Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Pramod Rastogi

From Public Domain 
ON THE LOOKOUT FOR DREAMERS

No rain has touched these wastelands.
The earth lies stony, locked in stillness.
Dreams struggle here to take root,
And those that do soon wilt away.

Parched are the lanes of this hamlet,
Inhabited only by daydreamers
Who dream of running water
To raise rich harvests of living dreams.

Dreamers gather where the road begins.
Each chooses a direction of their own.
Wherever they wander, passion walks beside them,
Its fierce intensity breaking open obstacles.

Life is a station restless with departures.
Harvest is nearing; soon dreams will be
Separated carefully from the chaff,
Gathered at last into waiting heaps.

And then these dreams, still breathing softly,
Will go searching for new dreamers.

Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the EPFL, Switzerland. He is a poet, academician, researcher, author of nine scientific books, and a former Editor-in-chief (1999-2019) of the international scientific journal, Optics and Lasers in Engineering. He was an honorary Professor at the IIT Delhi between 2000 and 2004. He was a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar between 2019 and 2023. He is presently an honorary adjunct Professor at the IIT Jammu.

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Categories
Poetry

The Ceiling Hummed by Jim Bellamy

From Public Domain 
THE CEILING HUMMED


The ceiling hummed, a coldframe of evening spread,
A loop that questioned whether time was real;
She felt her thoughts detach, begin to peel—
A script that argued with the scene instead.
The floor dissolved beneath her cautious tread,
A mesh of doubt no footstep could conceal;
She wondered if her grief could even feel,
Or if it only played the part of dread.

The monitors blinked out, then back again,
As though the world were testing its own claim;
She sensed her name detach itself from name,
A file corrupted past what might remain.
The ward became a theory built by pain,
A thesis drafted just to shift the blame;
She walked its halls as lopers after guttered bums,
A wanderer through someone else’s frame.

She touched the bed and felt the moment split—
One version stayed, the other walked away;
She watched herself dissolve into the grey,
A copy failing bit by failing bit.
She whispered of her wedding dress conceived, unlit,
A vow unstitched by what she could not say;
Her lashes burned to ashes for the day,
And steller tears rewrote the edge of it.

She left the room, but not the aftermath;
Her shadow lagged, refusing to align.
The space ahead unspooled its crooked spine,
A maze subtracting her from every path.
She passed the ghosts of buttered sons in wrath,
Their silhouettes refusing to resign;
Yet still she walked, though nothing felt like mine,
A child rewritten by a broken bath.

Jim Bellamy was born in a storm in 1972. He studied hard and sat entrance exams for Oxford University. Jim has a fine frenzy for poetry and has written in excess of 22,000 poems. Jim adores the art of poetry. He lives for prosody.

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Categories
Poetry

Yours and Mine

By Heera Unnithan

YOURS AND MINE

We talked
of the education system,
Our daughters’ baby rebellions
their precocious love stories. The sudden

showers, the mango flowers falling,
a spurt of night sky on the Arabian jasmine,
farmers' tragedies. The politics

of religion
plaguing boundaries,
marauding ideologies. The role


of fat in heart ailments,
senility’s frail disposition. All except

the premature separation, that we couldn't wait for.
 
We are told
“You should not talk about this,
to each other,” while they scramble 

books on the shelves, crockery, preserved papers, nailed photographs. Also

the Grandma cot,
the almirah made of teak holding on to an ancient breath, dented bronze, titbits of a decorated past, all to be tagged now, as yours or mine. 

So I talk to you:
getting back to work
after this hysterectomy,
the bones that will weaken,
and, that non-allergic hair dye.

Heera Unnithan is an ophthalmologist from Kochi. She co-authored a Malayalam poetry collection withher sister. Her English poems have appeared in a few Indian journals. Vanessa is her debut novel.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Categories
Poetry

A Kingdom of Sunflowers

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

A KINGDOM OF SUNFLOWERS 

Let it be June, the 6th month in the calendar,
or perhaps one of the "embers" on the back end,
like a late surger at the track.  
You follow the betting lines, so you should know better.
That sudden swing in action just before post.
May as well linger in slotter's row, feeding the beast.
Sitting around waiting on the Super Jackpot.
The drink girl has three large hoops dangling from one ear.
She seems off-center, four smaller hoops through her eyebrow
on the same side.  She probably jingles when she's not making change.
Pulls this purple rescue inhaler from her pocket when she thinks
no one is looking.  Not the eye in the sky, or her boss with a voice
like a streaking dive bomber.  Let it be May, her grandmother's name.
All those hours of soda bread and Euchre. The wall of commemorative plates.
No simple diary pledge ever held so much weight!
Let it be August, a kingdom of sunflowers.
Sunflowers, National Gallery, London, (Painted in August 1888) by Vincent van Gogh, who did a series of paintings that month of yellow sunflowers. From Public Domain

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.  

PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL

Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Categories
Poetry

Poems Linger like the Cities’ Aromas…

By Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

Art by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982): From Public Domain 
POEMS IN EXILE

In exile
these poems
seek open
windows and
doors to fly
and walk with
a purpose 
only they
could unlock.

Without hats
and the warm 
sun bearing
down, beating 
them senseless 
they fight back
with words sharp
as razors 
until night
comes around.

Gone but not 
forgotten
these poems
linger like
the cities’ 
aromas,
sweet and sour
taste, and pungent
scents that

go for the
jugular.
These poems
are not tame 
or mild, when
the world is
going to
hell. They must
speak the truth.


REBIRTH

In my rebirth 
I will be the thorn 
on the rose,
the aroma of
the sweetest 
baked cookie,
the dream that
was not supposed
to come true.
I guard my face
and do not speak
a word for fear
of being bloodied 
and becoming 
one more cadaver.
I tie my hands
for fear of striking
back in retaliation.
What is best, to
live in agony and
fear or to speak
my mind even if
I end up being
one more cadaver?
In my rebirth 
I will be the dream
that came true.

THINGS I DID AND WILL DO TODAY 

And I sleep.
And I dream.
And I love
to reinvent 
what joy is.
And music
flows, a river
I listen to
all day long.
And I live.
And I love life.
And life is
reality.
And I drive my car.
And I look
at the sky.
And clouds seem
like forests.
And one seems
like a wolf.
And little red
riding hood
is safe beyond 
the clouds.
And the songs
keep me sane.

Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal was born in Mexico, lives in California, and works in Los Angeles.He has been published in Blue Collar Review, Borderless Journal, Chiron Review, Kendra SteinerEditions, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His most recent poems have appeared in Four FeathersPress.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Categories
Poetry

Leisure

By Md Mujib Ullah



LEISURE

Your smile is the beginning of my joy
While the day is still clinging.
Scripts checking, meetings, and traffic jams,
In the end, they leave memories.

The only leisure I cherish is your presence,
Whenever I have the space to breathe.
You do not cross the tide,
Nor do I reach for your hair.

Leisure's
A rupture in between.

Md Mujib Ullah teaches at Uttara University. His recent publications include Star*Line, Voice & Verse, The Daily Star, TEXT, The Inflectionist Review, Fiction on the Web, and Borderless.

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Categories
Poetry

Autumn Treasures by Keith Lyons

FRom Public Domain 
AUTUMN TREASURES
(For A.C.) 

Behind the cabbage tree casting afternoon shadows,
flanked by tufts of tussock
and spindly coprosma saplings,

late autumn held a quiet secret
on the last Sunday of April.

I almost passed them,
but in the shade
small lanterns still burned.

In awe, I knelt
to examine this improbable find.

So fragile, so easily crushed or crumbled,
I picked each one gently,
cradling the glowing late harvest in my hand.

Each hollowed dome
resembled an ornate temple
of intricate chambers,

red light passing through
their clustered sacred geometry.

Yet on the tongue:
succulent, fragrant, dissolving away,
leaving tiny seeds,
the very essence, between the teeth.

Some alchemy of light and warmth,
deepened by waiting,
had ripened them

far sweeter than childhood memories.

It is said raspberries are best
freshly picked from prickly canes
sunlit, sheltered, and watered.

Though this neglected rogue vine
crept along hard ground
facing the cold south.


Finding you was like that.

Not signposted,
just suddenly there.

Your natural ease,
your grounded presence.

No performance or pretence,
only shared attention,
where the moment feels complete enough
that neither past nor future intrudes.

Meeting you carried that same feeling:

a quiet astonishment,
and an awareness
of how fleeting
such sweetness can be.

