Jul 12, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, The Daily Post
(g)Host
©July 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Annika slipped past the gate of the house in the woods.
She had gone exploring, and was lost. She had wandered out of her backyard, where she had been playing a make-believe game. Her mother was sound asleep in the hammock, made drowsy by the sound of bees in sunshine. Her father was away in the city, working.
Talking to her unseen friend, whom she could hear, she had walked down the street, and found herself at the edge of the conservation lands that adjoined their town.
And now, here she was, in the wilderness, slipping past the crazily-hanging gate of the house which was in perfect condition – and empty. The trees seemed to stand closer together, and whisper, “Don’t go, little girl. Turn back! Don’t go.”
She turned, then, to the trees, and whispered, “Why?”
But the trees grew silent. Someone had come to the door.
Annika turned around, and saw no one. The voice she had followed said, “Bow down to the Host.”
Annika didn’t understand, and said, “Who? I don’t see anyone, or hear anyone.”
And a voice spoke that would have chilled anyone to the bone, but the little girl was oblivious. “Hear my voice, and tremble. I will rend you limb from limb, but do come in first, for you’re my Guest.”
The trees had begun whispering again when the voice began speaking, so all the little girl heard was the latter part of the sentence. Being an obedient little child, she said in her piping, clear voice, “Okay.”
As she walked up the drive, the trees made a huge clamour, and she turned around, and saw something white fluttering to the ground. She stopped, curiosity piquing her.
“Why do you stop, little girl?” asked the voice by her side.
“I just dropped something. Wait here. I’ll be back,” she replied. She ran down the drive, pushed the gate aside, and bent to pick up the paper.
“LEAVE NOW! It’s a demon-ghost in there, and he will eat you,” spoke the paper.
Annika thought for a moment, then said, “Perhaps, he’s lonely.”
“No,” spoke the paper, “A little girl and a little boy went in there last month, and they’ve never come out. Go! Run! Don’t look back until you’ve reached the gnarled old oak tree down there. We’ll protect you.”
And so, Annika ran. The unseen voice who had accompanied her from her home to the house in the woods called out to her, “Why are you running away? You are our Guest. We’re your Hosts. We will …”
But what they would do did not reach her ears. She ran, panting, to the gnarled old oak tree, then turned around.
The trees had bent down, and formed a wall of green around the house, and were slowly devouring it. A long-drawn-out scream came from it, chilling her senses.
She bowed down to the trees and said, “Thank you,” at the top of her voice, then ran through the woods, until she found the main road. She slowed to a walk, heart hammering, and trudged on till she found her home.
Her mother was still in the backyard, on the hammock, now snoring gently.
Annika slipped into the backyard, and now, her heart beating more calmly, she poured herself a glass of lemonade from the pitcher her mother had left on a table by the side of the hammock. With a slightly shaky hand, she drank it, then quietly began swinging on her swing set, keeping an eye on her mother.
Soon, her mother stretched, yawned, and smiled at her daughter. “Wow! I must have been tired. I’ve been asleep for hours.”
Annika said, “Let’s go in, Mom. There are Hosts out there, and they’ll eat us. I don’t want to be a Guest.”
Her mother laughed. “You’re such a wonderful story-spinner, sweets! Come on in. Time for me to make supper. Dad will be home soon.”
Annika, dumbfounded, looked at her mother, made as if to speak, then stopped.
“Yes, I do spin stories, don’t I? I love them. Thanks, Mom!” she said brightly.
And they went back in.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #GhostStory, #OriginalFlashFiction, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 11, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Cowardice
©July 11th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Arise!
Take up your knitting.
Do it! Do not fear it!
It’s just yarn and needles
You’re not weaving lives,
Spinning destinies
Plotting a Revolution,
Like Therese DeFarge.
You’re knitting a swatch.
Ah, it isn’t cowardice, then?
What is it?
Jump!
There’s a place to learn to swim
And teachers who will help.What’s holding you back?
You’re not on a sea,
Bobbing helplessly among whales.
You’re here, now.
There’ll be many hands to help.
