Poetry Longlist 2018

Released on September 15, 2018

Aakriti Bhatia     Aftab Yusuf Shaikh      Akil Bakhshi
Aman Saxena     Ammu Maria Ashok     Ananya Guha
Anuaradha Sowmyanarayanan    Anurag Sharma     Arkadeep Sengupta
Avantika Singhal      Bandana Kar      Bhupendra Kumar Dave
Bindu Saxena      Biswadeep Ghosh Hazra      Chandrama Deshmukh
Chintha Mary Anil     Debasish Mishra      Deepthi Acharya
Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal      Giftsy Dorcas      Hamid Khan
Harikrishnan R       Himani Dua      Jagari Mukherjee
Javeria Kausar      Joyce Job    Andrew Kai Hangsing
Khurram Nizami      Khyati Gautam     Krushna Kumari
Manjeet Banerjee       Mathew John      Mittali Khurana
Mruga Trivedi    Muhammad Auwal Ibrahim      Neelam Saxena Chandra
Nimisha Bissa      Nisha Raju       Nitin Jain        Paul Avish
Pearline Priscilla     Nandini Muzumder       Debasis Tripathy
Aadithyaa      Anila M Vivek      Mauli Joshi
Shuvendu Panda     Rashida Arsiwala    Laxmi Rane
Prajakta Chaudhari      Priti Dipa Jena      Priyanka Roy Banerjee
Priyanshi Bahadur        Promila Jakhar      Rachaita Hore
Raj Sahu       Rajat Tiwari         R G Kaimal       Ruchika Pahwa
Salman Sowdagar      Shishir Marathey      Shivani Dua
Sonali Rasal    Soumi Duttagupta      Sudeepto Mishra    Swatilekha Roy
Swetha Sadanand     Udit Bhatia      Usha Amulya
Vandana Parashar       Vikas Sharma      Yash Chandra
Zainab Aliyah Murfuah  

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Bhupendra Kumar Dave

Let There Be Light

 

(Prayer written on behalf of minor girls who live in fear of molestation and rape.)

O God from birth till death
Let there be good light
For   I   want     my   path
All shining   and bright

Burn not thousand suns
Nor   a thousand moons
But light a candle for me
Carrying all worthy boons

With these celestial boons
Sparkling     in   my   life
Let me march with delight
Unto my death all my life

Darken not a single thought
As if moon shut from night
Put   not   my   soul, O God
In   lonely   cage   of   fright

For thoughts that darkness
Sprouts in   any   mind
Darkens the darkness more
For the entire mankind

Dark are the graves of men
With hopes all gone in dust
Darkened by the acts of dark
Bones too are laid to rust

Yet we place an earthen lamp
On the grave’s opaque cover
For the bodies without soul
Those   are   blind   for   ever

What use is of the light?
That we mortal create
What charm in lying low
In the coffin we rivet

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Bindu Saxena

This Can Wait

I didn’t write awhile; tried to put it off.
The words weren’t just right, it felt like such a job.
Rhymes didn’t match; and I got hungry then,
I grabbed some snacks, instead of the pen.
Dishes needed cleaning; before I could eat,
But I started reading, why work to be neat?
The book was so taxing; and I couldn’t be a border.
Perhaps some relaxing… a nap was in order.
The day’s done when I awoke; the poem OK when I read it.
This is all that had I wrote, with not much time to edit.
I didn’t HAVE TO do it yet; didn’t think that I’d forget it.
But now I HAVE to do it, yes? Oh, I think I’ll just FORGET It.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Chintha Mary Anil

It Was The Gods Who Killed Me

It was the gods who killed me
Were they mine or yours?
Did they infiltrate from across the border
or did they just step down
from the altar encased in gold?
Not that it matters
under six feet of gravel sore
that they shoveled in haste
over my bruises galore.
Crush him –they raged-
who dares to question blind faith.
i did… and so am no more.
My crime –they say-
was not one of deed,
but queries cynical
directed at their sanctums
– Good God!
Alongside me,
others lay dying
in casteist clutches of yore.
Pure conjecture, they pooh-poohed
while yet another Dalit got mauled…
‘dandiya’ sticks left untouched;
an admiring gaze,
his only fault.
Don’t go only by the media
that delights in the macabre;
We too excel in doing so,
they exclaim with proud bows.
Acts of pure evil
condoned as exceptions,
as people are mowed down
in the name of differing skin-tones.
Venom spewed on each difference,
Minorities wiped out,
With pleasure the majority crows.
Where also-rans get trampled
both onscreen and off,
Abuse always seems distant,
not something that happens at home.
Why, O gods, did you kill me?
Whose curse do i need to bear?
Did not the same God make us
or was it a mutant mould of clay?
That’s when a god sauntered in
flashing an eon attire,
Someone asked
Who made him one?
He pointed right back at us.
Another descended
couched in learned overtones,
None dared question her
‘cause she was paraded
by dynasty zealots.
Oh, they keep popping up
like figurines in a puppet show;
None notice the puppeteer
who fingers the strings
with a leer.
As i lay dying,
the gods turned in glee
and mocked.
What a fool –they clucked-
to not know
when to join the crowd.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Deepthi Acharya

