THE FOREST COMES BACK AFTER THE FIRE
I'm not the maple yet.
More of that tall pine from Norway.
or a fruit tree you wouldn't recognise
from your brief lessons in biology.
Already, in my branches,
fifty crows caw,
a thousand squirrels’ nest.
I face west where one dark lake
is my left hand;
and then east,
where a rocky escarpment
fills in for the fingers on my right.
My torso is, as yet,
a dark burnt patch
interrupted by a few green seedlings.
But soon enough
I'll boast a chest
A BOY THROWS ROCKS INTO THE LAKE
He'll never run out of rocks
and that lake is going nowhere.
And the splash is seductive, I expect.
It's not a loud noise but it's of his own making.
But, eventually, cold gray rock
won't be enough to satisfy his sense of touch.
And the lake will be such a lazy target.
Maybe he'll toss a leaf on the waters,
watch it float.
Or fish at its edge.
Or paddle a canoe into its center.
Or when he's old enough, he'll bring a girl here,
wrap his fingers around hers,
stare out at the glittering water together.
He'll hug her slim waist,
kiss her trembling lips.
The rocks won't move.
The surface won't ripple.
But the earth is a different story.
DARK OF THE DAY
When I learn to see,
the day will not be dark.
Maybe blue and green.
Like the blue and green of childhood.
When I had a voice.
And now I cannot speak any colour.
I can only write it down.
And when I learn to see,
the page will not be blank.
I will know what I have written.
Like when I had a mind
and I could understand it as well.
I can only feel the words
and there is no blue or green in them.
They are colourless.
When I learn to see,
there’ll be payback
of a florid kind.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. His latest books are Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself, available on Amazon.
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HAWK AND SPARROW
The hawk plunges.
I’m on the side
of the majestic, powerful hawk.
The sparrow reacts
with sudden panicked flight.
I’m on the side
of the tiny, defenseless sparrow.
The tussle in a nearby treetop
could mean the hawk snares the sparrow
or the sparrow eludes the hawk.
Whatever happens,
I win, I lose.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. His latest books are Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself, available on Amazon.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
In Conversation withRinki Roy(daughter of legendary director Bimal Roy) about The Oldest Love Story, an anthology on motherhood, edited and curated byjournalist and authors, Rinki Roy and Maithili Rao. Click here to read.
Achingliu Kamei in conversation with Veio Pou, author of Waiting for the Dust to Settle, a novel based on the ongoing conflicts in North-east India. Clickhereto read.
Translations
The Funeral, a satirical skit by Tagore, translated by Somdatta Mandal. Click here to read.
Pie in the Sky is a poem written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Click here to read.
Taal Gaachh or The Palmyra Tree, a lilting light poem by Tagore, has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Pandies’ Corner
This narrative is written by a youngster from the Nithari village who transcended childhood trauma and deprivation. Dhaani has been written in Hindi and translated to English by Kiran Mishra. Click here to read.
Keith Lyons discovers the import and export of desires in Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world, beside one of the most revered rivers. Click here to read.
Notes from Japan
In Marathon Blues, Suzanne Kamata talks of pandemic outcomes in Japan in a lighter tone. Click here to read.
Musings of a Copywriter
In Journey of an Ant, Devraj Singh Kalsi explores life from an insect’s perspective. Click here to read.
Mission Earth
In Tuning in to Nature, Kenny Peavy tells us how to interact with nature. Click here to read.
MOSQUITOES
They've flown
in squadrons
since before
airplanes.
And they've
been attracted
to human skin,
long in advance
of the first human romance.
Likewise,
they've sucked blood
for centuries,
with enough
dedication to the task
to put every vampire
in Romania to shame.
Does that mean
I respect them too much
to swat them?
No, just that
that the only good insect
is a dead antediluvian.
DAFFODILS
Massed daffodils in robust grass,
day after day – you know you’re safe.
For they bloom harmless,
but deep with longing for the sun and rain.
Always rise up at morning’s call,
white-petaled, yellow-bud kisses.
Yesterday, the same.
Twenty years ago, no different.
Soft wind croons, low voltage beauty,
seeing them now like seeing them in retrospect.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. His latest books are “Leaves On Pages”, “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself”, available on Amazon.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Sriniketan: Tagore’s “Life Work”: In Conversation with Professor Uma Das Gupta, Tagore scholar, author of A History of Sriniketan, where can be glimpsed what Tagore considered his ‘life’s work’ as an NGO smoothening divides between villagers and the educated. Click here to read.
Akbar: The Man who was King: In conversation with eminent journalist and author, Shazi Zaman, author of Akbar, A Novel of History. Click here to read.
Translations
One Day in the Fog, written by Jibananda Das and translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Mahnu, a poem by Atta Shad, translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click hereto read.
Eyes of the Python, a short story by S.Ramakrishnan, translated from Tamil by Dr.B.Chandramouli. Click here to read.
Raatri Eshe Jethay Meshe by Tagore has been translated from Bengali as Where the Night comes to Mingleby Mitali Chakravarty. Click hereto read.
Pandies’ Corner
These stories are written by youngsters from the Nithari village who transcended childhood trauma and deprivation. The column starts with a story, Stranger than Fiction from Sharad Kumar in Hindustani, translated to English by Grace M Sukanya. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta sings her own paean in which a chorus of voices across the world join her to pay a tribute to a legend called LataMangeshkar. Click here to read.
P Ravi Shankar takes us through a breakfast feast around the world. Click here to read.
Musings of a Copywriter
In Life without a Pet, Devraj Singh Kalsi gives a humorous take on why he does not keep a pet. Clickhere to read.
Notes from Japan
In Bridging Cultures through Music, author Suzanne Kamata introduces us to Masaki Nakagawa, a YouTuber who loves Lativia and has made it big, playing for the President of Lativia at the Japanese coronation. Click here to read.
