Category: Poetry

Categories
Poetry

The Maiden and Death

By Elizabeth Ip

THE MAIDEN AND DEATH

These days I tire easily.
When I rise to follow out the light,
Death uncurls slowly in my shadow,
tiger-toeing from his armchair to my bedroom.
Tenderly he hushes the deathbed negotiations of a weakening sun,
and when it is done, he shoulders open the door,
and comes to me where I already rest, framed in white. And that
is when we talk. For three years I have medicated on this,
put myself to sleep with a shadow at my feet.
And I want to tell you,
       did you know I come back from the underworld every night? -
              and find I cannot. No words come to mind
but the painting of your lips I once made,
your mouth modelled the moment it had just taken its pleasure in me;
beautiful, but very blue. If not that,
then the sculpture of my heart, cast in the horrible knowledge
that one day, your brow will cool and not from sweat.
I am so sure you would not have wanted to know. Or
would you? That I have seen your mortality
and moved my hands in it. That this is an unwilling medium
through which you talk to your ghost.
That I told Death about you,
and we agreed that you are beautiful,
just in different colours.

I hope you’ll stay long enough for me to bring a cat home.
He’ll be black. At night, he will stay at our feet.
And this time we won’t say anything
but we’ll know that you’re beautiful.

Elizabeth Ip’s works have been published in the Atelier of Healing and Eye on the World anthologies. When not writing, the pen in her hand is usually replaced by her viola.

.

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

Categories
Poetry

The Self I Adorn

By Alpana

The self I adorn is the self, draped in a saree,
prim and proper.
well pleated,
pinned,
yet flowy.

The self I adorn is the self, carrying a book,
a book about hope
or a book about sunshine.

The self I adorn is the self, tiptoeing,
but with poise.
Why tiptoe, you ask?

Because the baby is in deep slumber,
dreaming of ships, the moon and the barnyard mother tells her about.

The self I adorn is the self, indulged in parenting,
calm and slow,
taxing but full of content.

The self I adorn is the self, living to the full,
not everyday, but trying every moment!

Alpana teaches in a government college of Gurugram, Haryana. If not responding to her babbling toddler and her curious gestures, she finds herself occupied with reading haikus and listening to Urdu poetry.  

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

Categories
Poetry

The Franks Were French Long Before They Ever Became Hotdogs

By Ryan Quinn Flanagan

THE FRANKS WERE FRENCH LONG BEFORE THEY EVER BECAME HOTDOGS


Tiara Morgan barbecues in the crew cut grass line burbs.  A semi-circle of rosy-cheeked beer garden parents and a tiny splash pool for the shrieking ecstatic kiddies.  Attention seeking progeny and some matted little rescue dog living out its days of swaddled butt-sniffing glory.  As the buns come out, the smoke from grandpas fiery holy grill.  The Franks were French long before they ever became hotdogs, did you know that?  Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!  The hamburger crowd could care less and all those tiny Orange Crush faces hugging droopy sunflowers in buzzing yellow-belted back gardens.  The roof retiled and the floors just redone.  There is a tour for the wives lost to marriage.  And animated refills bringing out the paper plates.  A condiment-rich table for the snotty rug rats.  On these long summer days that smell thrice as good as they ever look.  Not a cloud in the passing service station sky.  Everyone laughing and young as they will ever be again.

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 The Oklahoma Review. 

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Thinking of My Friend

By George Freek

THINKING OF MY FRIEND 
(After Chu Hsi)

A breeze rustles the leaves
at the edge of the bay.
The moon and the stars make
night almost as clear as day.
On the lake a loon calls,
from very far away.
The lake is a calm desert.
But tonight a strong wind
will blow. Waves will beat
like furious fists against
the rocks. I feel this anger
is more real than the calm.
It’s nature’s realm.
My friend says we must 
look for the good.
I find it hard to believe.
Forgive me, my friend.
I watch a worm,
stranded in the grass,
struggling in agony,
until it finally reaches
its predetermined end.
I leave it alone,
and walk carefully home.
Chu Hsi or Zhu Xi (1130-1200) Song Dynasty philosopher
Chu Hsi’s Memorial Temple at Wuxi
Courtesy: Creative Commons

George Freek’s poetry has recently appeared in The Ottawa Arts Review, Acumen, The Lake, The Whimsical Poet, Triggerfish and Torrid Literature.

