The July 2014 Issue of IJML
I received my copy of the July 2014 issue of the International Journal on Multicultural Literature today.
The journal is published biannually in a book form by Prof K.V. Dominic from Kerela. It brings together diverse poets, writers and academicians from all over the world. It's delightful to read so many voices expressing themselves through articles, short stories and poetry.
This issue carries three of my poems which I am posting here for my readers.
I must make a mention of Anisha Ghosh's poem -Anonymous in the same issue. Loved it!
POEMS
We Become a Destination
In a magical corner of air
A cello plays sacredly.
My heart tumbles into your sagacious posture,
Turns into a capering contour for your fingers,
Begs for the uneven geometry of your craggy words
As it watches you unfold ancient parchments in your eyes
Relaxed white walls
Shift between my left and right brain hemispheres
Show me a kaleidoscope of a million rosy moments
Knitted into a single future.
Music bows into this enamored opera of love
Rains swing into this diaphanous rhapsody
Sheer and sweet like curtains
When we gaze at each other,
Through all the bitter lessons waiting to be learnt,
We fall into a dream.
We float like wisps of feathery seeds into each other's throats
Slip into gulps of immortal love.
Time less, journey less, route less,
We cease to traverse. We become a destination
*********
Alloy Ink
This ink
Dark with desires
Old with knowledge
Older with thirsts
Incendiary yet apologetic
Inciting yet comforting
When I write
The ink becomes
As cleansing as water
One fine day in history
It hardens, becomes tensile like steel
Coagulating feelings into
A frozen crystal lattice, defying time
Blistering souls
Forging truths
About why things are the way they are
In the crucible of life
*********
My name, a boat
My name is a boat
Porting my courage
To the pure waters
Of your voice
Say it
Break my name between your teeth
Taste it with your tongue
The way you would taste a fruit
Or sip wine
Savor the breaking bedrocks of its syllables
The furrowed alluvium of its earth
Smeared and shiny with too much walking
With too few pauses
Floating into eternity
on the sails of your lips
Docked in the anchor of your throat
Only to bob again in the water of your eyes
When you rise next morning...or the next
My name is a boat moored between your own
*********
Abandoned in Old Age
The grime and garbage on the streets
Are his focus points
Things he wakes up to every morning
Tortured by his aching joints
The street air has little in it
To give to his poor lungs
Oxygen is not an option
Here on life's lowest rungs
His clothes are baggy
Tattered and torn
The same he wore
When he was thrown out of 'home'
Only his tears are fresh
Refreshed everyday
When he assesses the cruelty
Of being abandoned this way
He relies on whatever he can find
Bits of leftover pizza and bread
Thrown away waste
Have become sustenance instead
I catch his eyes at a traffic signal
See in his eyes, the clarity of pain
Wan lips, pale cheeks, gauntness
That he tries to conceal, in vain
The rudder of life sometimes
doesn't steer very right
Man depends on his children
But children are indifferent to elders' plight
Old age and loneliness
Go hand in hand
When life deepens and ripens
Ironically, all joys disband
The pain of this reality
Haunts like a ghost
Why loved ones abandon us
When we need them the most
We're living inside deaf walls
Where no sensitivity permeates
Compassion is dead
We've forgotten how to tolerate
Demeaning those
From whose seed and womb we are born
Ceding the flowers
And clinging to the thorns
*********
Posting a new poem today...21st July 2014.
Thinking Skin
I have thinking skin, made of indus mud, opium and autumn rain
It's used to kneading seconds to minutes, minutes to hours
Like sand inside the walls of an hourglass
But today for some reason
It's thinking of alpine roads, cool mountains
and Kestrels fluttering rapidly like hearts
My skin has thoughts in every pore
it thinks of taking chances with stray pockets of breath
and runnels of a soft, whispered language
It disintegrates like a picture puzzle when you look at me
Bunting goosebumps on the winds
Like little pontoons keeping love afloat; skin to skin, hand to hand
I have thinking skin and it wonders why we
cannot burst forth with mirth, like humble Euphorbia seeds
and pollinate our love with joy
*********
Fall Issue of Pea River Journal
Can't wait to read the Fall issue of Pea River Journal themed around 'The Burden of Home'. It also has one of my poems in it, titled The Summer We Called Home.
http://peariverjournal.com/2014/07/18/the-fall-2014-issue-contributors/
Clothes Pegs - Open Road Review
The poetry section of this fine journal is edited by Vaughan Gunson, all the way from NewZealand. My poem Clothes Pegs was selected for the May 2014 issue. Sorry for posting this a bit late here on the site. Nevertheless, here's the link:
http://www.openroadreview.in/clothes-pegs-vinita-agrawal/
Home
This was published in The Brown Boat, a Raedleaf Journal:
http://rlpoetry.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/The-Brown-Boat.pdf
Home
Homes have no walls
no rooms, no furn
iture, no thresholds
Nothing through which you might enter
and nothing from which you might want to exit
Because homes are not houses
Homes are built in the eyes
Erected by naked, hungry hearts
In skies, in dew drops, lichen, mosses,
Sometimes on parched, parted lips
Sometimes inside the darkening irises of your eyes
Homes are tender assembles of empty air
Sorted by the linear breaths you lend to me;
Built for unborn little feet to run
And for smiles to sun themselves on broad porticos
My home is in the centre of your palms
Sunk in the wells of your destiny
That you carry like a liquid in your eyes
Or like an abode in your hand, my very own delta
Between the nine mounds of the universe
*********
Day 26 : Ekphrastic Poem - a poem inspired by a photo
Day 17
Almost thought I wouldn't get the mental space to write today what with so much going on with the hacked email account and countless well wishers calling in.
But finally I did.
Today I.e. Day 17 prompt was to write a poem about at least three of the five senses.
Feeling It
The call of the cuckoo bird
Like a deft crochet needle
Diving into sound
Knitting laces of octaves
Moss on cliffs
Arching it's back in abandon
Craggy chins velcroed to emerald cheeks
Grey aching silently beneath the brilliant velvet
Wise, aged tree barks
Stenciled in warm brown and crimped tan
Resin, sap, nectar running in rivulets
Filling tiny creeks of wood like tears filling eyes
Sensations run from nature's spigot
I hear them, feel them, see them
In my knuckles reaching out to them
Even as I parcel them in my lungs for next life
*********
Another review of my book on boloji.com
Mamta Agrawal is a force to reckon with, when it comes to reviewing Literary books. I have read many reviews by her in the past but have to say that she has excelled herself in the review currently posted on boloji. And the fact that this time the book is my own, is purely incidental. Her review has depth that comes from a broadly read mind, it has that extra quality that comes from a exquisitely sensitive soul and the comprehensiveness born from a thorough reading of the material being reviewed.
I'm truly Honoured to have my book so diligently reviewed by Mamta.
Here's the link to the review:
http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Mobile&sd=Articles&ArticleID=15813
Two poems published in The Brown Boat by Raedleaf Poetry India
Linda Ashok is a fine editor and so I was delighted to find my poems in the newly launched journal The Brown Boat, which Linda edits.
Here's the link:
http://rlpoetry.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/The-Brown-Boat.pdf
The only thing is that you will have to scroll down considerably to reach my poems because the poets are showcased alphabetically.
Nice cover!
