Showing posts with label Poetry 2016 Shortlist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry 2016 Shortlist. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 October 2016
Saturday, 20 February 2016
Poetry 2016 Shortlist, Vardaan Parashar
Not Yet Done
Accepted, absorbed and analysed
I got defeated not paralysed!
Alas, I Fell short of expectations
still standing tall with patience
It twinges, pricks, may kill
Swallow it like a sour pill
Close your eyes and behold beneath
Your soul tells a tale,
How you failed.
Make every bead of tear count
tear the torpor, conquer the mount!
Banish those excuses
Nothing but Ruses
Your soul and will,let them fuse.
Your whims serve no use!
Victory or Victim, you decide
your life, your path, you preside
You aren’t done until you stop
spurn negatives, come on top
Start now, not think how
Finish anyhow, take a bow!
There’s nobody you cant defeat
No task you cant complete!
While others make fun!
Take them head on,
coz you are not done!
You are not done!
You are not done!
Poetry 2016 Shortlist, Sunanda Bhadra
The Night
The lingering sunset and the twilight,
Is obliterated by the dark night.
The sky starts shimmering with stars like a fantasy;
Like an illuminated canopy;
Accompanied by the silver coloured moon;
Decked up like an inamorata to be wedded soon.
People rushing to be in their abode after the day’s work;
And it says so many untold stories of the masses.
The passage of each hour marks;
The gradual decrease of the honking of cars and buses;
Unlike the hustling and bustling of the broad day light-
I’m speechless and mesmerized at the sight!
While I’m seated at my balcony to take a poetic ride;
Witness the dead silence of the nocturnal bride.
The roads and the bylanes are finally vacated;
Or, left with the least mobility to be greeted;
Whereas I still stay glued to my chair;
To be merged and sip every bit of it with care-
And suddenly, a cool breeze breaks the tranquillity;
As if singing a lullaby or acts as my introspecting curability.
Poetry 2016 Shortlist, Neelam Harpalani
I Begin When I End
There’s only a perception of seeing black turn pink,
A failing attempt to fill-in the empty basket with colours of beautiful.
The night in my eyes is hid behind the dawn in your eyes.
The picture you adore is an illusion of what you’d like to see.
Your memory of me is what lives in the mirror of your bedroom.
Come, creep into my head for a while, and feel the tremors of denial.
The denial to a one time end.
Denial to the breaking down of frightening nerves.
Oh and the denial to seeking comfort under the same roof,
With strangers in my head and no sight of you, every night, is the hardest of all.
You feel alive. I feel the under-current of being alive.
I see it. Clear as crystal and real as faith.
Sitting by my window, swinging back and forth,
With mild jerks of deceiving life,
Up, there, rests my soul.
Somewhere in the cloud, closed and locked, with no key to the front door.
The doorway to it was build years ago, just beneath my trembling feet,
Passing through the betraying shame, crushing the inevitable pain,
Rolling down the slopes of a guilty conscience, Peeling away the masks of all that lived, loved, laughed.
Escalating to the point of silence. Peaceful silence.
And alive it feels, to out-live the illusion of being alive.
” Oh, I see it. Clear as crystal and real as faith.
Sitting by my window, swinging back and forth,
With mild jerks of deceiving life, Up, there, rests my soul.
Somewhere in the cloud, closed and locked, With no key to the front door.”
Poetry 2016 Shortlist, Debasish Mishra
Aftermath of A Cyclone
There used to be a temple
On the other end of the road,
Yes, there was a road!
It's bells rattled with holy hymns
Of the aged priest
And the zestful repetition
Of a fervent chorus,
While smokes and incense,
Proportionally wedded to each other,
Emerged out like Freedom.
There used to be a school nearby
Whose uniformed kids,
Screamed and smiled,
And seldom studied
Behind the erstwhile building.
In its vicinity was the playground
Where the same kids
With soiled hands and legs
Jumped and revelled
Amidst sweat, abuses, dirt and cow-dung.
And there was a colony,
Where innocuous men
Lived ordinary lives
Of petty merchants or contractual workers,
Dwelling in thatched roofs or semi-cemented walls;
A few prosperous ones,however,
Worked on higher echelons
And greater emoluments.
Their houses had larger rooms,
Spacious corridors,
And marble floors.
All their housewives - waited for them
In restless evenings
With hopes and tea.
Now, the wait is over.
There is no 'waiter' or 'waited'.
All are waived by the waves,
Like the temple, the school and the colony
Which are nowhere to be seen!
A strange degree of nostalgia
Still holds them though,
Unlike the physical maps
Where they are all missing.
Men and monuments
Are marred by Nature
Like sandhouses effaced by rollicking waves.
It's surprising how destruction,
Like darkness, can equate the odds,
By toning down everything
To a mere zero.
As days pass by,
A new habitation emanates
From the domains of the debris.
A new temple is made,
A new school is built,
A new colony is established,
A new town is born.
It seems as if whatever was ruined
Has been renovated by Time.
It is evidenced that the town
And the cycle of humanity
Are a pair of Phoenixes
Which rise from their ashes
Time and again.
There used to be a temple
On the other end of the road,
Yes, there was a road!
It's bells rattled with holy hymns
Of the aged priest
And the zestful repetition
Of a fervent chorus,
While smokes and incense,
Proportionally wedded to each other,
Emerged out like Freedom.
There used to be a school nearby
Whose uniformed kids,
Screamed and smiled,
And seldom studied
Behind the erstwhile building.
In its vicinity was the playground
Where the same kids
With soiled hands and legs
Jumped and revelled
Amidst sweat, abuses, dirt and cow-dung.