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri

Shantanu Ray-Chaudhuri
POEM
 
A poem beckons
      in dawn’s distant glow
across the sea.

Can you teach me
       how to walk on water?
You have all the answers.

Or is it too late in the day,
          or has the day fractured
even before it has begun?
 
But I must walk
       if only to drown.
Surely, it is never too late

to lose all your bearings
        in the quest for silence
at the poem’s heart.
 

 
FUGITIVE
 
In these anonymous lanes
I look for the lost tree of my childhood
 
now buried deep in night’s dark soul.
The city lights are myths
 
that mask the impossible longings
of my fugitive heart.
 


WORDS

These words, forever elusive
calling from a future crossroad
have led me to this dream.
 
Tiptoe into my sleep
this one sleepless night
and retrieve them for me.
 
Only if caressed by you
will they come home.
Only if born of you
 
will they find meaning.
Only then will a poem
walk out and breathe.
 
MUSINGS AT DUSK
 
Can you tell me why it feels like something has just ended? And yet in the end, is a beginning? In the moving on, a return? Why has one wanted to traverse miles of open spaces today? And why has one stayed rooted at one place, enclosed inside four walls of this room? Why has one wanted to spread one’s arms and embrace the world? And why has one buried one’s face in the pillow and shied away? Why was dawn so heady and at peace with itself? And why has the day born of it felt like a stranger? Why has dusk approached with this breathtaking suddenness, as if wanting an end? And why then has it paused, hesitant, contented itself with an ellipse … Why does it feel as if I am being written somewhere? And yet an essence has been blotted in unwept tears? Why does it feel like someone has called my name again and again? And yet, all day, I have been privy to the silence of mountains in the winter?

Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer. Books commissioned and edited by him have won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema twice and the inaugural MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Award for Best Writing on Cinema. In 2017, he was named Editor of the Year by the apex publishing body, Publishing Next. He has contributed to a number of magazines and websites like The Daily Eye, Cinemaazi, Film Companion, The Wire, Outlook, The Taj, and others. He is the author of two books: Whims – A Book of Poems (published by Writers Workshop) and Icons from Bollywood (published by Penguin/Puffin).

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Sunday Morning with My Daughter

Poetry By Abin Chakraborty

SUNDAY MORNING WITH MY DAUGHTER

I'm halted by leaves
That flow through the streets 
With dry brown banners on high.

They chant their slogans of expired dreams
And sing to the tunes of decay and dross
With posters of others' bright claims.

Drained, I trudge and balance my books 
And sink within sofa and sloth.

But suddenly she bursts with laughter and light
And tramples my checklist of loss with her dreams
That range from the towers of wizards and kings
To spaceships in canyons of Mars.

I jump on her broom and fly
And bin all my "items not found".

LAYERS OF GREY

At times the days are all blurred.
Calendar and clock, melt into shapes
Of one grey blob
Sprinkled with fleets of yellow fallen leaves
Which sweep like ghazals of long buried loves
Here, along asphalted planes.

Slowly and slowly, they creep into my veins
And drain all the pigments through pores.
So, I flap and fumble in frustrating files
And fiddle with the fables of fate.

Of course, it's not always such.
There are bursts of crimson and Cobalt and mauve
That light up the dark of dog-eared days
With splashes and patterns of light.

But all seems distant and loose.
I flutter and rattle like windows unhinged
Or knobs that are no longer in groove.

Only in mists of grey, pallid strokes
My pages of misshapen woollens are laid
Like hoardings of outdated ads.

I cuddle and smear their shades
And grizzle into layers of grey.

Abin Chakraborty teaches English Literature in Chandernagore College and his poems have been published in different magazines. A collection of his poems, Unlettered Longings, has recently been published by Ukiyoto Publishing.

