May 21, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Sing, O Muse!
©May 21st, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sing to me, O Muse!
Sing of children who play at war
And warriors who play at war
Only there’s no death in one,
And death in the other.
Sing to me, O Muse!
Sing of those who capture and kill
Who accuse the innocent,
Who feed the prisons more fodder
Of the darker-skinned kind,
Of the poor who are chased off
Parks and sidewalks for being poor,
Of the immigrant who leaves her land
Or his, for better shores, only to find
Horror upon humiliation forced
Upon them, being reviled for
All that they do to benefit
The fat, the wealthy, the self-satisfied.
Sing to me, O Muse!
Sing of wanderers far from home
Seeking wife and child, or children
Prisoners not of the Cyclops, of Circe, of Calypso,
But of bloodthirsty Ares in unseen prisons,
Operated in secret by men who hide behind acronyms
Who have power of the lives and deaths of
Others, who happened to stray unwittingly
Into their orbit;
Who serve Belial and Moloch, Azrael and Alastor;
Who take refuge in what they call the law;
Who get off on torture and force-feeding the helpless;
Who get off on waterboarding them;
Who get off on the agony of the damned;
Who maim and cripple their own minds,
While maiming and crippling others’ bodies.
How shall I sing of these?
Sing to me, O Muse!
Sing of those who kill the outspoken
The brave, the bold, who, in pursuit of the truth
Run afoul of those who pursue lies.
Sing of the good, the selfless, the kind,
Those who give of themselves
Who save the wretched, who clothe the poor,
And feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless
Who deal in mercy and goodness
And give willingly of themselves
To those who have need of them.
Tell me how goodness can prevail
When so much evil flourishes?
And how shall I sing of them?
Sing to me, O Muse!
Sing of children who die starving
While the rich feed on riches, and throw away excess
Sing of women who search for grains of rice
Who search for a drop of water,
While the wine-dark sea around their land
Gets hotter and hotter, as the waters rise,
Whose bodies are ravaged and defiled
By the demons who are born of war,
Whose homes are hollowed out
By those who mine the mountains for that which
Makes us all text each other faster,
About whether we’ll meet each other
And where, while rosy-fingered Dawn
Lights those lands where the rivers run red.
Sing to me, and tell me how
All of this came to be,
And who suffered this
To come to be.
And if you do, how shall I sing of this,
Save with fast-beating heart
And rage and sorrow?
Sing to me, O Muse, and teach me
How to sing of this, and not court grief
Grief unending, grief overpowering,
Grief that threatens a vision of joy.
Teach me to sing of this, and still
Sing of fruit, and flowers, and summer skies
Of children, and laughter and love,
And animals who live simply, and birds and bees,
And trees that gift us the breath of life,
Of songs to come, and worlds to be.
For sing I must, of these things and those,
Sing I must of the dark and the light,
For without a vision of joy,
All is lost, all is forsaken.
Without flowers and children and happiness,
And budding trees and butterflies and laughter,
We shall live and die, revolving
In awful darkness, without dreams
Without love, without breath, without joy,
Without friendship, without stories,
Sans everything, dissolving into dust
After a lifetime of nothingness.
So sing, and teach me to sing
Of what I must do, of what we must do
To make all of this vanish,
As we contemplate the sunlight
And the golden honey of our happier days,
As one half of the world reels about,
Dying by degrees in the descending darkness
Of a hell on earth beyond all imagining –
So that we can seek, and find,
A truer Peace, that Land which is ours
By right, and shall become ours again.
________________________________________________
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Sing
Tags: #DailyPrompt, #HomericReference, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Sing, #TheDailyPost
Mar 22, 2013 Uncategorized
Grail – A Poem
©By Vijaya Sundaram
March 22, 2013
I spend my days in
Walking,
Not winging.
Yearning,
Not learning.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You spend your days in
Talking,
Not singing.
Weeping
Not leaping.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We spend our days in
Clocking time
Stinging,
Sneering,
Not spurring.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They spend their days in
Mocking,
Mud-flinging.
Jeering,
Not cheering.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And we seek, and we yearn
And we weep and we burn
And in circles we will turn
While we earn, earn, earn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just sing, don’t speak.
Just learn, don’t yearn.
Don’t sorrow for tomorrow.
Don’t weep, just sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don’t mock, just cheer.
Just listen till you hear
For I’ll whisper in your ears
And I’ll wash away your tears.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throw your hat in the air
Throw your scarf to the skies
Toss your bag to the ground
Toss your pride with your lies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throw your dreams away
Let them fall where they may.
Let them laugh while you play.
In the new-born day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here’s a puzzle and a knot,
The more you seek you’ll fail.
And if you use, and lose it not,
You’ll reach your holy grail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tags: #Hope, #Original Poetry, #Sing, better tomorrow, Seek