#TheDailyPost - Vijaya Sundaram

On Working With Hypocrites

Sep 18, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

On Working With Hypocrites
©september 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

An arrow comes straight at me
Pierces the skin, goes right through,
And vanishes into sub-space.

So many arrow-cuts!
So many entries into
An alternate universe!

Every unkindness, every slight
Every stabbing by the two-faced
Bring a revelation

If only it weren’t quite so painful!

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Zing!

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Hypocrisy, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost, #Zing

Radical

Sep 18, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

Radical
©September 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Things take root where they can –
Sandy soil, clay-ey soil, soil rich in humus –
Things take root, and grow.

Ideas grow, too, and minds,
And passion and fervour,
And hatred and mistrust,
And love and kindness.

Plant well, weed well, nurture well.
When radical change happens,
Keep yourself rooted
in that which matters.

Find your soil first.

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Radical

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #Radical, #TheDailyPost

Lines Written in Response to My Wounded Dog at the Vet’s

Sep 18, 2016 Haiku, Original Poetry, Senryu, The Daily Post

Lines Written in Response to My Wounded Dog at the Vet’s
©September 18th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Canine puzzlement
Gazes out from deep, brown eyes
Pain forms a question.

My voice in her ears
Words she understands dimly,
Whose intent she knows.

Reassurance grows
Amidst these entangled threads
Perplexed eyes soften.

Love is absolute
Days wheel around her and me,
With her at my heels.

My dog’s trust humbles
I am sworn to keep her safe
Confusion, begone!

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Perplexed

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Perplexed, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost

Slog

Sep 17, 2016 Original Short Story, The Daily Post

Slog
©September 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Jonah stood at the window, and looked out at the harvest moon. Tears glittered in his eyes, and he brushed them away absently.

“Come back,” he whispered into the night. No one answered. A night bird called somewhere. A breeze ruffled his hair, made him look vulnerable and younger than his thirty-three years.

Jonah hadn’t expected to live that long.

Nothing was ever easy for Jonah. He burned with an incandescent rage, and anyone who came close to him shied away from the sheer force of it.

As a young teen in a body crippled by spina bifida, he saw the handsome, strapping teenage boys around him, and wanted to strike out at something, anything to rid himself of the rage and sorrow, and bitterness that ate away at his base of his soul, which was raw like the tip of his spine.

It didn’t matter to him that he was capable of great humor, or talent in art, or eloquent in his use of words. He didn’t see the value in what he had, and craved what he couldn’t have. Looking at the beautiful, nymph-like girls in school made him want to spit. They would never look at him, would they? No, they’d go for tall, blond David, or muscular Jonathan, whose cool gaze made the girls giggle in high school. He didn’t consider his pale, haunted face, with the piercing hazel eyes, the slim cheekbones, the sharp chin, the mop of unruly hair to be attractive.

He would gaze up at the ceiling of his bedroom at night, trying to quench his desire for what he could not have, throttling his urges with contempt and curses.

His mother had grieved when he was born, and grew steadily distant from him as he turned into a mulish and angry teenager. His father, grieving equally, didn’t give up on him. Instead, having read about how marijuana could ease certain kinds of pain, he introduced his son to the joys of dope.

Jonah took to it instantly. Somehow, he passed his eighth grade, scraping by, giving his female teachers the finger and much grief, because they knew he could do so much better than that.

Jonah spent his high school years in a haze of smoke. His glassy gaze alerted his teachers to his drug use, and he was repeatedly called into the main office, and had his locker searched. He was too bright for them. They never saw where he hid his stash.

Time marched on, as it does. Somehow, he passed high school, went to community college, then to art college, and landed a job in a copy shop, all of this in a haze of pain and smoke. Then, he met Nina. Grey-eyed and dark-haired, she combined talent and beauty and was kind to him. Against all expectations they fell in love, and he loved her with a passion that scared both of them, but was exciting for her. Then, his rages began.

And now, the one woman he had ever loved had handed him the ring he’d given her, and told him she would never see him again, and that he didn’t know what it meant to have respect for women. The bruises on her face had stood out starkly in the harsh overhead light right outside the door, while she’d made harsh remarks about his grotesque body with the tears running down her face, slurring her mascara, and making her look garish and racoon-ish. He was tempted to tell her so, to hurt her. Before he could, she turned, and was gone.

Jonah thought she would return. He waited in his dark living room. He called her cell phone. He dragged himself to the window on his crutches. He looked out at the harvest moon from his second floor window. The moon seemed to beckon to him. A river of milk flowed from the sky. Inexplicably, he thought of his mother. “Mom,” he whispered, and wept.

