The Two Windows of My Room

by Sivakami Velliangiri
The Waters
Third Place, September 2017
Judged by Tim Mayo


A shock of hibiscus buds swayed
outside the rectangular window
leaning on the inner side of the compound wall.

Directly below on the soil
land lilies threw out their pink horns
facing the sunlight.

Crossing the street with the eyes
one saw two brothers stand on a grinding stone
never at the same time and the mother who watched
what her sons were eyeing at.

On the outer side was the square window
outside which ten o’clock and four o’clock flowers boomed.

There was so much beauty you knew
something would come flying into the room
and shatter, blood on the writing table,
a disarray of green feathers, like that dead parrot.


From the flora and fauna of this poem we are in what is or was a peaceful, sub-tropical place. The balance between flowers “booming” on the outside window the glass of which is finally shattered by the green parrot in the final stanza and the peeping tom brothers and their mother who are spying on the speaker in the vulnerable sanctuary of his or her room make for a very interesting juxtaposition. What are our inspirations and topics when we go away to write except possibly the newness of where we are? --Tim Mayo