And you won’t drown.
What’s to fear?
So, it isn’t cowardice, then?
What is it?
Inertia?
What’s that?
A first cousin
To cowardice,
Only much slower.
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P.S. I’m very tired today. I’m writing because I’ve made it a daily practice.
No colorful metaphors flash into my mind’s eye today, nor searing emotions. Sorry!
Tags: #Cowardice, #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Post, #TheDailyPost
Jul 10, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Desert-Rain
©July 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Thirst is all around us
Vast, gaping, parched thirst
Gripping the throat,
Drying the mouth,
Making a desert of our lives
A desert in the hearts of men.
And the land crumbles to dust.
And people fall forward,
Prey to hatred and guns
To violence and pain
To those who kill
With savage impunity.
Alton’s name means Old Town, or
Town at the source of the river.
And a river did flow from him,
Into the desert all around.
Where it dried and vanished
Into the dust, as he was pinned down
And killers pumped bullets into a dead man,
Because he stood there, selling music.
Sworn to protect, they
Murdered, instead, with glee.
Alton Sterling, aged 37.
Say his name!
Philando, a name that sings
Love, love of humans, and
Love was in his days, his acts.
Philando, shot for no reason,
While his girlfriend beside him,
Live-streamed his death
His loss of life into the desert,
His breath left him
While a crazed cop held a gun
Spluttering bullets and lies.
Philando Castile, aged 32.
Say his name!
And we thirst, we who watch,
Standing helpless, as we see the desert
Encroaching on us all.
Mouths agape, parched, we stand
As our feet sink further, deeper
Into sand that churns as we yearn
As their hatred burns us all
And if we do nothing, say nothing
The desert will grow.
Dig a well, plant some trees,
Hold your ground for humankind.
And human-kindness will bloom.
We shall not desert our brothers
Our sisters, our children, our souls.
We shall walk on shifting sands, and find
Our way back to green lands.
We’ll dig a well to quench
Our thirst, and we’ll offer
Libations in the name of peace,
Which, perhaps the gods will accept,
And perhaps, someday, they will rain
Down mercy and help us love again.
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Tags: #AltonSterling, #DailyPrompt, #Desert, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #PhilandoCastile, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 9, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
A Glass of Water
©July 9th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Liquid sand turned transparent
Catches captured light from a bulb,
Holds it in liquid, transparent,
Shining like the sea.
A glass of water.
And when it falls,
Its light tumbling and cracking
It sometimes breaks
And spills everywhere –
A little like us when we
Stumble and fall.
With luck, we won’t break.
Would that we were
As transparent, as clear.
And when we spill,
Would that we could get
Easily mopped up!
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Glass
Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Glass, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 8, 2016 Original Poetry, Senryu, The Daily Post
Photograph©Warren Senders, 2008, Kathakali dancer, Kerala, India
Façade
©July 8th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Masks bloom everywhere
Smiling, chilling, leering fronts
Where are you, truly?
See that tranquil scene?
Beneath that lake lies a beast.
Take care where you swim.
Clean and bright and fresh
Building smiles at everyone.
Watch out for that step!
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 7, 2016 Original Poetry, Senryu, The Daily Post
Blue on Black
©July 7th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
A shot – and we know.
Blue on black crime, cops go free
Mourn this dying land.
Where can sorrow go?
Form a bridge from here to there.
Get people across.
Where can anger flow?
The stony path zigzags steep –
Cut a grove through it!
Where does darkness show?
In leaden hearts carved from hate
KKK-Police.
Where can justice grow
In barren land that’s so hard?
Time to plant some trees.
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Tags: #Alton Sterling, #BlackLivesMatter, #DailyPrompt, #Darkness, #KKK, #OriginalPoetry, #Philando Castile, #PoliceShootings, #PoliceViolence, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 5, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Layering Down, Layering Up
©July 5th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
There was the layer so thin, so fine
Only eyes that had been open in the womb
Could see it, and not drown in ecstasy.
This was the layer of plasma and iron.
Then, there was the layer of tissue
And the layer of muscle and tendon,
Then, the layer of skin, and hair.