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Entwined Places

By S Srinivasan

Artwork by Gita Viswanath
ENTWINED PLACES

Standing on the Juhu beach,
I heard, more than a decade ago, 
The winds from the Marina, 
In a smattering of Marathi and Tamil,
Accompanying birdsongs.

Blame that on a bout of homesickness
But what about last year, when

The Sealdah station, its turf
Pounded by the waves of human feet,
Seemed to me to reverberate 
With the weighty steps of the rush hour, 
Also felt in Mylapore and Nariman Point?

Perhaps, the crowds stirred me then
But that cannot be all, for

Often on cool Hyderabadi afternoons,
I have worn, in silence, the unease
Of Bangalore's woolen evenings;
And sensed in Delhi's nippy nights
The cold grip of other Indian winters...

Extremes sometimes addle the brain
And lull the heart, but…

Even when I take a leisurely stroll
On a summer dusk, around the lake
That girdles my neck of the woods,
I am greeted by the lush sights, of
The long winding ways yonder...

To Darjeeling and Kodaikkanal,
To Yercaud and Dehradun,
To Kashmir and Kanyakumari,
And to all that lies beyond.

Srinivas S teaches English at the Rishi Valley School, India. He spends his free time taking long walks, watching cricket and writing poetry in short-form (mostly haiku).

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Poetry by Tohm Bakelas

Courtesy: Creative Commons
untitled poem

under a blanket of wet leaves
i set fire to the night. crickets are
silent as the highway sings
sad songs. sleep offers no relief.
the night burns into morning. clouds
upon clouds upon clouds upon
clouds block out the sun, a white sky
with no breakthrough. i watch you
step out of your car like i do every day.
today is different, yet somehow the
same, like a weird déjà vu, but your
hair is shorter, when it was longer.

Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. His poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He has published 15 chapbooks and 2 collections. He runs Between Shadows Press.  

.

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

Categories
Poetry

Masquerade

By Sudakshina Kashyap

MASQUERADE

My body is an unmapped ocean
and I'm drowning,
constantly sinking
in the band-aids of fluidity.
You see, 
depression vivisects
every stanza of the anatomy of poetry, turning me into a lullaby
whose verses are unable
to find the chords of my breaths;
for I am blackout poetry, 
a tragedy 
masquerading as an art.

Sudakshina Kashyap identifies herself as someone messy, who often had pixie cuts as a child to annoy her neighbourhood aunties, and now she gets lost even on straight roads— but being messy is only poetic. Her works have appeared on a number of literary journals, media houses, print and e-magazines. She’s an International Youth Delegate from India and a Co-Author of two poetry anthologies.

.

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

Categories
Poetry

The Village Remembers Devotion

By Amritendu Ghosal

           THE VILLAGE REMEMBERS DEVOTION

             An unhooked summer evening
    A few shops bob atop the bubbles of drowsiness
               The lanes are dim
         The seventy-year-old grocery man
           Opens a steel can of ghee
      For his friend --The cream is good
               Homemade-- he says.

       His friend in grey trousers and a white shirt
               Buys two cigarettes,
                a box of matches
        and a five-rupee pack of butter biscuits.

        My heart pings to the sky and pongs back
      Who would suspect that the world was on fire?
        The stars while away a few more minutes
            Smoking in the back alley
      Before broadcasting intergalactic lessons
           On space, time and proportion.

                Night descends
         The cows are back in the shed
    I hear, floating in with the western breeze
  Kirtan songs from the temple at the top of the hill
      Where they say Vishnu had set his foot
   So long ago nobody could tell exactly how long.
  The sweet cymbals mingle with the resonant dhol
         The eternal rhythm keeps playing
      The children fall asleep in the village.

Amritendu Ghosal works as an Assistant Professor in Department of English at Anugrah Memorial College, Gaya. He has completed his doctoral research from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and has worked as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. His poems have appeared in Ucity Review, Mad Swirl, Visions, Shot Glass Journal, The Tipton Poetry Review, The Sunflower Collective etc.

.

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