Poems by Joie Bose

Joie Bose is a corporate professional in the ITES industry, a former professor of Jadavpur University. She is the India Community Leader of The WIT Network. She has won Bharat Nirman Award for Literature, Nissim International Prize for Poetry, Women par Excellence Award for Literature amongst others. She has authored Corazon Roto and Sixty Nine Other Treasons (2015) and Amour (2020). She is the General Secretary of Poetry Paradigm and Mrs. India (East) 2018.

Tonight I speak only for I'm sufficiently soaked and dripping in alcohol, 

Like a wet blanket words topple out my lips,

On seeing a silver sequin dotted sky,

Waiting for me to write in calligraphy, scarlet secrets...

In half light he stood waiting for her hands

Her acid trip in her painted nail art,

Her hippie eyes, iridescent and nostalgic

Were locked in another's lips forever...

Chiffon bougainvillea draped her hips, breasts and navel,

A khadi blanket hid her scars, 

They both walked into the ladies room to brush their hair,

Stroke their arms, eat each others lips and embrace...

She would have had retired had she been in service,

And he could have taken her place,

She saw his nimble fingers and nubile limbs,

And he, didn't see her graying hair...

He wrote to his wife before turning to her,

The Bavarian princess drank draught beer,

She thought of how exotic and sober he was

And on her body, he created wreckage and havoc...

He sang a new tune which the violinist picked up

As deftly as the violinist had picked him up

From the street corner to the apartment

On route to the Old Boys reunions...

Her cries echoed in the valley and empty streets

He had used her like a pair of socks till she had holes in her

Then took her wipe the semen he left wasted

And she, she painted that pain into thousands...

Tonight you've searched for your soul and found me exceedingly silent

You've searched for your tale and found it in the anthology I'm compiling,

You've searched for a stranger and found me strangely moving about like a ghost

And now, how you can you ever befriend me again?

Love - XXI

We could talk, have talks even

About the stuff people talk,

"How have you been?"

"Good. Nothing much changed."

"Same here. Work. Personal."

Such banter we can indulge in,

Really. Or look at a line, Neruda-

Tonight I write the saddest lines.

And ponder not writing, not

Speaking in silence. Scream,

Not writing. Be the saddest,

Tonight. Loving the not loving

World around. You know it's cruel

And we, are cruel too. In acts,

In thoughts, in words, in love.

Love, let it all be. Let's be

Silent. Let's love and let it be.

Write me a line tonight, maybe?

Sonnet 2 

We will sit leaning against the walls, you and I

 Our hands gripped together, in clouded fear 

Fear disguised as indifference; failing thereby 

For that indifference makes the difference 

Between us and them. We ooze with passion, 

Oscillating between love and hate. All in extreme. 

We will sit leaning against the walls, you and I

In worded silence and it is the minds that shall 

Make love. Will you tonight, bind me down 

With the vastness of the unchartered universe 

Or shall I make you submit yourself to Fate and Destiny? 

And then perhaps we will both erupt before we calm. 

The destroyer and the destroyed, reverse roles 

And we will connect leaning in love and hate. 

A Love Story 

Complications in my convoluted head, 

A standard human intestine sketched; 

Charcoal scribbling on a canvas sheet, 

Fodder for preacher, who never preached. 

On a winding road of a poetic stretch, 

Rain drizzle, pitch gleaming fantasy; 

You slip into my body invisible, 

Caviar, cognac and cranberry. 

Once upon atime in a tale, 

The prince and princess kissed in eyes galore; 

We longed for the kiss and their story, 

We wanted our lore to grace the shore. 

But dreams are not for a waking mind 

Legacies unfolded drenched in time, 

Tonight I write the happiest line 

Love survives in history, immortalized in rhyme.