Beneath all these was bone.
And there, lay life and death.
And beneath that
Lay a shining mind
Fine, as vast spider-webs strung across
A whole constellation of stars,
Making itself cell by cell,
Layer by layer, into creatures
Filled with life and dreams.
Or, perhaps, the layers
Of blood, of bone, of skin
Of consciousness and thought,
And sentience and memory,
Of endless dreaming
Formed each other, one
Over the other, like hand
Over hand, over hand.
And, like a photograph
Emerging like a person from sleep,
In its silvery emulsion,
I was born.
This consoles me
When I think
About dying.
I shall be unmade
My layers will be stripped
And I will float away
Into the Dream whence I came.
My Self will re-form
Itself into what I long to be,
Always dreamed of being:
A bird, passing through
Layer upon layer of cloud
And air and light, turning
Into each, as I pass through.
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Tags: #DailyPrompt, #Layers, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 4, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Autonomy
©July 4th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
When in the Course of my puny life,
It is of compelling urgency
To become one with Nature
And to cut away all that threatens
Life on our beautiful Planet,
Respect for you, my fellow-humans,
Necessitates that I declare
The reasons which bring me to this
Separation from that which is
A poison and a death to this,
Our beloved Earth.
I hold these facts to be obvious
That although all humans are the inheritors
Of our beautiful Earth,
And, although we are created equal,
We are not treated as equal,
And we do not treat our Earth with respect,
I further hold these truths to be equally evident,
That Gaia has certain non-repudiable Rights,
And these are:
The right for life to flourish
Unimpeded, unpoisoned, unsullied,
The right of animals to have
Their freedom away from human greed
And human consumption,
And the pursuit of Climate Justice
For this, the blue-green jewel
That is Planet Earth.
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Tags: #Autonomy, #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #ReferencetoTheDeclarationofIndependence, #TheDailyPost
Jul 3, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Photograph©by Vijaya Sundaram, 2008
Archipelago
©July 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
See that child who stands there near traffic
Dressed in rags, his face a mute plea,
While people walk around him, parting
Like water around a small rock,
A rock that’s slowly being eroded,
By water which never stops or slows,
While traffic flows by him, oil-slicks
In a sluggish sea on a stuporous day;
And that woman, brown-skinned, bright
Smiling, but strained, in a sea of white
Indifferent to her impenetrable loneliness
As she learns the facial tones and gestures
While they don’t comprehend hers,
As she aches to explain, but they
Close their faces to hers, not interested,
As their ships sail by her waving flag;
And that man being handcuffed by police
For standing, not disturbing the peace,
Not resisting, not being violent,
Just standing and waiting, headphones on
On the sidewalk, enjoying a second of
Being free in a supposed democracy,
While fear handcuffs the shoals of passersby
Not wishing to cause ripples in that unsafe water;
See them, and stop everything, everything.
Let’s build a bridge out of Christo-cloth,
So that we may walk freely, buoyantly across
On a hot, hot summer’s day, and transform
From islands to travelers, when we so wish;
So that we may choose to visit, and choose
To be, or not be, an island, so that we shall
Not live handcuffed by fear and indifference.
And, just in case, let us build more boats.
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Tags: #archipelago, #Christo, #Connection, #DailyPrompt, #humanity, #indifference, #Islands, #kindness, #Love, #Metaphorical poem, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost
Jul 2, 2016 Free Verse, Original Poetry, The Daily Post
Photograph©By Vijaya Sundaram
Burnt Offering
©July 2nd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Fire mesmerizes me.
I watch it, as it dances,
To music that I cannot hear.
I fear it and adore it,
And watch it as it soars,
Plasmic cosmic freedom
Destroyer of all that lives,
Preserver of all who wish
To live. Fire, unfettered,
Lawless, breaks all rules,
Releases light back
Into the air, curling into smoke,
As it burns a hole through life,
Leaving nothing behind
But the memory of things
That once were.
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Tags: #Burn, #DailyPrompt, #Fire, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Postaday, #TheDailyPost