QUIET SPACE

The sooner I reach home,
I detox from the bustle.
But the emptiness subsidies.
The vacuum is inside out
There is no place to hide.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Debasis Tripathy

A Wormhole

A day will come, as they say
when even the gravity of earth
can’t hold you from escaping away
to a remote land of timeless birth.
How would I search for you within
the stars, planets and empty space
and the myriads of galaxies unseen?
How would I see your eternal face?
Unsure where you may have to reside,
perhaps zillions of lightyears from here;
probably, some place on the other side
of Cosmos, too remote and even austere.
Travelling in the confines of vast time
and unbounded space, maybe I’ll find
and enter the wormhole tunnel sublime
and reach you, leaving everyone behind.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Yash Chandra

What About Me?

A nail protruded from the examination table,
On which he was measuring me
From end to end.
One bygone light was making its attendance
Among twirling cobwebs,
A tired looking fan hung over me,
There was a maiden, standing with her friend.
“Ma’am, nothing will happen.
Have a look at these colours and designs,
Let me know to which you resign.”
A fat book eclipsed past me;
He threw the protruding nail into a corner.
He inked me with some tattoos,
Or was he trying to remember something,
I didn’t know.
“That is a fine print, ma’am.
You can come tomorrow. Thank you,” he said.
He took out a beast from the drawer.
Its teeth shone brightly,
I did not see this coming,
I could not afford a smile.
And here, he was, humming.
Within seconds, he fed me to the beast
Who tore through me, along my tattoos.
Awarding me with no time to recover,
He clamped me, in what looked like,
A giant sawing machine.
I writhed in agony, I trembled in pain
As a needle went through me.
He stretched and straightened me every time.
The humming did not see a pause.
“Here you go, ma’am. You may try it on.
Will it be cash or card?”
“Brilliant, master! I shall tip you for this beauty.”
After a zillion cuts,
And in a new mould,
Alas! I was, again, being sold,
To become a part of a new household.
The examination table is fit in its legs now,
The protruding nail lies abandoned in the corner,
Sure, it does not harm me.
Women and men, alike, come.
All have preferences, and all are heard.
Well, may I say one, as well?

Poetry 2018, Third Prize, Swatilekha Roy

Dust

Today is cleaning day.
After procrastinating far too long,
The layer of dust has become impossible
To ignore.
With a vacuum cleaner, allergy mask and determination,
I start with old magazines, stagnant with clichéd health tips,
Paparazzi, places-to-see-with-your-special-one, nanny ads and,
Blind hopes
Of print worthy life, newspapers glossy with falsehood,
Mites on the dank wood. In me.
On undoing the closet, a putrid smell of the dead arrests me-
Bats. History.
I rummage through years of acquired
Dirt and ghosts of a mirrored past,
Stuffed in a corner, away from the circle of pretense.
A picture of a sunny eyed couple, with much too happiness to restrain
In the minuscule frame.
Christmas savings, baby shoes, gift wraps,
A necklace which isn’t mine
And night club masques, maybe,
We have been wearing those, but never realized.
Maybe,
All this time, we are struggling to keep what isn’t ours-
The hope, the marriage, the baby
That never comes. And reality. Secrets.
Not ours, none of it,
Only yours. Only mine.
This dust is testimony.

Poetry Longlist 2018, Aakriti Bhatia

Companion

Sitting there at the coffee table
She’s fatter
Than the first time
I laid eyes on her
As if she’s made
More space within herself
To accommodate me.

This book, that got me through
The first signs of heartbreak
The one that accompanied me
In adventures, big and small.

It made place
For my thoughts
Within its pages
Captured each feeling
Deep within its very spine
Held the smell
Of my favourite espresso
And the touch
Of hurried fingers,
Trying to get
To the next chapter.

