April 2023
In this issue
Contents
A Bite in Time – Cooking with Memories by Tanya Mendonsa
Sucharita Dutta-Asane reviews Tanya Mendonsa’s book of recipes, poems and illustrations.
This Land, This People – Rajbanshi Poems Translated by Pradip Acharya and Jyotirmoy Pradhan
Kamalakar Bhat reviews Rajbanshi’s book of poetry, This Land, This People translated by Pradip Acharya and Jyotirmoy Pradhan
The Songs of Mad Tom
Yes, let justice be for twig and flea, ankle and feather in deep heather. A thousand tongues will praise me and none will beg my pardon, my inmates there all to declare I am a caring warden.
Ghazal 23 – ‘on the tongue’
The nawab clings to cinders, yearning for yesterday His paan performs a final somersault on the tongue.
Renga
There lies the great poet In the hamlet of Haiku Influenced by seeds My fellow wandering soul Content with the heart
hiking in the reservoir
i think i am owed secrets as though i’m one of a few earned caretakers or a suzerain fate has granted all sorts of trespasses but maybe it’s just like what my ex wife said before i packed the boxes i am only fascinated by what won’t let me in
Metal Birds Make a Sonnet
The road might have taken us anywhere but instead we are surrounded by birds white birds black birds all are forced out of metal with gyroscopes and grease
Einstein’s Shoes
And yes, Schrodinger’s cat has crapped all over the lawn. Street people are panhandling planets like food stamps, and all the fundamental particles of the universe are
Between Episodes
I got moon boots, you got moon boots. We all scream for ice cream but to no avail – our prayers are answered at no better than the rate of chance. There’s no glissando without stops and starts. Nor parallel nor intersecting, one guideline has teeth and one has dreams.
A Tiny Pebble
The shelves with Tarot books were so densely packed that I wondered if magic prevented them from collapsing. The books ranged from huge to small with covers from muddy brown to flaming yellow. I saw one that said it was the complete guide. I flipped through the pages and thought my mom might be dead before I got through the first half of the book.
Sister, Mother, Martyr
I rushed to the living room, my feet carrying me with a sense of urgency that I had never experienced before, with a sense of anticipation of something sinister and something quite uncanny. I saw my mother kneeling beside his cursing body as he held her by the hair, her vitiligo white skin stained by his blood.