Lanterns,
small lanterns lit; 
Lanterns that glowed against the coming winter.

Keith Lyons (keithlyons.net) is an award-winning writer and creative writing mentor originally from New Zealand who has spent a quarter of his existence living and working in Asia including southwest China, Myanmar and Bali. His Venn diagram of happiness features the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee, the negative ions of the natural world including moving water, and connecting with others in meaningful ways. A Contributing Editor on Borderless Journal’s Editorial Board, his work has appeared in Borderless since its early days, and his writing featured in the anthology Monalisa No Longer Smiles.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Categories
Poetry

Two Poems by Rhys Hughes

From Public Domain 
CLOWN FLOWERS 

The bluebells are ringing 
happy clappers
to glue the day together
and in the stinging weather
permit me to mention
that my fancy pants
and tethered balloons
allow me to prance
in the style of a loon
without attracting attention.

I am a clown
among the flowers.
Make room! Make room!
So I can bloom.

The tension is palpable
but my nose is long
and the stinging will sing
with notes all wrong
but I belong among
the rungs of sun ladders
that adders will climb
from sad climes to fine
while my furlong shoes
tap dance the Blues.

You are a flower
among the clowns.
Make time! Make time!
So we can rhyme.

The circus purpose
makes you rumble aloud
but absurdly murky
among this crowd
of powerful flowers
are the games of clowns
so down on the ground
I am fated to tumble
crestfallen in pollen
and fallen in vain.


IRISH GHOST 


I was
an Irish ghost, 
to be sheer,
     to be sheer,
          to be sheer.


Trapped in a
haunted sock
behind
the chopping block,
I writhed inside
my fabric tomb
and felt
the loom of doom
give room.


A snip! A rip!
A sideways slip.
I shook the lint
from my ghastly lips.
And I was free,
reckless, scary.


Now hear my chant,
you beer-filled host:
I am the grin
without the ghost.
This is no
time to sneer at things
I’ll fill your soul
with fears
that bring
the worst of comforts.


But first
drink up all your beer
while I propose
a toast
to myself, an Irish ghost
imprisoned
in a sock. My name?
The words you dread
the most.
Mr Midnight O’Clock.

From Public Domain

Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

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Categories
Poetry

Inflation of Memory

By Snigdha Agrawal

From Public Domain 
INFLATION OF MEMORY 

Yesterday…
Life seemed well-orchestrated;
I got my gas cylinder refilled
in three flat days,
I visited the doctor
without making an appointment,
I walked in and walked out
feeling confident.
The doctor hardly needed
an MRI or an ultrasound scan
to diagnose my ailment.
I earned dividend income
without paying tax on it.
Public Provident Fund
earned a high rate of interest.
And at no time were there shortages
of rice, lentils and onions,
Nor the price of tomatoes exorbitant.

Today…
In an astonishing volte-face,
Markets are down.
People are finding it hard
to make both ends meet.
The job market is as volatile,  
like shifting desert dunes,
unpredictable.
Yesterday’s positives erased,
leaving visible shavings of unrest.

Tomorrow…
Perhaps we’ll download hope in an update,
buffering between policy tweaks
and breaking news alerts
of meaningless wars being waged.
And, we’ll stand in queues again,
this time for optimism, subsidised, if eligible,
While experts will debate on prime-time panels
The new currency for international trade.

And I’ll look back at “yesterday”,
officially rebranded as a golden era,
wondering if it was ever real
or just a well-edited memory,
because in this grand economy of irony,
even nostalgia seems
to yield the desired returns.

Snigdha Agrawal (née Banerjee) is the author of five books and a lifelong lover of words, writing across genres. Based in Bangalore, writing and travelling continue to remain her lifelong passions.

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Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems

Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles

Categories
Poetry

In the Cinder by John Swain

Photograph Courtesy: John Swain
IN THE CINDER 

The violet sky suspends
wisteria in the eaves
of a marble cairn,
the roof floats in the lotus
toward the horizon,
we cup sun on the water,
the gathered flow of your robe
continues the light,
we jubilee on the riverbank,
we wear the mark of the reeds
in the cinder
of last year’s burning.

John Swain lives in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France. His most recent chapbook, The Daymark, was published by the Origami Poems Project.

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Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles