Packing

 

I think of packing myself into a tiny bag of breathing air,

and placing me in your lungs as an alveoli,

as you begin packing your sweater for the cold of that country,

Let me be there in you till you sense an Indian chai somewhere in the corner

pouring warmth and comfort out of its vessels to yours.

Paddler Press Vol 3

Banana fritters

 A layer of smooth yellow lump-free batter, 

I coat over the banana slice, 

that wriggles free of my hand into the bowl, 

like a fish sliming to its aquatic home. 

And my memory sparks, with its dive, 

echoing our little conversation of -

how you loved your grandmother’s banana fritters.

Paddler Press Vol 3

Rate the Call

After you hung up the call,

whatsapp asks me to rate our call.


Genuinely, I wanted to give a single star

For the poor communication we had;

https://www.gulmohurquarterly.com/poetry/rate-the-call-joanna-george-issue-04

Power Cuts

 

It’s eleven p.m as we pause, our video-call for a rest,

the power will be severed in your place

for about an hour – a ritual these days you say;

for the people of your village to walk on their terrace,

counting the stars and acknowledge the changing climate........

https://www.wordsandwhispers.org/home/power-cut

Tubers (For Joe)

 

My friend from the city, calls to warn, 

to not serve him boiled tapiocas when he comes home. 

Yes, I agree cassava cannot be an item of lavish taste, 

but I wonder who could say no, 

to those lovely tubers shaken freshly from earth, 

with the dampness of life still sticking to its sides 

like a cloak and the smell of rain, 

the nascent of mountain rains holding in them, 

as if it has stocked all the monsoons for this sudden introduction to light.

https://danielle-adams.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Sunshine-Review-Issue-3.pdf

Ode to Peach Fuzz

O Guardians of my sinned sin!
Like a permanent tattoo of rain,
you have streaked boundaries on my face...........

https://www.westtrestlereview.com/west_trestle_joanna-george.html

The Pulse Fritters

I combine the cooked green gram

and shreds of coconut

in hot syrup of jaggery to form small pulse balls.

They blend easily, uniformly,

reminding me, the way we were made to eat pills,

by dissolving in flavored syrups –

strawberry or honey or sugar

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LOUQyxNDoEK5M5hNAlUbT1faEvXXg_4X/view

Love Letters

 

Most of those evenings after school, I am welcomed home

with her regular snack

these thin dosas, wheat or maida, based on costs;

a mixture of jaggery and coconut stuffed inside,

and their corners ritualistically folded to an envelope;

concealing the content inside from the world outside to a scroll,

or a flattened square, from the pan to plate......

https://rhodoramagazine.in/

An Evening at the Marina Beach

Behind the bleak silhouetted-

line of shops on the beach road of Chennai;

the sun launched its descent,

her true colors leaking behind the landscape,

enticing every artist’s strolling soul,

capturing their wandering feet of desire under her spell.

The warmth stays still,

mesmerized by the tangerine sun

making its way into frames and pages

filling every blanks the color of a faded henna stain.....

https://rhodoramagazine.in/

An Ode to Southern Railways Tea

An ode to the drink we share, I write;
No, not the Starbucks 100 rupee coffee, we never drank
Nor for the bitter CCDs we chose, I write this ode.
But, to that five rupee tea,
on every station of the railway track, you find.........

https://literaryjournal.in/index.php/clri/article/view/386/907

Distance

                         Pic Courtesy : http://www.flickr.com/photos/joel_r/8538713642/lightbox/

You might wonder, why I keep writing you poems 

Day after day,

one after the other.

A belief, word by word,

a sentence would travel the miles,

Unraveling a message of love.............

https://troumagazine.com/2020/08/11/distance-by-j-george/

Letters to You

               Image Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47039528@N08/5316903185/


I want to write a hundred plus one letters for you to carry with, as you fly, the other month after the sun rises taking away this lock down and replenishing hope in every country I want you to take these breathings of mine along with you, in case you miss my night cream fragrance of comfrey and niacinamide tickling your nostrils, in case you miss.......

https://issuu.com/humankindzine/docs/issue_one_-_vulnerbility-compressed_compressed_com/100

Video Call

                             PC : http://conflictingheart.tumblr.com/image/46078469794

But, here we are,

exchanging love and words in Morse codes

via smiles and blinks, owing to this poor network,

that swings itself to death, 

with every wind that passes my home,

flushing the bougainvilleas and their

leaves to the floor for me to sweep.

https://issuu.com/initialjournal/docs/the_initial_journal_august_2020 page 6

Heredity

                                  pc : https://www.artandcommerce.com/artists/photographers/Richard-Burbridge/Portraits

 

The way a cracker fires up to the sky, and then blooms into scattered pieces of joy;

Like sprinkling water, is exactly how my father’s hand moves in hopelessness.

He raises his hands upwards, a little higher slowly,

and then throws his fingers from its closed bud, to the air opening up,

“Ohh…Onnulla” (Oh! Nothing) ,...

https://borderlessjournal.com/2020/07/14/heredity/

Pencil Shavings

                           pc : http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/75074331762/zoom-hyper-realism-of-romulo-celdran

Every evening I find the shavings of your eye brow pencil

near the dressing mirror,

along with some talcum on the floor;

Like tiny pleated skirts of dancers on white snow, they stay.

The sharpenings of your pencil, for darkening your eyebrows.

Shreds of oiled skins from frequent touching shed down,

for some newer beginnings with sharper goals.

Each evening before you, your pencil is ready

with the blunt past chiseled and the rawness of the moment ready,

like mother, every day before you with a cup of coffee,

brimming with hope, I believe.

