Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

Final Chapter in the History of Atonement

By Saranyan BV

Courtesy: Creative Commons
Imagine a situation, 

where Earth instructs the gravitational force

to stop wasting its energy 

holding together earthlings…

Earth is not God, 

yet it speaks against God’s own subjects.

The earthlings comprised of us -- 

we always come as primary --

then the animals, the flora 

-- the trees, plants the shrubs -- 

and the pale green cloud of fungus, 

the water, the seas, the oceans, 

the rivers, the lakes with or without bunds, 

dams, reservoirs, dead tree-trunks sprouting from under,

the loose sand, the tight sand, the clay, the quartz, rocks

tnd the angry embryo of core --

the magma, anything in that or any other order.



Imagine a situation,

where the gravitational force decides

to stop wasting energy…

We would all be flying -- away from one another,

trying to wrest air in our lungs, those of us living beings, 

try and find happiness for the left-over period of our life -- 

which is the primary purpose of everything,

of being alive, of breathing and of being. In that short time, 



we delight in listing our achievements,

listing them as pinnacles to the sun, 

to the moon and to that God, who has no ear for trivia,

and to God’s keeper of records,

who watches earthlings disintegrate. Some atone, atone and atone--

atoning for everything, in no particular order,

for the fear of truth behind some halfwits propounding

that death would place us at the crossroad,

between hell and paradise in which we no longer have a say.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Live and Let

By JM Huck

LIVE AND LET



Life doesn’t believe in magic dirt

Who settled what

Who was there first

Who makes or stakes a claim today



Life doesn’t believe in magic flags

The flying stars

The burning stripes

The cloths contained and held captive



What life does believe is music

A mother’s heart

A lover’s song

A lion’s breath to lullaby the madness

Judi Mae “JM” Huck is an arts administrator currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is the Clark County Poet Laureate coordinator and a teaching artist for both literary and visual arts. Follow her on Instagram @bandittrl. 

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon Internationa

Categories
Poetry

Poems by Ahmad Al-Khatat

GATES OF GRIEF WARMED


At thirty-four years old, I'm still experiencing psychic illness. 
Why are my grief warmed gates sealed, I wonder? 
Who made me miserable because I missed you, brother? 
I weep thirsty, but the clouds and the rain do not seem to be satisfied. 

From my depressed expression, the candle learns to cry. 
Your perfume teaches my depressed face to read poetry.   
Your fragrance learns to fade without getting in my way. 
My habits of smoking and consuming alcohol have caused 
damage to my throat. 

Using brutal chains of no mercy, accept me for who I am. 
I don't have the right to wish for dreams like the previous  
children that passed away. They passed away without leaving a  
name, having learned the meaning of both love and war. 
As though angels of God. 


GRADUATION PARTY  

Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad 
were three of my most powerful pals. 
They each had a flower in the vase and 
our enemy destroyed all the vases and  
stole all their flowers. 

I recall their parents having inscribed. 
their names on their two arms and legs. 
Just to be able to track them down after 
graduation party. We often forget about 
our assignments because of armed troops. 

"Evacuate, damn it!" they yelled at our door. 
Ignoring the agony of an empty stomach, 
Ignoring the stillness, Ignoring the absence 
of our grandfathers, who taught us to live 
and die for the soil and air of free Palestine. 

We buried our hopes behind the fig and olive. 
trees because we wanted to live, to love, 
and to be free of the vocabulary of callous 
conflicts that neglected mankind. 
Nonetheless, we are still magnificent bare trees.  

Together in the moonless night, 
we prayed then slept in peace until the graduation 
began to draw closer and closer with 
daggers in our hearts, bullets screeching towards 
our chests, missiles burst at the conclusion
of the party.

We were picked up by one of our parents. 
many hours later. Whether you believe it or not! 
We're all in the same bloody coffin. We wonder. 
whether when the people of the globe cease turning 
our reality the other way, they want to deafen both ears
and blind both eyes. 


UNTOLD HABITS 

During the present genocide, 
we learn of untold habits. 
My father comes home sad with 
an empty grocery bag, 
which is more than a routine. 

My mother often tells us to  
wash our hands and occasionally our bodies. 
She pretends to prepare, 
places our empty and shattered dishes, 
and then sobs alongside my father. 

Then we all say bismillah 
before we eat and Alhamdulillah's after 
we’ve finished licking our empty fingers. 
We then listen to my parents' prayers as  
we elevate to the skies.

Ahmad Al-Khatat is an Iraqi Canadian poet and writer. His poetry has been translated into other languages and his work has been published in print and online magazines abroad. He resides in Montreal, Canada, now with his spouse. 

