Dec 18, 2015 Original Poetry
Fare for the Ferry
(Prompt: Farewell; Poetry, Day 10)©December 18th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Goodbye, I said to the clock in the room
Goodbye, it whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the shadowy gloom,
Which said, “Oh, please come back to me.”
Goodbye, I said to the leaning tree
Goodbye, it whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the vanishing sea
It said, “Oh, you’ll come home to me.”
Goodbye, I said to my much-loved books
Goodbye, they whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the Time I took
The clock just smiled and ticked at me
Goodbye, I said to promises made
Goodbye, they whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said to the roles I played
But they dissolved in mystery
Goodbye, I said to the fish and the birds
Goodbye, they whispered back to me.
Farewell, I said, but nobody heard.
So, I cut the threads, and rose up, free.
And when I arose, and was borne aloft
I floated till the air grew soft,
Till it bloomed into streams and carried me
Where a boatman stood to ferry me.
But I had no coin, and I had no fare
I had to return, and descend the stairs
But I tripped and fell down athwart the skies
And now, I’m a dream behind your eyes.
And, now I sing, Farewell to all
The night is good, it hears my call.
Farewell, I sing, and go to sleep,
And I will weave you dreams to keep.
Just carve me a coin cut from the moon
I’ll give it to my boatman soon.
For I am weary and need my rest
I’ve loved this life, now comes the test.
No, do not weep, and do not moan
No, do not wail and do not groan.
It’s sleepy-time now for my soul
And time for me to be made whole.
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Tags: #Death, #Freedom, #Life, #Writing 101, Poetry, Boatman, Charon, Coin for the boatman, Day 10, Dreams, Farewell, goodbye, My 2nd Poem for Day 10, Rest
Dec 18, 2015 Uncategorized
Bound for Canaan
©December 18th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Hello! Goodbye! in one breath,
We come into our birth and death,
We fly in and out,
Our cries are a shout,
Huddling together, we sisters and brothers
Seeking some warmth and love from each other,
Seeking a word or even a sign
That who we are is totally fine,
We gather our fruits
And look for our roots.
Upside down, our
Visions abound.
We see with our ears —
We shed a few tears,
We hear with our eyes —
Our breath is a sigh.
We taste with our nose —
And cling with our toes.
Then, before the gilding dawn,
We know it’s time to move along.
So, one by one, we take off in flight,
Finding our way to infinite night.
Was it just a hazy dream?
We ask, as we float on upstream.
But the stars guide our ears,
And our wings help us steer,
And something pulls us up and on.
It’s time to go, and be unborn.
The thorn goes in, the rose grows red,
And though your hearts be filled with dread,
Do not mourn, and do not grieve,
It’s only right for us to leave.
And so, my friends it’s time I went,
The dark star calls, where light is bent.
And so, goodbye, my lovely friends
We’ve found some life, and now it ends.
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P.S. Feeling philosophical, not gloomy.
P.P.S. Also, it’s just a response to a prompt. Do not worry! 🙂
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Tags: #Original Poetry, #Writing 101, Poetry, Bats!, Bound for Canaan, Day 10, Farewell, Life and Death, Reference to The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde
Dec 15, 2015 Original Poetry
Wailing Wall
(Prompt: Graffiti; Poetry, Day 8)
©December 15th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Standing uncertain
And pulling the curtain
Away from your eyes
You stand, hypnotized.
Come, write this on me,
Tell yourself that you’re free
From the fate that dogged you
And the hate that fogged you
And all you’ve endured since
The time you were born
You lost and hurt prince
So scarred and so scorned.
Show me you’re here
Before me, and come near!
Come spray that word-art
And tell your split heart that
Though things won’t be fine
You’ll free up your mind and
That ache within you.
Now, make within you
More space for love missing
Who’s there who’ll listen?
Just the night-air and I
(The wall where you cry).
And I don’t begrudge you
Your secretive words
Nor will I judge you;
Your cry is unheard.
Then, after you’re spent,
And said what you’ve meant
May peace within stir,
And know that right here
All of your rage that was
Trapped in its cage.