Then, he pulled himself up on the table near the window, and stood on the narrow sill, swaying a little. It wasn’t easy.

He stood, moon-silhouetted against the darkness.

I want to jump, he thought. And waited. Many minutes passed.

After an eternity, he climbed back down, slowly and painfully. Then, he slid to the floor, and passed out, amongst the bottles of beer that were strewn around him.

Rage had seen him through thirty-three years. Perhaps, sadness would see him through the next three decades.

A long slog awaited him. Nothing had ever been easy for Jonah. Nothing would ever be so.

As he dozed in a beer-haze, the moon poured down her milk over him.

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Slog

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #LoveandLoss, #OriginalShortStory, #Postaday, #Spina bifida, #TheDailyPost

This Side Up

Sep 17, 2016 The Daily Post

This Side Up
©September 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Over and over, and over and over
I fall and crack, and fall and crack
And every time, the cracks spread out,
And radiate like broken suns.
Each time, more light keeps leaking out
Each time, more air keeps seeping out
Each time, the cracks don’t self-repair
No matter what I try.

I’ve learned to love the crazy lines
Where self meets air, and sun meets dark.
I’ve learned to love the break of self
I see its splinters everywhere.

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Fragile

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #fragile, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost

Gathering

Sep 17, 2016 Haiku, Original Poetry, Senryu, The Daily Post

Gathering
©September 17th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

We sit side by side
Friends all, gathering bright words
Eating cool night air.

The moon weaves her spell
And our attention wanders
Everything listens.

This is illusion
Togetherness passes on.
Solitude awaits.

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Together

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost, #Together

Dark-Side Priest

Sep 8, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story, Uncategorized

Dark-Side Priest
©September 8th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

It was the night of the lunar eclipse, and the earth had come to a stillness that boded no good. All living things had gone into their dens, or lairs, and nothing was abroad. The ocean struggled in vain with the wind, and all humans were within their little caves, sensing Change, but not knowing what it was.

As the eclipse began, a collective cry arose from the cave-dwellers, a cry of alarm and despair. What would they do without the moon?

Then, one man stood up, tall and heavy-browed, his club over his shoulder, and his animal skins hanging down his emaciated shoulder. He strode to the mouth of the large cave, where several of his family and tribe members sat huddled. As they watched him, a muttering arose.

He saw the shadow get larger, and guessed that it would cover the whole moon. Still, he reasoned, if it were a moving shadow, then it would move on, away from the moon. Of course, he had no real words for this, but his logic led him there.

And with that, came an idea.

He needed an animal.

He found one with his unerring spear. He dragged its thrashing body back to the cave. The muttering of his tribe became louder, but also appreciative.

He motioned them to stand back.

He needed a fire.

They had a small one going inside the cave. He strode in with an broken branch, strode out with a glowing stick, and fanned it into flame.

The others watched, pushing and shoving, wondering what he was going to do.

He stood over the fire, placed the carcass of the dead animal, turned it this way and that, and muttered unheard syllables, gazing up at the now-blacked out full moon in the sky.

Then, he paced around the fire, waving his arms one way, then repeating the motion the other way. His face took on an eerie glow, and his voice was harsh.

A delicious smell arose. The animal was cooking well. It smelled tantalizing. His family and others of his tribe felt their mouths watering. Some tried to approach him, but he waved them back with warning shrieks.

After taking some blackened bits of wood and making marks on his face, he began dancing around the fire.

His tribe watched, mouths agape. They were now both befuddled and afraid.

The man looked up, and saw that the shadow on the moon’s surface had been shifting steadily, and that some of the her silver glow was returning. His tribe members noticed this, as well, and their fear and bewilderment turned to awe.

The man stamped out the fire, and picked up the charred animal, and waved it at his people. They roared in approbation.

Then, he put it down, knelt, as if offering it to the moon. A gasp of admiration swept through his people. After this, he tore apart some of the deer’s flesh, and ceremoniously ate his first cooked venison.

Thus, the first Priest of the Tribe was born.

And he always got the best meat.

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Eclipse

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Eclipse, #OriginalShortStory, #Postaday, #PrehistoricTale, #TheDailyPost

Sidewalk Woes

Sep 8, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post, Uncategorized

I will avoid the cracked and bleeding sidewalk
And dance on the road in bare and sore feet.

So what if a storm were to come
And whisk me far away from home?

So what if a car were to crush me, and
Speed away without a backward glance?

The sidewalk’s no good, it’s broken and boring.
Look there! I could slip and fall on that banana peel.

How ignominious a death that would be!
I shall avoid all banality!