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Tribes

By Ron Pickett

TRIBES


I’m distressed, dejected - in denial, 

I don’t see a way out.

Conflict, terrorism, wars.

Devastation, destruction, where homes once stood.

Winners – Losers – Neither - Both.

Tears and blood,

Blood and tears.

Peace, Love, Joy, Noel.

I see the signs,

I know what they mean.

I was an optimist.

I’m a depressed pessimist.

How did we get here?

How can we get out?

Peace, Love, Joy, Noel.

We are bright, curious, imaginative.

We are emotional, egocentric, entitled.

We form tribes. Tribes that we protect.

Tribes that protect us.

That is our past, our strength.

We fight other tribes, that is our future, our demise.

We are an endangered species.

Our only inescapable danger is us.

Tears and blood,

Blood and tears.

Peace, Love, Joy, Noel

Can’t we unite tribes to fight the common enemy?

Ron Pickett is a retired naval aviator with over 250 combat missions and 500 carrier landings. His 90-plus articles have appeared in numerous publications. He enjoys writing fiction and has published five books: Perfect Crimes – I Got Away with It, Discovering Roots, Getting Published, EMPATHS, and Sixty Odd Short Stories.

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

A Charade of Longing

By Urmi Chakravorty


The stockpile of melodies and memories 

of the love-drenched days I lost,

masquerades the choking, cherry-red landscape 

of my torrid heart.

Intertwined by a breadcrumb trail 

of desire and penitence, it gleams, 

varnished with a tawdry coat of worldly indulgence!



My fragile allegory of yesterday 

melds with the brittle rhetoric of today

and gossamer tomorrows. 

Together, they scoff at my callow youth,

and at the whorls of smoke 

rising from the ashes of my clipped wings

and broken dreams. 

A shot of black coffee, spilled on the edges, 

helps me splice and braid 

the frayed fibres of my soul’s fractured tapestry.

Urmi Chakravorty is a former educator and presently, a freelance writer and editor. She has been published by The Hindu, The Times of India, TMYS Reviews, Borderless Journal, Mean Pepper Vine, eShe, The Chakkar, Kitaab International and The Wise Owl, among others.

Urmi’s writings can be read here: http://www.wordsnverses.com

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Quaint Memories

By Ganesh Puthur

QUAINT MEMORIES



There are no droplets of 

Wine on my lips,

But the blood of poetry,

Dripping in darkness.



I am a desert which 

Was once an ocean;

Where I lie, hid treasure chests,

Deep inside the coral reef.



It is just me, you,

And an endless garden of daffodils.

How can spring not arrive

When butterflies hover 

Around the arms you raise

Towards that blue mountain?

Ganesh Puthur is a bilingual poet and a recipient of Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (Sahitya Akademi Youth Award). He is a native of Kerala. Email: ganeshputhurvkm@gmail.com.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Tusker Trail

By Mereena Eappen

Fanning the gigantic ears,
wandered the cold-black tusker Arikomban--             
the lonely, popular wild elephant of the South
entered the red-warm forest
--an escapade into the immense emerald entity.

Free of shouts and free of pomp now,
the tortured and broken giant shall never return to
the punitive world of the human race.
Fingerless nails and a long trunk are further                         
soil coated, but then again, he can sense
the transparency of woodlands.
Canopies one after the other
fantasise him and they are unlike
the human land of scorching roads.

Gone away from plastics and away from motor horns,
he may overhear simply the music of nature.                                
The sunbeams dance on the green grass and                      
Urge the chirping birds to welcome the new guest.
Many on crossing rails, many by electric fences,
and many more on hunting lost their lives,                          
but who upkeeps them anymore!                                          
"Dear Arikomban, please don’t come back 
to this merciless, dying artificial world,”                             
yelled the innocent natives of the busy world.

Mereena Eappen is a Ph.D. scholar from the English Department of St.Thomas College-Palai, India. Her poems are housed in The Alipore Post, Poet’s Choice and Madras Courier. She also does musings on life, photography and content writing.

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Avantika Vijay Singh

MELT AWAY THE BOUNDARIES

See not the blemished skin,

See not the greying hair,

See not the jangling bellies,

Judge not the external appearance

For they are merely illusions...

Where are the boundaries

that divide man from man

but in the shallow pans

of our minds?

What a colossal waste

are these judgements

that birth duality

when in reality

the universe knows only unity!



Melt away the barriers,

for nature knows no walls.

Melt into nature

to dance with the diversity 

in the exuberance of the universe’s

musical extravaganza.

Who can judge 

if a toucan's colours

Are any prettier than a flamingo's?

Or the smell of petrichor finer than aspens'?



Melt away the barriers of the mind.

For they are just illusions...