Has found its release,
And has vanished in peace
Come, cry me a river
And come, make me shiver
Come, cry out in paint
Though it might be in vain,
At least you, my friend
Will make art in the end.
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Tags: #Writing 101, Poetry, Day 8, Graffiti, Wailing Wall
Dec 15, 2015 Original Poetry
Ouroboros
(Prompt: Beloved, Poetry, Day 7)
©December 15th, 2015
Vijaya Sundaram
When the stars have burned out
And turned into lumps of coal
Useless, unless sparked into life,
That’s when I might, just might
Leave you.
My beloved, it’s because I have
To light those stars again.
It’ll take some time
Before I return.
An eternity, perhaps, or
Just the time it takes to
Create another, crisper
Tighter Universe, self-contained
Not expanding uselessly —
Such a waste of space
That would be!
Will you forget me
And move on, seeking
The ghost of a memory?
Or will you stick around
And wait, while I tend
To those fires?
Because, you know, beloved,
Ours will always endure.
We journeyed across
Continents of space-time
And burst into this world
Comets from the heart of time
Except that we bent the warp
And weft of space, and time
Bent upon itself, an
Ouroboros weaving itself
Into itself, being born
And unborn,
While we, too, met and
Parted, met and parted,
Knowing we’d meet again.
So, if you’ll wait here, right
By this doorway into that
Other world, I’ll return
From my light-self,
Into this body, and hold
Your hand forever,
And never let go.
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Tags: #Love, #Ouroboros, #Writing 101, Poetry, Beloved, Day 7
Dec 10, 2015 Uncategorized
Freedom Tracks
©December 10th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
See those children skipping rope.
They chant and sing and dream and hope
Playing hopscotch, playing tag
Their minutes stretch, but never drag.
See those dancers, see them swirl
Full of tight control, they whirl.
Gravity is just a word
Freedom is a song not heard,
But felt, in bones that stretch and bend
They dance through lives that have no end.
You toss your clothes, and plunge into
The foaming brine lunging at you,
You lose your fear, you lose your shame
And freedom is your middle name.
And when you find you’re mocked and scorned,
And wish you never had been born,
You drown in sadness for a while,
Then think “This gloom is not my style.
I’d rather read or sing a song,
Think nothing as I walk along.
I’m free! is what I think of me
And enjoy what I’ve come to be.”
You make your choices, moral ones
And answer none under the sun,
You live with love and joy and peace
From rage and hate you find release.*
That’s freedom too, my listening friends
(Though there are fences we might mend.)
When lost and all alone, you find
That time and maps are left behind,
You doff your fears, and make a track
With dog in front, and wind at back,
That’s freedom, darlings, this I know —
I hope to see you where I go.
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P.S. *Instead of that line, I first wrote, “But rage at Donald Trump’s hairpiece.” I couldn’t help it — I needed to write it. However, in the interests of Poesy, I had to change it.
Then, I showed it to my daughter, who instantly endorsed it, so I kept it for ten minutes longer, before I changed it.
P.P.S. I wanted to write a ditty, instead of a deep, winding, complicated, surreal piece, for a change.
Tags: #Original Poetry, #Writing 101, Poetry, Day 5, Ditty, Freedow
Dec 10, 2015 Uncategorized
Twist of Time
(A Surrealist Perspective)
©December 10th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Came a multi-chorused Voice
From the blue-green sphere:
May I have some more, Sir?
Please? Could I, do you think?
My life’s running out,
My heart’s pumped out dreams
And fear, desire and grief
My pulse hammers and quakes
In rhythm, in time.
SynchroniCity is the place
I want to be, but the dark
Comes close on my heels,
And my candle gutters
And is unsteady; I’m spent,
Stumbling on these sands
Sucked noisily, greedily
From the shore, while my feet
Feel the pull of the ocean beneath.
So many breaths spent
On fear, so many breaths lost
On the dreary dark,
So many breaths tossed on
Foolish words, foolish thoughts,
Foolish deeds, for I am a Fool,
Filling the air around me with sound.
How could I do otherwise?
I do but live, it’s what I know.
My tasks, my busy-ness plague me
Where I come and go is Life
All around, within and without.