It got
Fatter and fatter
With each time
i picked it up
Picking me up
Along the way.
And now
As I leave it
On this coffee table
In this vast library
It holds these parts of me
While making space
For the next
Set of hands.

Poetry 2018 Longlist Aftab Yusuf Shaikh

About A Love

I was nine when I saw
a dream or should I call it a nightmare
because it was night when I saw it
because it was on a mare that she sat

Emma, she was, I told myself
the breeze of early mornings
that kissed my face to wake me up
that was her, I christened her Emma.

These stones of rotten days,
this heart of mine, blew up, rose up
in joy and remorse, in gain and loss,
that name had something in it
something like that unknown pain
deep deep in my heart which makes
me write verse after verse
that nobody reads, that makes them weep
and I, the joker, the jolly good fellow,
become a thorn in the ass and an outcast
all because I wrote and all because I loved. Twice.

Her arrival, in advance was known to
me like her departure,
taking her name too seriously
she will disappear into the universe
never to be found again but
still always keeping over me a watch

The loud shatter of my heart echoed
in the heavens and yet she heard
not a sigh. Maybe I wasn’t so close.
And she used to smile, her bloodsucking smile,
O! How I could lay down lives for that smile,

These girls today, don’t learn a thing.
I told her it is in the eyes and then,
even then the blind girl saw nothing?
How much I loved her and wanted her
before breathing my last breath, so blind?

The simplest of girls, that frail creature
how it ruined me is beyond imagination
the dreams, the nights, the words
the music, the love, the agony, the hatred,
the hurt, the pleasure, the what-not, all painted in her name

Were it that she met by some place
where it is me and her none else
I would have placed on her lips that kiss
which try as hard as she may,
she could have never forgotten,
and my fingers in her hair and her whims and fancies
being fulfilled by me,
and we drinking love, with eyes, lips and skin,
that passion which I had stored for her
so safely that it never came to happen,

Sweet things they were, so never happened
and all that was, was her stumble
on the stairs toward her dreams
and she fell and I gave her my hand
and she rose up and walked out, out
out, of the fantasy.

The woods whistled and the ground creaked
too heavy was my love for this life
so I took her in my arms, up the sky,
but even there she saw not my heart,
only the stars and their sparkle,
and I wept on endless nights while
tears flew all on the inside
and everyone said, always smiling, oh so funny,
and I hate the stars, and the night and the moon and me!

I taught her words and she taught me
how to love and lose people
her moral lessons on how wrong
so fucking wrong was my love
because people felt so, as if it were
the people who were now bearing my heart’s ache

At times I have wished to place her in a glass
palace where, no one sees her or touches
or even imagines her, but in that palace too
she could see those she had seen with love
and she could imagine the person who had her heart
I thought she was not mine, one ache,
she loved me, ache two,
and she never told me, ache thousand.

Should I kill her, in my memory?
I had foolishly thought and I tried
to hate her to kill her to forget
and I could forget easily who I was but
not her, not her for a moment.
You can hate people, disgrace them.
even kill them, but you can never unlove them.

The woods will no longer whistle
and ground will not creak under her feet
when she, my Emma, comes to meet me
at the end of all this hullaballoo
she will come to sit by and talk to me
but three yards beneath the earth
her words will mean nothing to me.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Akil Bakhshi

A War For Peace

Lying on the street,
bathed in your blood,
shorn of your clothes,
draped in mud.

Out in the night,
called by the might,
beaten black and blue,
shot in plain sight.

Waking into doom,
the cities of gloom,
where no fruits ripen,
where no flowers bloom.

In the dead of the morning,
you are assigned a number.
There is much peace now,
with the town’s enforced slumber.

The soil grows red,
the trees grow brown.
Water is much safer,
on the lands you may drown.

The sun brightens your scars,
God does not flinch.
The war regains it’s glory,
God does not cringe.
In life or in death,
you couldn’t take your pick.
For we will never know you,
You are just a Statistic.

Just a Statistic.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Aman Saxena

Believe in Life, Believe in Me

When I look at the sky, I see my life’s not all a loss,
I see all things to gain, for a Life free from challenges,
When I look at the sky, I know in times of grey,
I was not complete, and I was not to blame!
For I am a human, Life can crush us on every side,
It can be cruel and tough, but we have hope,
we have peace, when to the bright side we look.
Some people stand, some people move
Tough time don’t last, but tough people do!
As long as you’ve got hope, you’ll find your way.
There’s power in the thoughts that you think,
there’s power in the words you say!!
"Like I can, I can. I will, I will.
I am, I am. No fear, no fear.”
Today, I saw a rainbow in the sky of rain,
It stood tall and tall and told me I can do anything
If I believe, I believe, I believe in me!!

“I believe, I believe, Yes ! I believe in me."

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Ammu Maria Ashok

Elasticity of My Mind

My mind is elastic
It stays with me
I take it to past,
Drag it to future
Still, it can regain its size in seconds.

Captures each distorted image
Reveals the distractions in me
Change of path,
Change of destiny,
All in a single mind.

When in love it’s high spirited
Mysterious when in agitation
In sorrow, isolated
In dark, shadow less
In light, delightful.
My unseen mind,
Nevertheless, consciously unconscious,
hide my fears
Yet my mind travels
Searching for peace of mind.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Anuradha Sowmyanarayanan

Full Moon

A white gem shining in the black sky
A round beauty with a cool light
With a power to make us relax and rest
A wait for a fortnight to view the nature’s craft
In every angle it’s a new design and new look
In every location it’s a fresh form and a wish norm.
A cotton ball or a butter ball – a pal for all
A silver coin or a platinum ring – a king of lullaby
A creamy round or a milky balloon – a soul soother
Dark nights get a makeover with a white spot
A symbol of beauty, a combo of black &white,
Is a visual treat
A perfect blend of calm and beauty
A sign of completeness and complaisant
A foamy ball with many pretty features
To see the full moon in the sea
Or from balcony or window side
It’s a beauty hug with nature

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Anurag Sharma

Hunger

Seeing a kid stealing a rotten tomato,
Seeing a mother selling her body to feed her kids,
Seeing someone looking at food with tears in the eyes,
My head hangs in shame all the time,
A society dies, when due to hunger someone cries,
Everyone has a stomach to feed to survive,
This technological advancement has no meaning left,
This never ending rat race can never be at rest,
When a life ends without something to feed,
A food is wasted in protests,
A food is thrown away in parties,
What if that food reaches the empty stomach?
What if we start to care about the people in despair?
All these developments are void when to someone food is devoid,
Which god would be happy when someone dies of hunger outside synagogue?
Humanity is not about offering foods to the gods,
It’s about serving that food to the ones, who need,
Let’s come together and take oath as an individual and as a society as whole,
That we won’t let anyone die hungry,
We won’t waste food that is unnecessary,
Our gods will be happier when we serve the food to his people.
When we worship our first and foremost religion,
The religion of humanity!

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Arkadeep Sengupta

A Question for Death

Dearest Death,
Could you not have taken
The longest way to my gate,
To be a bit more late.
Or have postponed your arrival.
For I wished and hoped-
Life’s presence a bit more
And now that you stand on my very door
I wish to ask you a question
Asked once in a folklore-
“Will I ever again taste the sweetness
Of Life’s prosperity,
Or mix with the eternal eternity?”

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Avantika Singhal

The Truth That I Swallow Every Day
 
It took me some time. But
I eventually understood. Serpentine
roads may look devilish but in
the end, you do manage to go
through. One by one. Each day,
each hour. You battle with an
unknown vice of yours or with the
world. And, the world is still
learning, quarrelling, scattering
breaking and mending. We learn
to deal with it. We grow to accommodate
its flaws with ours. Every day, I become
resilient to fear and mishap. Back home,
I was a flower trapped among the branches of
a potted plant. Here, on foreign soil,
everything is so different as I am now a blooming
and vibrant bud, germinating from one of the
cracks in the pavement. The sun comes out
every day in the same way it did back home
but here, the sun rays tickle my insides
until I am nothing but bliss.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Bandana Kar

Stabbing

Stabbing does not trickle tears in me these days;
Nor when destiny throws me down to the hell;
It is your sudden turning away from me
That sautés my flesh in the heat of the blood.
What is/was my fault?
To cling to the pure breath that keeps me alive?
Yes, you are my pure breath, my oxygen, my elixir;
But it is that I am supposed to do when I was born as a human.
Everybody takes breath in and releases it;
But I inhale your murky love and exhale only mud;
You remain pure inside me
Holy like holy Bible, pure like my Heavenly Father!

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Dr Diwakar Pokhriyal

Poem, Poet and Rhyme   

 

The rain of desires will wet our soul,
Dreadful path and meaningless goal,
A phoenix will rise through our unity,
We will travel whole life, like the trinity,

That day will be the ultimate dawn,
When you and I will together yawn,
And the breeze will melt the attire,
The actions will ignite the fire,

The timeless time will still poke,
Try to hold us back, try to choke,
But the playful mood will remain,
Holding us together in that terrain,

And then we will become eternal,
No guesses of maternal or paternal,
Just you, me and the timeless time,
A poet, a poem and a rhyme.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Harikrishnan R

The Way Of Mighty

What’s happiness and mighty?
Doing good, yeah of course
It’s with high etiquette
Can it mingle with satisfaction?
Sure, often it makes a presence with it.
Can it afford applause?
It’s again fantastic.
If one might be happy with his deeds?
Accord and conduct perceives it.
Conceiving a good aspect, is it?
It emblazes always above all.
Can think and doing it twice, make it?
Yes! Find it a resolution for it.
Reading and writing good words, can it be?
Be kind enough to approve its fact also.
Smiling and laughing, can it allow?
Both are pleasant and make a fillip.
Caring dear ones, want to know it?
That provides pretty.
Caressing and singing lullabies, have a stare at it?
It catches the attention of virtue, might be.
Singing melodies by loiter, come it across?
It’s a perfect combination of gay and thrill.
Hearing and enjoying enchanting songs, how’s it?
It makes a perfect human all through his ways.
Engaging and profuse application of Energy, can understand it?
It appeals an enthusiasm and zest, its casual.
Helping and favor ones with modesty, It’s a way?
All makes a unique feeling altogether.
Seeing and appreciating a generous face, it’s what?
Exuberance withstands with it.
Elegance allures pertinent activities always
Waiting for a normal cause of notion
Makes clear the path of solution
Entering into a charismatic flowery world
Bring forth love and devotion in prolific
Huddle around a dingle, at least once
Faces a deluge of experiences lasting for ever
Have a vision of lush lakeshores and lashings of backwaters
All bring back the faith in life
Going a pilgrimage by whispering chants and prayers
Acquaintance of good habits and making good friends
Attiring in polite words and deeds all through the life
All are ways for attaining divinity and devotion
Began to mature by conceiving apprehensions
Acclamation for notable proposals
Living and making lively the surroundings with hilarious ways
Strong enough to attain a reputation with augur
Rendezvous at sea shores along with favorite buddies
Spending and playing without any speculations
Without being drab and gloomy, following day to day routine
Notwithstanding hassles in the air, making handsome
Breathing fresh air and walking gently
Raising head up before Sun rise and making ablutions
Entering deep into the woods in gregarious
Making a conscience and find out the value of nature
Replenishing always with righteous attitude
Filling up the activities with enough aspiration
Motivation and perseverance might bring it fabulous
Chatting simple words making more dignified
Understanding the flora and fauna bring forth value of life
Amazement is the basement of amusing facets
Prodigal and profligacy find out happiness in rare occasions
Genuine gestures bring always simplicity and exhilaration
Rainy days and its anticipation making cool
Mild breeze and loitering around a brook making marvelous
Exploring to a façade of fallen buds and flowers finds out aesthetic
Well accustomed with the beauty of nature bring pleasure
Majesty protruding in the sight of greenery and vegetation
Mountain mist and its spread over to the valleys assigning picturesque frames
Dark clouds and rainbow awaits a unique combination of beauty
Deep oceans reverberate always about virtue and the divinity of nature
Mild dew and droplets of down pour remind always the solemnity of nature
Serene and grandeur Sceneries of nature bring back childhood
Corroboration of colleagues provide good understandings about life
Caricatures of various ways of life get to know about diversity
Glimpses of glories and gala of it make the way blossom
Bliss of Almighty proves to be mighty all through the ways
Grab and perspire various aspects of fantastic things
Love and devotion prove to be the steps for success
Humble apprehensions approve throughout the ways
How fantastic to see the funny and fair approaches of life
All make bliss in the Universe with the grace of Almighty
Dreams proposes mighty deed and heed in every step
How wondrous and full of forbearance is the way of life
Nothing more than devotions keep the way clear
Masters and Virtue make a lamp of glare and clarity all the way
In pleasant occasions always move ahead with nobility
Mighty and elegance procure along with happy moments
Secure the journey all through the way with rigidity and courage
Often this journey bring some peculiar notion
Sometimes to move ahead in the pavements of rubbles
Most occasions along a bed of roses
Fait accompli never denies the Supreme!
Him, who guides, gives hand not to fall and fill with wisdom to move ahead.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Himani Dua

Loneliness   
   
Lone, when I sit, I’m under some fit
Crazy do I call myself
Crazy the world calls me
A strange fad
Has overpowered me
Sometimes I brood over pastures
Other times I am in barren
My one half sees the world green
And the other half sees it grey queer
Life is beautiful I say
Nay it’s hell all grey, grey and grey
What do I do?
Smile and look up towards the blue
Or weep down with dismay sans happiness and hue.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Jagari Mukherjee

Remaking Magic Carpet & Finding Pink Sneakers 


Please lend me your magic carpet,
Or let me sit beside you for a while.
To cramp your style is not my goal,
But the new wool is now old;
The best wool of Garment District is now fraying.
I have brought my own yarn.
I will remake your carpet with black and gold.
I don’t like the white, for white is always graying.
Why do I need your carpet?
Why can I not run?
Because I lost my pink sneakers in the Past,
And my memory is sore with me.
I have looked at the shelves of every city store
But found none –
And so, I need your carpet to run
In the hour of the sun when the
Moon is full and in Capricorn.
Only then can the carpet become
A glowworm in the dark, or a lantern.
Let the Past swirl by like a footloose cloud;
But I imagine it will spew out
My pink sneakers like a star.
I need the magic carpet to show off
So that the crowd from my Past
Does not blacken and tar me
For being too wild and free…
You understand now – that
The only things I need
Are gold and black wool, and speed.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Javeria Kausar

One Dingy Boat
(A Villanelle – 19 lines) 
 
One dingy boat sailed upon the rough sea
Though old and rickety and almost falling apart,
It was laden with hopes and dreams many.
There were people, old and young, trying to flee
From senseless inhumanity; for a fresh start
One dingy boat sailed upon the rough sea.
The pain of leaving their home was grisly;
Each got on-board with a very heavy heart-
It was laden with hopes and dreams many.
Their sunken eyes had a fading plea for mercy
From reality they seemed to start to depart:
One dingy boat sailed upon the rough sea.
This vessel stayed afloat for a future carefree
It tried to stay afloat and tried to play its part;
It was laden with hopes and dreams many.
Alas! All that’s left now is unrecognizable debris
Owing to humanity who played NO part
One dingy boat sailed upon the rough sea
It was laden with hopes and dreams many…

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Khurram Nizami

AT WHAT COST!

Let’s flock
Let’s invent
Some issues
Trivial issues.
Then add some flavour to it
Then add some flavour to it
Lots of anger, a crowd
And add heads, sans brain
Then bring a platter.
Then close your eyes
Numb the brain
Then be selective
Choose a chapter from a history book.
Then add some fuel
Because ignorance is a bliss.
Take real issue to burial ground
And extract a battle ground.
But doing so, please be cautious
Power is sometimes riotous
It can take you to a new height
But at what cost? It’s you to decide.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Khyati Gautam

Untitled 

 

Just in the middle of the chaos,
When I was running errands for my home,
The nagging hiccup came up with full force,
Akin to the manner in which water settles down
And at the top remains the foam.

The soft foam that glitters with all its might,
Settles on the speckles on clothes producing a beautiful sight.
The hiccup was elysian similarly in the way,
As it reminded me of the names that were, for long, kept at the bay.

Through an array of faces, I recalled a few,
Kept chanting them in my heart and it stopped at one, phew!
I heaved a sigh of relief for a second,
And resumed my job of running errand.

Mess that occupied me kept me extremely busy,
It was exactly a maze getting out of which was not at all easy.
As the momentum of my business slackened,
I remembered a ‘name’ and my senses awakened.

Am I still breathing in his fantasies?
Do I still occupy his mind and dominate his reveries?

A series of questions were shot at my subconscious,
Those bundles of questions were pungent and perspicuous.
They intended to illuminate the darkest corners of my heart,
With the medley of words, they were wrapped in like a craft.

Memories of the past kept coming back to my mind,
Their fragrance seeped through the tiny holes when knots untied.

Your visage, your cologne, your dapper style,
That sly smile and the eyes that beguile,
The mien you possessed was enticing,
And the way you used to wrap your arms around me left me blushing.

The warmth of your protective hug was healing,
The endearing words protruding out of your conscience was soothing.
Everything about you was surreal and eerie,
Each time I had a thought of you, it made me feel queasy.

The time elapsed and the distance between us grew rapidly,
To strangulate the love that was slowly brewing.
Years rolled by since our paths diverted,
Affection was forgotten as we departed.

But, somewhere a hue of incomplete love still adorns my life,
This Elysian hiccup aided me in reliving those colors that were once rife.

Poetry 2018 Longlist, Krushna Kumari