And find yourself

Lighter…

Released from the burden of judgement.

Find yourself

Floating like 

gold dust on sunbeams,

warm sunshine on a winter morning.

Avantika Vijay Singh is the author of Flowing…in the river of Life and Dancing Motes of Starlight.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Stuart McFarlane

BURNS LIGHT


A fame, so undoubtable,                                                                    a flame, unputoutable;                                                  where lesser lights faded,                                                                            their sentiments jaded,                                                                  his words still shone bright,                                                a timeless delight;                                                                      as, slow, the world turns                                                  so still Rabbie burns.


ONLY THE RAIN
                                             
So how are you?                                                                                                                                                   Nice to see you again.                                                                                  

“I know your face                                                                                                                    but can’t place the name”.

That sound you can hear? It’s                                                                                   only the rain. And how have we been?

“Oh, much the same.                                                                                                                The pills they give me                                                                                                          help dull the pain”.

I’m sorry I’m late.                                                                                                            I missed the first train.

“Whoever you are                                                                                                                     I’m glad that you came.                                                                                                           But that sound gets louder.                                                                                                          It beats in my brain.”

Don’t worry now. Sleep.                                                                                                             It’s only the rain.


UNTITLED

1

Now I am gone -- I wonder                                                                            was I ever really there?                                                                                             For a while I merely filled                                                                                               an empty space.                                                                                                          The empty space remains.                                                                                             And what was my life, after all?                                                                          Was there ever any substance?                                                                                   As, in water, my reflection                                                                                              briefly glimpsed,                                                                                                     then scattered by a sudden wind.                                                                              Now there’s only water,                                                                                                          as there was before.


2

Heaped high,                                                                                                                                     I helped myself,                                                                                                                       never noticed it was shrinking.                                                                             Nonchalant, I scooped                                                                                                 another spoonful of time;                                                                                                      even spilled a few grains.                                                                                                             I sense a dull sound                                                                                                                            of metal on ceramic,                                                                                                               for the bowl is empty now.

3

If tomorrow never comes                                                                               how come I keep meeting it?                                                             I know when it comes it’s today                                                          and, not long after, yesterday.                                                                             Time is like an airport carousel,                                                       an endless loop in perpetual motion,                                                      past, present and future,                                                                                                         all entwined, each moment returning                                                              to where it once began.


THE YEARS


I no longer believe                                                                                                  what once was true.                                                                                              Here’s what the years do.

My world has grown old,                                                                                         once it was new.                                                                                                     Here’s what the years do.

 I once had many friends,                                                                                                            now only a few.                                                                                                       Here’s what the years do.

I once knew the alphabet,                                                                                              all the way through.                                                                                               Here’s what the years do.

Now the sky’s black,                                                                                              once it was blue.                                                                                                  Here’s what the years do.

You say you know me                                                                                             but I don’t know you.                                                                                              Here’s what the years do.


 Treurende Oude Man (At Eternity’s Gate), 1890, by Vincent Vangogh (1853-1890). Courtesy: Creative Commons

 Stuart McFarlane is now semi-retired. He taught English for many years to asylum seekers in London. He has had poems published in a few online journals.                                                                                                                    

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International

Categories
Poetry

The L-o-s-t Bengal Project 

By Isha Sharma

The year is 1905

The tunes of Tagore’s Amar Sonar Bangla* flower in the streets of Bengal

Curzon calls the Partition to create a divide

However, ‘culture’ thrives 

As Muslims and Hindus, unite

 

The year is 1947

Bloodshed and madness pick up as 

Radcliffe creates new lines

People leave ‘homes’

To find new ones 

Violence slices humanity 

How could Bengal survive?

 

The year is 1965

Bengal has two sons, one -- West Bengal 

The second,  ‘East Pakistan’ 

As conflicts flare again, the memory of the lost home revives

Women adorning sarees sing the lyrics of that Rabindra Sangeet 

 

The year is 1971

Liberation calls are made

As women get raped

A new nation is born but the legacy of the past still prospers

 

A woman in Bangladesh teaches her daughter tunes of Tagore’s song written in 1905 --

Amar Sonar Bangla may have been lost but is it fully forgotten?

It still hums ...somewhere 



* The national anthem adopted by Bangladesh in 1971. It was written by Tagore to unite Bengalis together to oppose the 1905 Partition.

Isha Sharma is passionate about the process of translating emotions into verses. Her works, including articles and poems, have been published in Borderless Journal, Kitaab International, The Indian Literary Review, The Indian Periodical, The Indian Express, Indus Women Writing Newsletter, The Feminist Times, and The Tribune (Student Edition).

.

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

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

Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Kindle Amazon International