Un-Metaphorical Musings – Sixteen Haiku
©May 30th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Focus! I order,
Focus on love, joy and fun –
Tragedy, begone!
Focus flickers out.
Blindly missing what I like,
I simply exist.
So, filled with ennui,
I sit here, silent and still.
Empty, hollow-eyed.
Hollowed, I sit still.
Ennui all around me.
Boredom fills my bones.
Bones thrum to music
Outside, birds trill in pleasure
When did pain arise?
Pouring from the sky
Outside, the golden sunshine
Makes bright the darkness.
A bright ice-cream truck
Clamoring sounds fill the air.
The weekend begins.
Inside, in school-mode
Thinking, pencils in our hands
We face each other.
Puzzling over this
Moment of non-metaphor
Can we write the truth?
Here, I write in peace.
In India, two teenage girls
Hang from a tree, dead.
Elsewhere, children starve
Gazing into cameras
Eyes huge and hungry.
Here, we eat and crunch
The savour of salt and oil
Permeates the air.
There, a woman walks
Baby on hip, pot on head
Water, far away.
Here, see the landlords,
Grossly surfeit, call for more
Wine flows into cups.
And here, I sit, bored?
Bored, am I? How arrogant!
Step outside, and see!
Today can go on
Stretching into a weekend
And the earth spins on.
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