: #Autobiographical, #Carry, #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Aug 15, 2016 Ramblings and Musings, The Daily Post
I’m confused, confounded, bewildered, addled, puzzled, perplexed, mystified, bemused, stupefied, baffled, bamboozled, muddled and nonplussed by:
- Practically ANY government form I have to fill out.
- Trump and his followers
- People who don’t know what irony means
- People who don’t know what sarcasm means
- My vacillating about whether to do this one thing I love to do, or the other thing I love to do, or the third thing I like to do. (And thus, I while away the hours contemplating what might have been.)
- People who would judge me by my shoes.
Or feet.
Or nose.
Or my being
As Confucius (or his Internet Persona) says, “To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.” Alas, this baffled me. (Hasty parenthetical remark added later: Of course, it didn’t! I suddenly wanted to pretend to feel what it felt like to be a supporter of You-know-Who.)
I need to change the entire course of history right now.
Or, perhaps, after I’ve had my watermelon popsicle.
That’s all.
See you tomorrow – if I still exist in fact, as opposed to existing in
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Tags: #Confused, #DailyPrompt, #Postaday, #Ramblingsandmusings, #TheDailyPost