I need to know this,
And this is all I ask:
Could you spare me a little time?
One more life, perhaps?
Or at least another hour?
Sixty minutes keeping pulse
With my pulse, with the swing
Of the planet in orbit –
Thirty-six thousand seconds –
Could I have some more, please?
That’s all I ask.
And in the sucking whirl
Of the sibilant sea, the crabs
Scuttled and made for the shore,
And the Voice waited, while a clock
Melted somewhere, and a fading Ear
Leaned down to listen,
And a gale swept through space
And the Voice scattered
In feathery bits, till all
Of it vanished, while the
Slowing seconds fell into orbit
Around a black hole,
And fell headlong into
The place before Time.
And the Ear leaned back.
Into its winding passageways,
Flowed all voices, all spaces,
All Time, and its Face folded
Into smooth lines of sleep.
Supremely indifferent,
It dreamed on, while the seconds
In a decaying orbit that never stopped,
Became twisted and wound into
An eternal braid winding around
And around Its memory, and
All was still once more.
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Tags: #Original Poetry, #Time, #Writing 101 Poetry Day 4, #Writing 101, Poetry, Oliver Twist reference, Salvador Dali reference, Seconds, Surrealist poem
Dec 8, 2015 Original Poetry
Magic-Maya
© December 8th 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
Sunlight slipped from the tree
Into the palms of my young hands,
And I drank deep of the well of
Green-gold peace,
And found magic.
Chasing after street pigs
In my mother’s hometown,
Laughing in limpid delight
At their tails curling stiffly
Behind them, and wanting
Wanting to gaze into their
Alien eyes, and learn their
Squealing language,
My five-year-old self found
Magic.
I saw things that others did not
Creatures crawled out walls
And leered.
Goblins and spirits made free
With me.
And though I was terrified
And found myself in the old man
Who tumbled down a flight of stairs
In a Dream-Dickensian England,
I was ten,
And even that was magic.
Magic lived in the strings
Of my guitar
And resonated in
The tumba of my sitar,
In my voice that found
Songs that pleased,
And songs that
Hurt so much,
My breath got tangled
Somewhere in my throat.
And the pain swelled,
Like a raisin in water
So sweet, so full,
All those songs
Made for me alone,
In a world of magic
And dreams.
Magic thrilled the soft skin
On the back of my teenaged palms
And I saw with wonder my blue-green
Veins that popped out
Reminding me I owned a body,
One filled with blood that
Flowed through me,
And I saw that blood,
When I shone a torch
Onto my fingers in the dark.
And my blood whispered:
Magic.
Magic was in the songs the
Water-pump sang to me
In the mornings, as I
Sang along, the fifths
And thirds thrumming
Through me and the pipes;
In the lorries which snarled
And hooted, and the
Cars that honked and
Tooted, and I sang
Every time they sang,
And found their
Thirds and fifths,
And rejoiced in the magic
Of immutable music.
Magic lived in the poets,
The writers who spoke to me
In honeyed language
The language of the
Hated conqueror of my land,
And yet, I loved, utterly
Loved the magic of the words
Of the Conquering Foreigner.
And I dreamed in an alien tongue,
Of alien things that I’d never seen
And dreamed of seeing.
And in the contradictions,
I found myself,
And magic was with me.
Magic lives now in my child
And my dog, and in my
Beloved, who sings, too.
In the forests near my home,
In the flutter and brush
Of woodpecker and chickadee
And tufted titmouse and
Wood dove, as the sun
Drives them to swoop
And land on the bird-feeder
Outside my kitchen window,
Magic lives.
Magic makes me sing
Even when I feel I must die.
And though I walk with spring
In my step,
There is fall in my bones,
And winter in my blood,
And yet, and yet …
The world, so beautiful
So radiant, so cold with death
So warm with promise
So rich with life and
Beauty, so breath-filled
With lost dreams, calls me
Hums to me, nuzzles me,
Soothes me to sleep
Smoothes my face
Tells me all is not lost
All is magic,
And all is illusion.
And one day,
This too,
Will vanish.
And I will cease
To be.
And these words
Will please
Nobody.
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Tags: #Writing 101, Poetry