Page 26 – The Bangalore Review

June, 2022

The Sound of Running Water

At 1:30 in the morning, Morgan wakes, rises from the bed, and pads over to the master bath for his nightly pee. After his stiff legs and an aching back––both from handling the luggage back at the airport, no doubt––ferry him back to bed, he lies down and listens for the tank to fill up.

June, 2022

Grab Bag

I remember how invigorated I felt during my first time reaching into that bag. Closing my eyes, I desperately swirled my hand around to try and feel its contents, pulling out a kaleidoscope. Peering into the hole, I shook it around some and looked back in. Colorful shards rearranged themselves into a new collage—magenta and royal blue. Lime green and canary yellow.

Poetry

June, 2022

Figurin’

Anyway, they form a scooby-doo-esque gang of lovable misfits And solve the mystery of why I keep waking up unsure of who I am And why its so hard to explain what that means Entering your life from the outside can be a jarring experience

June, 2022

Horse Sense

Kate tells herself that today she is driving to find the quiet, to get out of town and let the houses and little feed shops and hardware stores thin and thin and thin until there are just the low-slung fences and the uncut grass, little farmhouses up on the sloping hills surrounded by leaning trees and rare shade.

June, 2022

Timbuktu

The author and her husband travel to Bamako, and from there, to Timbuktu They learn what Timbuktu stands for in reality compared to its popular meaning.

June, 2022

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

Her eyes traveled over to Ezra to see if would go check on her, but he only smiled, pleased again at his discovery of this place. They were only a few inches apart in height, though Ezra was a tall man, and his slenderness made her feel too big for any space they were in together, even one this large and otherwise unwieldy.

Poetry

June, 2022

Red Tail, an Epitaph

The yard you plotted then planted has come back wilder, the way seeming winterkill comes back wilder for its next life. So you think, pruning-time! — when, with a looming shadow and a gust of backwash, the ponderous bird alights, the porch rail trembles with its weight.

Poetry

June, 2022

Late Walk

a man must lean on his liquor getting through the prayer line walking fields with all colors flaring soft or fired with hard light the walnut shell his face is the tan smeared greasy eyes a mature man out of time

June, 2022

The Coleslaw is the Same

A group of thirty college students, studying comparative human rights across the globe, learn that human sufferings and identity are not as different as it would seem.

Poetry

June, 2022

Ode to Goibniu

Son of Esarg the axe-thrower, smelting and pin-lining coasts with bronze whirls, smoothed by Macha’s shawl. Forger of tools, lately found half-sunk in peat in a depthless bog, with his elbow crooked upward. The gases preserved his jacket, the raised sinew on his small finger, and the blazoned buckle he himself fashioned.

May, 2022

TBR Recommends – May 2022

Every month, The Bangalore Review recommends a reading list, also mentioning in brief why each book must be read. This month’s list has been compiled by writer, Jayasree Kalathil.

May, 2022

Translations from Ṛtusaṃhāra and Meghadūta by Kalidasa

Kālidāsa was a Classical Sanskrit author who is often considered ancient India's greatest poet and playwright. His plays and poetry are primarily based on the Vedas, the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas. His surviving works consist of three plays, two epic poems and two shorter poems.

May, 2022

TBR Interviews Abhay K.

Our editor interviews Abhay K. about his poetry collection, Monsoon, and his translations of Meghadūta and Ṛtusaṃhāra.

Poetry

May, 2022

Subtext

a window in the greenroom. a garden of trees. the opal sky. fractals of gold and violet, both. two salamanders suspended above the formless dark. liquid. speaking.

May, 2022

Cassie’s First Day

The new entrant teacher was her mother’s friend, Mrs Prendergast. Tall and loud, she wore two thick, long plaits that cracked through the air like whips when she moved suddenly. She moved suddenly a LOT. Along with her mother, Mrs Prendergast believed that children should be seen, but not heard. Tolerated. Just.

Poetry

May, 2022

Having Lost a Cowrie Shell

Madness is when the warrior god calls the initiates to the altar stone in a masquerade to play with death to prove their mettle

May, 2022

Final Account: The Repeat and Rise of a Dangerous Past

The author discusses the documentary, Final Account; the aftermath of January 6 Capitol Riots and Milgram’s Shock Experiment videos.

Poetry

May, 2022

Sanctum

What if this belly was where you buried your sorrows nestled into disappointment shame and fear. What if this belly resisted expectation conformity like the time you refused to stand and pledge allegiance.

May, 2022

We Were Already Deep in the Song

But then, there he was again, outside at the mall entry, near where the jacarandas line the footpath down the street. He was getting money out of the ATM just as the red and white truck drove into the nearest of the trees. Blind clumsy driving. There was no reason to drive into it.

Poetry

May, 2022

War

Words were eliminated from dictionaries— bridle, ruin, barricade, lapidaries, famine, clay, sparrow, genocide and yarrow—

May, 2022

Nurturing

She bent close to him. Errant strands of white hair sprouted from his mostly bald, age spotted head. She kissed it, her insides recoiling. His eyes were closed. She moved his tray and checked his supply of diapers and drinks. She tiptoed toward the door. “I’d like to think you got your love of wildflowers and gardening from me.”

Poetry

May, 2022

My mother, in the hospital—

My mind won’t place me there, not today, or tomorrow, or those four days in December, when the drive became a ritual and in the evenings, after the nurses said enough, it’s almost Christmas go home, sleep in your beds, not hunched over like a burlap bag of coffee beans on a storeroom floor;