Two Poems by Joie Bose

Love XXII 

I won’t stir up a massive storm 

In the bronze coffee cup anymore, 

Or let sizzle noisily 

The golden oil in the silver wok 

I will not fill the rooms and the corridor 

With the smell of cardamom that titillates the basmati rice; 

I won't spoil the kitchen floor again; the year is over now; 

The buffalo milk froth inevitably overflows every day. 

The layer of dust on the paintings in the living room 

And the cobwebs in the inaccessible corners 

Are quite comfortable, and warm, like the duvet we got in Rajasthan— 

The one with azure camels, ochre elephants, quaint palaces and blue dancing girls. 

It’s like the comfort we find in intoxicated hallucinations. I will revert from tangible reality into being a figment of your sleep. 

From Amour: Hymns  to  Aphrodite,  Authorspress

On Elixir Street 

The road spirals, 

Like a ribbon 

Aimlessly let loose; 

It falls breathlessly 

in cascading brown curls—

in a child breaking free, again. 

Pitch wrapped in silence 

Spirits feed on the laughter 

of its voyager; 

Bordering in bushes 

wild flowers makes love—

butterflies and humming birds too. 

Uninterrupted by strokes 

I sit straddling the fence, 

Pitch, intonation and in syllabic stress 

Correct, for none to appreciate—

I voiced sounds, senseless, 

Not to me. 

Nakedness caressed in warmth, 

the day, sets into a visionless reverie—

vehemence spent 

raison d’étre revealed 

panacea located. 

None take this road. 

From Corazón Roto and Sixty Nine Other Treasons, Sampark