The ring on the fourth finger Is supposed to tug at your heart strings. Initially, it served its purpose well. The day it slid into my life, The diamond dazzled in ecstasy, The metal danced in circles With every milestone we touched.
Over years, with dishwash and promises Running down the drain, The lack-lustre lonely thing, Trembling with the responsibility Of its most precious jewel, Disfigured the very throne it sat on. Growing stiff and refusing to budge. It dug into my soul for the flesh around it Began to swell and I writhed to fit my ring.
As I walk the shoreline now, My fingers thin and bare, The ring sitting uneasily In its box, Elliptically sulks at me. Not only has its noose tapered My ring-lady at the base, The flat oval of my stubby finger Has, for ever, Altered its rounded face.
Averi Saha is an academic, critic and translator. She teaches in a college in West Bengal and works on folk literature. She has published academic papers, translations and original poems.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Our friendship overcomes the distance between the balconies.
At first the extent seems long, gaping like the head of a ship-mast sailing beyond the horizon.
We could connect only with our eyes. We do not have access to each other.
Otherwise, she is companionable, very bubbly. She is petite,
I guess she feels lost being alone. She demands I remain in the balcony all the time.
And I would, a book of poems on my lap.
My neighbours often leave her alone,
go roaming, to play or to munch popcorns in movie malls,
She would express her stress by barking through the morning,
or whining the rest of the day. I learn not to be troubled by her tantrums.
She would jump with joy upon seeing me, let me know how happy she felt using the tail.
I never reason any other purpose for that appendage.
It makes me feel inadequate, the absence of it.
In that period of love we forge our clandestine kinship by panting like mountaineers doing high altitude trek.
I learn to return her love.
I would lean over the balustrade and pretend to hug.
She taught my eyes to ooze oxytocin, which she channels into her wide-eyed ardour.
And then her folks move away to another apartment, taking her along.
She is not aware of the plan to move, she has not been told, she goes without saying goodbye.
I still have the book on my lap, the book of poems, open and face down.
The silence is not adequate to replace the ligature of our bond
or to teach me how to bear her absence with quietude.
Saranyan BV is poet and short-story writer, now based out of Bangalore. He came into the realm of literature by mistake, but he loves being there. His works have been published in many Indian and Asian journals. He loves the works of Raymond Carver.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The Latest Gossip by Francois Brunery (1849-1926)Gossip by Charles Haigh Wood (1856-1927)
SATURDAY
Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, what do you think about Saturday? It’s flat.
The grey sky reminds us of traveling and in the wind the birds are eddying.
Dissatisfied, if you were somewhere else— Utopia—you would be hearing bells;
you would feel mellow in the fruitful sun, fulfilled, in the prime of life, having fun.
Such weather only comes to remind us through memories that it’s all behind us.
Should we take a newspaper to breakfast or will the headlines make us feel feckless
with their inane arbitrary redundance, offering war and scandal in abundance?
So lazy that pleasures are overkill, yet we can’t sleep all day, there’s time to fill,
and too many naps seems enervating as an option to the girl you’re dating.
Tennis is out, and games are not your thing; conversation doesn’t feel promising.
Exposed to Saturday’s mood of malaise, exhausted by the accumulated weekdays,
this hurry to be in Sunday’s milling crowds which move like corpses under viscous shrouds:
a great dull procession from Buenos Aires up to Texas and over to Paris
and back under the patio roof that is leaking, like a voyeur behind a Chinese screen peeking
at no one, like a bright flag that is furled, our banner of freedom: this Saturday world!
GOSSIPS
Just because I’m a coward doesn’t mean the gossips are right with their concrete notions but watch them build the trivial with such care, making complicated fine points woven into, of all things, knots, you guessed it, to secure. Bluntness is the only way to say to them they are inferior and that you are not a statistic. Yes, I am also thinking: why am I here? To be cold goes nowhere and so you are involved in the humid entanglement. The most horrible truth is when they are right and you are vulnerable that night, all because you have forgotten your comb.
THE SMILING MAN
The smiling man who straightened up when he noticed I saw him smiling.
“Well, I’m sorry I put that dour expression there on your face that’s so beguiling!”
And he said in a whisper so I couldn’t hear as he walked on down the mall:
“You didn’t put that dour expression there— don’t worry— it’s been there since I was small.”
When he told me that, I felt better and I sat thinking where I’d like to go. I thought for a moment I might follow him, an interesting man to know.
But I knew that he’d be out of sight by now
and I didn’t want to see him straightened up right, anyhow.
David Francis has produced six music albums, one of poetry, Always/Far: a chapbook of lyrics and drawings (Oilcan Press), Poems from Argentina (Kelsay Books), and New York Revery (Cyberwit.net). He has written and directed the films, Village Folksinger (2013) and Memory Journey (2018). He lives in New York.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The distance between us two has grown. The day starts and ends with our disapprovals. How long can we share a life lived in strife Where clouds of admonitions rain forever?
Nostalgia I cannot relinquish resides in me. She lives in me and I cannot leave her. The sounds of melancholy live in our eyes And they sing in quiet their songs of despair.
Love has gone on a journey oceans away. Roads Are quiet and silence reigns as our talks flounder. Holding hands and embraces are lost. Storms build up and are lost. That is our destiny.
The monsoon settles down now to stay longer And spring has shrunk to be as good as absent. Yet, in every ray of sun, I want to relive the spring. Not many more blossoms are left for me to live
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 has published over hundred poems in international literary journals.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Poppy Field (Monet interpretation) by Kateryna Sabudska (Ukraine), Saatchi Art. FRom Public Domain
THE LONG JOURNEY
A journey no one else can join A long journey my mother has taken alone
In this place where I lived with my mother Standing alone in the wind-blown world I look at the long, distant path Where my mother has gone
Even if the angels in heaven Wipe away my mother's tears And offer her a bouquet of flowers
Without her son, her daughter-in-law Without her granddaughters, How lonely must my mother be!
Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
I know the site of that hidden mind It is sidling and empty, a farcical bent Sliding up the clock. I ride minds behind The towers, the towering wheel and flowers Dropped in a vase of the heroine's smile.
My hypnotic illusion is not cowed. Aligning my head, the skies, the one Bay of the evening chorus, above The serviette of gears I make my single Shimmering of hand into hand. The Sun moves below the eye, a Beautiful rivering Of a beautiful consternation.
Resentful of the world, the underglassed Tauntening of jade, the mind Tightens its grip on the reprobate And moves sloanes out to sea. Most beautiful is the singlet, the Wondrous land of films and spheres;
Next, the spider spinning Its gossamer voyage of praise. The eye is unperfected; lies Days deep beneath the dial. I Kiss my girl, yet here the sense is no-one's, nobody's, vile.
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.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
In the quiet of dawn, she began her day, Sweeping, scrubbing, tending each corner, A dance of broom and cloth, a silent ballet, Her hands, the maestros of order.
Dusting off shelves, arranging each shelf, Her heart a temple, her home a shrine, In the quiet solitude, she found herself, In the rhythm of chores, a sacred design.
With care she sought, a deity divine, From the hands of a sculptor, skilled and sure, An idol of lord, a treasure to enshrine, In the sanctum of her humble abode, so pure.
But fate’s cruel twist, on that auspicious day, As she readied to place the lord with grace, Her body whispered secrets, in crimson array, A visitor unwelcome, yet she embraced.
Yet voices arose, from the depths of fear, Whispers of impurity, staining the air, “Leave, you’re unclean,” they cried, severe, Her heart shattered, in silent despair.
Alone she stood, in the shadow’s embrace, Her temple forsaken, her offerings denied, Yet in her solitude, she found her grace, A goddess in her own right, undenied.
For purity lies not in a drop of red, But in the spirit that perseveres and endures, She, the keeper of hearth, in the dance she led, A woman, a goddess, forever pure.
Surbhi Sharma is a research scholar at Himachal Pradesh University. She has poetry in The Criterion, Muse India, Literary Voice and Polis magazine and many more platforms.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
It’s dark out as the cat takes up residence on the sill of a wide open window. The sparrows in the trees outside don’t notice him or, more likely, just don’t care having established that he’s a house cat, too domesticated, too set in his ways, too lazy to chase prey. But then the cat yawns and the sun rises. So he’s still powerful in that respect. POINT REYES
Early May, the waystation mudflats are inundated with sandpipers, godwits and a squabble of long-billed dowitchers, all Arctic bound.
Grebe flocks wheel relentlessly over the ponds before settling, as one, to feast.
Inland, small herds of deer and tule elk feed.
Cliffs provide a rookery for heron and their pine-tops are full of screeching young.
Here, life is a quirk of its own clear fate. Its joy is not to dabble but sustain.
A GARDEN IN SNOW
Brushing away snow, she uncovers the stone dog. And its hare companion, solid, steadfast, despite the bitterness of winter.
Only the garden succumbs to the heartless weather: sunflowers slaughtered, dahlias defeated, tulips trampled, rose-bushes ripped raw. If there’s any fight left in them, it eludes her gloved fingers.
Early March, and it’s like looking in on children. Some are still robust. Most are memories.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. His latest books are Between Two Fires, Covert and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Who would have thought it’s possible To undo centuries of traditions Trapped and shaped by norms galore?
On New Year Days, we wear black — Really — it’s the fashion these days! Even the Communists prefer black — Ditching the red to history’s dustbins!
Tough lessons History teaches, So we can make better judgments. Alas the mind resists and rejects Revisions which suggest undermining.
How weak our wills and our resolves!
I’M THE GOOD SHEPHERD
I bring you glory and a new life- History written in the Lamb’s blood And the Future assured in Love.
We hear and try to fathom meanings Written in blood — cold and hot, Alas, no revelations on the horizons And no blessings either in the making.
And so we toil and wait, Toil and wait for a new world, Where waiting will be no more And promises delivered on call—
Such, such shall be the Arrival Of a fresh understanding, Of what it means to be human, To know flesh and blood and the Soul’s search for a new heaven, And a new earth brimming, Sealing centuries of waiting, Fulfilling expectations of yore, Making past and present and future In a miracle beyond reckoning. This will come to pass as we sleep…
Kirpal Singh is a poet and a literary critic from Singapore. An internationally recognised scholar, Singh has won research awards and grants from local and foreign universities. He was one of the founding members of the Centre for Research in New Literatures, Flinders University, Australia in 1977; the first Asian director for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1993 and 1994, and chairman of the Singapore Writers’ Festival in the 1990s. He retired the Director of the Wee Kim Wee Centre.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Chasing a moment in time, Running against the changing clime, Pursuit of a desire in life, On the path of a worthy strife,
Listening to my mother, Learning how she goes over and moves further, Searching for a path through the night, Seeking redemption’s light,
Walking out of each day’s shadow, Hope tells me to look out of the gloomy window. Buoyed by the benevolent elements of nature, I bask in the Creator’s favour.
Every time I see a new way, Monsters stealthily walk into that day. I’m a conundrum of light and gloom, It’s like an eternity in this room.
Thompson Emate spends his leisure time on creative writing. He has a deep love for nature and the arts. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Borderless 