FIVE POEMS BY 'THE' JAGARI MUKHERJEE - PUSHCART PRIZE NOMINEE SERIES 1

Jagari Mukherjee holds an MA in English Language and Literature from the University of Pune, and was awarded a gold medal and several prizes by the University for excelling in her discipline. Her poems and other creative pieces have been published in different venues both in India and abroad. She is a Best of the Net 2018 nominee, a DAAD scholar from Technical University, Dresden, Germany, a Bear River alumna, and the winner of the Poeisis Award for Excellence in Poetry 2019, among other awards. She recently won the Reuel International Prize For Poetry 2019. Her chapbook Between Pages was published by Cherry-House Press, Illinois, USA, in June 2019. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. from Seacom Skills University, Bolpur, India.

CORALS

Of his bones are coral made…
William Shakespeare (The Tempest)


My fishing net full of corals
floats on the waves of the sky.
I know I don't belong
to the earth or the fire
but to the Arabian Sea from the
shores of Land's End*.
When you reach there,
take a deep breath, stand by.

You know what to do..
go down the steps
climb on the rock
wait for the sun to set
in the salty waters and
the clouds to draw their curtains
back from the moon and the stars.

Then you cast my ashes whole
or in part --
my limbs are silver powder.
I won't care as long as
the corals of my mortality
meet the jade of my years…
(till that date)…

You will know that
you are done
when the sky
finally casts down
an empty fishing net

*Last point of Marine Drive

TASBIH

I never used the janamaz
nor finished the bottle
of deep green jannat-al-firdaus.
The purple velvet bag
from Kabul Shopping Center with
colorful pastel leaves was a tad
too gorgeous for my classes.
You were the fantasy of every girl
who was plain and wore glasses.

If I hear the azaan nowadays,
it is by accident:
I try not to make out the words
that I once knew by heart.
I try not to think of Surah Kausar
and the ambrosia denied to me
when I lost my paradise.
I never tell people I learned
to love strong liquor tea from you,
sometimes sucking on
candy or a sugar cube.
I have kept your blue tasbih
in my jewelry box:
my mother thinks
it is a necklace.


GLOSSARY

Janamaz - Muslim prayer rug
Jannat-al-firdaus - a popular perfume
Azaan - call to prayer
Surah Kausar - The 108th and shortest chapter of the Quran
Tasbih - prayer beads

 CHULBULI*

" A chulbuli kabiyetri ( poetess) always likes to write her chulbuli feelings that gives the mind more chulbuli."

-- courtesy a comment on my Facebook post, dated 5/10/19.


The chulbuli poetess
dozes on her bed
dreaming of her former lover.
She remembers lining her eyes
with sparkling black kohl
and staining her lips
with a berry-pink gloss.
She remembers how easily the pink
transferred onto his dark skin,
leaving her lips bare again, and the kohl
slightly smudged from the tears shed
while hiding in his chest.

The chulbuli poetess longs to forget
and to rest. She tries to escape to
far-off lands as it rains and the thunder
scares her less than her dreams.
She sweeps over oceans and continents
and night skies suspended in-between.
The chulbuli poetess still weeps
for her lost lover, unheard. Unseen.

*Vivacious (Hindi)

 ASSIGNATION

You wanted an assignation
and kept messaging me for place and time.
I was making myself a cup of tea
to relieve a sore body.
You were inquiring about a hotel room
with a bathtub where you could
scratch poems on my skin.
I was busy pouring hot water
from the hissing electric kettle.
You thought I wasn't paying attention:
it was not true.
I was trying to, but my body ache was killing me
and the scent of lemon-ginger tea
in a Red Rose tea bag was maddening.
The black cat asked me for food in the
language of her tribe.
I took a warm sip from my cup
and thought it was the perfect time to
reply to you.
Then I saw the cat eating the yellow dahlias
from the precious white vase.
I hastened to scold her and give her treats.
I managed to save the dahlias,
but by then, it was too late for you.

MOTHER’S SOUP

The panacea for all ills
was my mother’s soup.
When I was besieged by a troop of fevers raging
with a running nose and sore throat,
she made me a bowl
of spicy and sour soup with noodles
that I savored hot…and when
I lay weak with oodles of body ache,
she gave me a concoction
of chicken and corn in a mug.
Stomach bugs were fought with
thick creamy mushroom delight
in a steel glass meant for my fix.
With Asterix comics, I sat on the bed
enjoying my broth in my private hub.
Mother would rub mustard oil
to ease the pain and I had soup to gain.
Chinese, Thai, Indian — all styles
Mother specialized in.
I loved the story of Stone Soup
and Mother, to her glory, 
had her own ingredient --
red fairy shrimp in a
hot orange concoction
that convinced me of heaven.
Our staple food was fish and rice
but I loved falling ill because of soup;
and no doctor has ever tried
to convince me otherwise.