A tribute by Keith Lyons to the first New Zealand Booker Prize winner, Keri Hulme, recalling his non-literary encounters with the sequestered author. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta writes of a time a palace called Bardhaman House became the centre of a unique tryst against cultural hegemony. The Language Movement of 1952 that started in Dhaka led to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised February 21 as the Mother Language Day. Click here to read.
The Observant Immigrant
In To Be or Not to Be, Candice Louisa Daquin takes a close look at death and suicide. Click here to read.
NIGHTFALL IN THE ROCKIES
Bedded down in darkness,
mountains, forests,
turn their back on me.
The scenery
has had enough
of my love.
REGARDING THE TICKET TAKER
He's paid minimum wage
to tear tickets in two,
drop one half in a bucket,
hand the other half back
to the customer.
A superhero movie
awaits you.
This guy's your last known
point of contact
with the real.
BRIGHT MIDNIGHT
June in Alaska
midnight sun
it's been a year
since today
last saw tomorrow
FIRST HIGH SCHOOL ROMANCE
your hand in mine
is a far cry
from the school lab
where together
we watched
sulphuric acid
eat away a beetle
THE HUMMINGBIRDS AT THE FEEDER
80 wing-beats a second
just to hover in place --
I’m at the window
watching –
I can’t even remember
the last time
I flapped my arms.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. His latest books, Leaves On Pages, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The Traveller in Time: An interview with Sybil Pretious who has lived through history in six countries and travelled to forty — she has participated in the first democratic elections in an apartheid-worn South Africa and is from a time when Rhodesia was the name for Zimbabwe. Click here to read.
A poem reflecting the state of Gandhi’s ideology written in Manipuri by Thangjam Ibopishak and translated from the Manipuri by Robin S Ngangom. Click here to read.
Written by Tagore in 1908,Amaar Nayano Bhulano Eledescribes early autumn when the festival of Durga Puja is celebrated. It has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Sameer Arshad Khatlani dwells on the tradition of education among Muslim women from early twentieth century, naming notables like Ismat Chughtai and Rashid Jahan. Click here to read.
John Herlihy takes us through more of Myanmar with his companion, Peter, in the third part of his travelogue through this land of mystic pagodas. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta, who has edited an encyclopaedia on culture and is a renowned arts journalist, gives us the role ‘kanthas’ (hand-embroidered mats, made of old rags) played in India’s freedom struggle. Click here to read.
GRANDPARENTS AT THE WEDDING
His hair is gray as tidelands,
combed where it can be,
while hers is pancake-shaped,
rinsed blue and black –
the past always keeps the young
waiting, goes button to button.
hem to hem, asks the mirror
for a favor – none granted –
rubs the red out of eyes,
the grave from cheeks,
in case the photographer
sets off an alarm – come
the hour, they’ll bury heads
in flowers, mutter “how beautiful” –
standard fare for weddings or funerals.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. His latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head, are available through Amazon.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
In conversation with Fakrul Alam, an eminent translator, critic and academic from Bangladesh who has lived through the inception of Bangladesh from East Bengal, translated not just the three greats of Bengal (Tagore, Nazrul, Jibanananda) but also multiple political leaders. Click here to read.
In conversation with Arindam Roy, the Founder and Editor-in-cheif of Different Truths, an online portal for social journalism with forty years of experience in media and major Indian newspapers. Click here to read
Akbar Barakzai’s poem, The Law of Nature, translated by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Kazi Nazrul Islam’s poem, Shammobadi(The Equaliser) translated by Shahriyer Hossain Shetu. Click here to read.
Tagore’sAmar Shonar Horin Chai(I want the Golden Deer) translated by Mitali Chakravarty, edited and interpreted in pastel by Sohana Manzoor. Click here to read.
To mark the birth centenary of Satyajit Ray, Ratnottama Sengupta translates fromNabendu Ghosh’s autobiography experience of Pather Panchali ( Song of the Road) — between covers and on screen. Click here to read.
Wendy Jones Nakanishi, an academic who started her life in a small town called Rolling Prairie in midwestern US, talks of her journey as a globe trotter — through Europe and Asia — and her response to Covid while living in UK. Click here to read.
‘Did life change or did I change from the events of the last year,’ ponders New Zealander Keith Lyons who was in the southern state of Kerala when the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in India last January. Click here to read.
An excerpt from Enter Stage Right by Feisal Alkazi with a visual of young Alkazi dancing in one of the earliest discos of New Delhi. Click here to read.
ORANGE
Holy scent
of after rain,
the sigh of breezes
in the canopy,
flowers unbowed
by gilded rainbow,
brisk tanager
chirps crimson in the mist.
Such birthright. Such bequest.
Fervour of daylight,
silky sheen of utter midday,
luminous dawn,
crisp with heaven's air,
twilight,
the second wind of fire.
Night falls.
I eat an orange,
cut in quarters,
slices of the sun.
THE TRAUMA THAT REMAINS
You’re terrified of fire.
I can see it in your eyes.
A roaring hearth before you.
You struggle to tamp it down with tears.
Your mother and sister
perished in a blaze,
caused by a faulty electric wire.
You were staying with friends at the time.
You’re also afraid of staying with friends.
You need to leave, go home to your empty apartment.
There’s no one there in need of saving.
At least, not until you get there.
THIS IS MY WORLD
The lake below the town
is a blue haze
in which two mute swans
glide back and forth like yellow-beaked sailboats.
The old fishing shack is half-smothered in moss.
An egret is shaking out its wings.
Light fades from the sky.
A chanting chorus of frogs
pulse the edge of day.
You can catch me at home later.
I’ll be listening to jazz.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. His latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head, are available through Amazon.
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Borderless 