And your willingness to change papa, I see,

you shove the pencil into the darkest spot of the shelf,

after shading those lines to thick eyebrows – a perfect illusion.

http://www.literaryshanghai.com/jgeorge-pencil-shavings/

On Fire

I call Eli Eli repeatedly from morning till night, my phone’s auto-correct changes her name to Elijah and so, like Christ on crucifix, I call out her name, my last hope, calling my sister for having food, I hear my father’s feet missing the floor like magnetic repulsion, a rebellious act from the floor, a shout-out, no more tolerant, these flames burning our little glass house; the fire has been eating our bricks, one by one since long and we learnt to live around it tending to the burns, making us more of christians forgiving for a living, a vengeance in disguise, the fire initiated by alcohol and a spark from kitchen, sometimes it’s someone switching on the light to cover up the darkness forgetting that there has been a gas leak, ever since alive, I wonder who named it love, their marriage; Ah! No. No, I don’t expect a miracle, to magically change the wine to water and save our lives, maybe it will rain with thunder and hurricanes, sirens to rehabilitation centers; how we have locked ourselves in this four walls calling it a home, despite being nailed to this crucifix, it’s April the summer colors have tanned the bougainvilleas pinned to hanging pots decorating this broken home like roses on the Easter crucifix where Jesus forget to resurrect and slept on for years, maybe it will rain and the flames will stop eating us, before it consumes us whole, while alive like a pyre.

https://llumierereview.wordpress.com/issue01/

Crocheting

On crocheting a happy content life, I could teach you Dear Chere,

you start first with the slip knot, yarns and hooks no procrastination!

Ah!  the patience and time would roll in,

chain many, the happy memories row after row

for that strong base, we need.

Skip the major vapid ones, for that unique design,

double and treble crochet the moments of unplanned memory bringing joy

stitch through the vapid skip, mending the pain, stitch through

swapping colours and adding more yarn of love.

Keep going the callow in a canto,

to crochet a happy content life, bejewel all journeys of fright and might,

and finish by tucking in the left over pieces,

cutting off that extra strings of trouble, 

finish off by tying securely the strings of bond.

keep crocheting for that happy content life,  mon chere..

https://issuu.com/storiedstitches/docs/storied_stitches_vol_9_issuu

Letters

I remember we once agreed to meet every three days

like an international postcard mailed with a stamp pasted on its corner.

Just so, we could avoid the suspicion of evil eyes,

drilling their bore wells on our parched lands.

But you know well what happened as the fireflies flew between us,

Floating, Cupid’s portion glistening on their tiny backs, glowing for our nightly rendezvous,

making it flower, like miniature lanterns flocking;

reminding me of the neelakurinjis of the Shola forest –

purple and blue flowers blossoming once every seven years, phenomenally.

Isn’t that why we went back there each night – to find the swarming dots of light

and dip in the fragrance of wildness – the flowers and the rest?

By the way, those flowers over the climber, covering the tree

with that bench beneath, neatly tucked inside the shade was my favorite. Yours too.

That tree often reminded me of the black hair of an Indian bride bejeweled with white jasmines,

like snowflakes on summer mornings, the blend of warmth and whiteness of those nights;

We always hurried to hide behind her cascade of leaves,

like hungry locusts coming east during the summertime,

before the monsoons could range a battlefield of marshness,

before the land found us sauntering hand in hand,

and before reality dawned on us like the rain showers, unprecedented.

http://www.literaryshanghai.com/jgeorge-two-poems/

Ambrosia

I walk a mile around the road, just to avoid the rickshaw and cut down expenses.

Ten rupees saved by walk –an offering I always keep for the roadside temple.

I do this almost every day without fail.

My daily pilgrimage to the Holy Shrine on tired legs;

I think of it as a penance for the guilt, for confessing sorrows,

and for sharing toasts.

One can see ideas and debates on living life rising as fumes above that roof –

The roof of the temple, by the corner of 7th Street in Choolaimedu.

Near a Neem tree, so pure, our holy temple stood – a modest tea shop for every commoner.

Nothing less than Ambrosia itself is a Chai flavored with friendship, I say,

lifting the weight of this daily routine at the altar like priest and his chalice.

Isn’t a glass of tea similar to the soothing touch of the oldest therapist working her long fingers on every mind?

Sipping this nectar – Heaven’s drink – down here on Earth.

I dare say, a day gone without Chai is blasphemy.

And I walk a mile around, to cut down expenses,

Now that my offering to the temple is done.

http://www.literaryshanghai.com/jgeorge-two-poems/

The Voicecall

Oh! I could barely contain this joy, this excitement spilling poetry from the edges like molten lava of a volcano; on hearing your voice through this corded universe coded. My heart here knows today, such tremendous explosion, like the sudden boom of an underwater sea bed. Sending those ripples of zeros and ones across the sky surface, I decipher them in the space between us, to a bottled note of love, music in the ring of that call; and there is a voluptuous eruption of joy in my bosom as I taste your hiccupped laughter over the line, like bubbles in my cappuccino, my latte. Ha! The words flow nearly noiseless like honey from a dipper, smoothly dripping from your lips, shhh! reaching my ears too far away from your tongue tracing its curvatures, yet piercing my innards you go on talking. Oh! Your voice, so rich so intense cutting across this silver network of signal, fails to make believe me; how far a kiss is homed, and there I curl my fingers over some lately cut bangs, cuddling to a leech in the gaps between your fingers, I try to knot you in my tangles, 

First published in https://troumagazine.com/