Weight of memories
I remembered my grandfather, that morning
a stranger bearing a memory of my father lay
in the living-room – a strange oxymoron –
considering all the jasmines and over-
perfumed white roses masking the smell
of a husk barely holding spent flesh
and bones eager to meet grass.
Grandfather died on a cold winter’s dusk –
A Friday – feast of Mother Mary – He was
a bony brown farmer who could tell time
by the shadow his house threw at his
feet – & a ready smile; light on his feet, he
ran through the hills like Perseus –
swift; with me on his shoulder
Yet when my brothers and I, lifted the
light, utilitarian coffin we hand bought,
the whole weight nearly threw us down.
We weren’t sure how we’d carry him
to the church he was baptized in, nearly
A mile and half up a meandering &
Sloping road that afternoon.
as if all of grandfather’s organs – brain, lungs,
heart, stomach, kidneys, liver and other coily
innards, that stayed up to keep him moving
when he was alive, suddenly decided
to give up in his wake – take a well-deserved
break and without any care sink like
stone – morbid, dead weight!
When it was time to take the body once called
father, I ordered a hearse; this time – I had the
memory of grandfather’s weight; my father was
heavier, still – love, laughter, anger & all,
with the weight of the coffin & his dead organs,
I walked the solemn road… my internal
organs – a little withered…
© Feby Joseph
How to fold an origami evening with a time traveling paper-boat on a paper-ocean
(a pantoum)
Take a deep ink-blue sky & a time-traveling paper-boat that’s lost its way;
Fold the Sun, forgotten; troglodytes and beachcombers on left-wise
half-sunken bottles, blue crabs & us – nearby a stray clementine lay…
A lost paper-boat may jettison one evening with whiskey-scented lies.
Fold the Sun; forgotten troglodytes and beachcombers on left-wise
A sea on vacation, back-floats, waiting – an unpenned plan yonder lay
a lost paper-boat – will jettison one evening with whiskey-scented lies;
Hurry – cut a few paper-shaving birds & stars to lead a lighthouse astray.
A sea on vacation, back-floats, waiting an unpenned plan – yonder lay
a paper dream – ingredients for an origami evening, a blueprint collates
Hurry – cut a few paper-shaving birds & stars to lead a lighthouse astray.
Fold it into a paper boat & launch – perchance an idle sea awaits
a paper dream & ingredients for an origami evening, a blueprint collates
half-sunken bottles, blue crabs, us – nearby a stray clementine lay…
Fold it into a paper boat & launch – perchance an idle sea awaits
a deep ink-blue sky & a time-traveling paper-boat that lost its way
© Feby Joseph
How to start a game of Lawn Tennis
On the Seventh day we rested;
We set our alarm clocks to day one!
We had created! We were done!
One question remained –
What now?
On the sixth day, we made memories
Reflections for future, beasts
& other flesh-flowers of our zoo
One question remained –
Was it yet time for repose?
On the fifth day, we made dreams
Prophecies from the past, avian
ambitions and thirst and it’s allegories.
One question remained –
Who would swim in it?
On the fourth day, we created desire
Carnal and carnival – flesh and soul;
Spiritual and spectacle – plays and poetry.
One question remained –
Where would love and lust reside?
On the third day, we created clay, mud and flesh
Water to swim; fern to clothe and colour
And flesh to live out time and other emotions.
One question remained –
How would we name and colour emotions?
On the second day, we build a house
From the roof-top, we picked clouds
and wrung water for our lawns
One question remained –
How would we decorate it…?
On the first day, we woke up –
We had rested, we had a world ahead
We became restless – we were ready!
One question remained –
Anyone for lawn-tennis?
© Feby Joseph
Disembarking at Dadar Railway Station
It’s almost a catholic experience, now – giving in…
to the echo of Rabboni; Resist not Evil
Giving in to the baptismal experience of inaction –
Standing still in a crowded train – it is enough
to let myself be cloaked in the semi-sweaty mass
with a singular thought – Exeunt!
My feet, now, moves in tandem with the pulse
of 100 other feet in this Bolshoi – each step
synchronized from years of muscle memory.
This ballet is tattooed on our sole.
It isn’t eazy – but after years of rigorous practice,
it has become something akin to second nature –
Disembarking at Dadar station is easier now;
Forgetting you is a habit – almost…
a reflex action to remembrance. The key is giving in…
to the vacuous company of your absence!
© Feby Joseph
Peeling Oranges
Peeling an orange should not take that long –
Just use the edges of recently trimmed nails, soft
from acts of water to feel around the closed contours
of a bumpy saffron sun; scented, smooth and oily
till a secret crack in the wall
perfumes your fingers…
then, it’s a tender act of origami in reverse –
peeling away shapeless parchments – lemonade
mixers & tiny threads of orange veins hiding under nails;
memory of a tangerine afternoon lingering – you…
eating orange prawn-wedges;
pips, peppering a plate…
Sometimes I forget and sniff my finger-tips –
it all comes back – position of the clock’s 2nd hand,
song that was playing in the background, the acre of sky
grazed by a lethargic sun – the sudden phone call…
sirens, beeping machines, voices –
suffix… to a numb afternoon.
Peeling oranges never take long now –
It has almost become an act of un-remembrance…
the origami is still the same… just in reverse – you walk
into the kitchen once again as I ensconce tangerine
wedges within a moon & wrap
an orange skin around it!
© Feby Joseph
Well known in concentric circles, Feby Joseph is a part-time procrastinator and a full-time piano teacher from Mumbai. In his spare time, which he doesn’t have, Feby dabbles in poetry. Some of his works have been published in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Singapore Unbound, The Bangalore Review, and Zoetic Press.