And there was a colony,
Where innocuous men
Lived ordinary lives
Of petty merchants or contractual workers,
Dwelling in thatched roofs or semi-cemented walls;
A few prosperous ones,however,
Worked on higher echelons
And greater emoluments.
Their houses had larger rooms,
Spacious corridors,
And marble floors.
All their housewives - waited for them
In restless evenings
With hopes and tea.
Now, the wait is over.
There is no 'waiter' or 'waited'.
All are waived by the waves,
Like the temple, the school and the colony
Which are nowhere to be seen!
A strange degree of nostalgia
Still holds them though,
Unlike the physical maps
Where they are all missing.
Men and monuments
Are marred by Nature
Like sandhouses effaced by rollicking waves.
It's surprising how destruction,
Like darkness, can equate the odds,
By toning down everything
To a mere zero.
As days pass by,
A new habitation emanates
From the domains of the debris.
A new temple is made,
A new school is built,
A new colony is established,
A new town is born.
It seems as if whatever was ruined
Has been renovated by Time.
It is evidenced that the town
And the cycle of humanity
Are a pair of Phoenixes
Which rise from their ashes
Time and again.
Poetry 2016 Shortlist, Archana Kapoor Nagpal
Akido of Motherhood
It’s 5am again,
The first light upon my face,
The daily buzz of the bedside alarm,
And I ask myself,
Why am I awake?
I scan through my emails,
Squeezing my eyes tight,
The project deadlines
Or these monthly targets,
Wiping the sleep from my eyes,
I read my emails – one after another,
I try to keep my eyes open,
To login – to start my work
The first light upon my face,
The daily buzz of the bedside alarm,
And I ask myself,
Why am I awake?
I scan through my emails,
Squeezing my eyes tight,
The project deadlines
Or these monthly targets,
Wiping the sleep from my eyes,
I read my emails – one after another,
I try to keep my eyes open,
To login – to start my work
I am in the middle of the work,
And, I guess my baby is crying,
Now it’s my time to breastfeed,
From baby to emails,
And emails to baby,
I do not know where my time flies,
I can listen to the outside traffic
And my neighbour’s rattling engine,
Until the doorbell rings at 6am,
I enter the kitchen to finish my cooking,
Before I leave for work,
I make sure to set all things right,
From crèche to office,
Then office to crèche
Day ends – and I am back to bed.
And, I guess my baby is crying,
Now it’s my time to breastfeed,
From baby to emails,
And emails to baby,
I do not know where my time flies,
I can listen to the outside traffic
And my neighbour’s rattling engine,
Until the doorbell rings at 6am,
I enter the kitchen to finish my cooking,
Before I leave for work,
I make sure to set all things right,
From crèche to office,
Then office to crèche
Day ends – and I am back to bed.
It’s 5am again,
And the first light upon my face,
I switch off the bedside alarm,
And shut down my phone,
I login to check for a place,
To disappear from my work, and my home,
I see holiday packages for solo travellers,
Mesmerising beauty of the holy Himalayas,
Cirrus clouds stretched across the sky,
The verdant tea gardens swaying in the breeze,
Unlimited videos of Buddhist chanting,
Amidst the tinkling bells,
I could feel anointing in different ways,
Until my neighbour’s rattling engine
makes my baby cry
And the first light upon my face,
I switch off the bedside alarm,
And shut down my phone,
I login to check for a place,
To disappear from my work, and my home,
I see holiday packages for solo travellers,
Mesmerising beauty of the holy Himalayas,
Cirrus clouds stretched across the sky,
The verdant tea gardens swaying in the breeze,
Unlimited videos of Buddhist chanting,
Amidst the tinkling bells,
I could feel anointing in different ways,
Until my neighbour’s rattling engine
makes my baby cry
The reality dawns upon me,
My mind echoes with a thousand thoughts,
How will my baby live without me?
Himalayas might give me peace for a while,
Nothing could be better,
Than my baby’s little smile,
Mantras might eradicate the negative thoughts,
To serve my family with the food
Is still more thoughtful to me,
Soon I could replace the tinkling bells
With the clink of my child’s anklets,
I could feel anointing in different ways,
As she rubs her cheeks against mine,
Again the doorbell rings at 6 AM,
In the middle of deadlines and targets,
I experience a state of meditation.
My mind echoes with a thousand thoughts,
How will my baby live without me?
Himalayas might give me peace for a while,
Nothing could be better,
Than my baby’s little smile,
Mantras might eradicate the negative thoughts,
To serve my family with the food
Is still more thoughtful to me,
Soon I could replace the tinkling bells
With the clink of my child’s anklets,
I could feel anointing in different ways,
As she rubs her cheeks against mine,
Again the doorbell rings at 6 AM,
In the middle of deadlines and targets,
I experience a state of meditation.
Poetry 2016 Longlist, Anusha Das
A Haunting
an eerie airstuffed the room
a spooky corner
by the broom
he saw a shadow
behind the curtain
whose bloodshot eyes
tore his vein
as he stood
around the furnace
to calm his senses
sooth his nerves
the fire ablaze
with a grotesque face
calling his name
a dark voice came
"Welcome my friend
To the house of Living Dead"
and thud he fell
with a broken head
Poetry 2016 Shortlist, Amar Agarwala
Sorcery of Time
Mortals come & mortals go
Wry life will ever pillage,
The sea and mountains remain
And will remain the village;
Memories lace old pathways
With a painful tear or two,
Lo dried with a mystic touch
Fine sorcery time can do.
Mortals come & mortals go
Wry life will ever pillage,
The sea and mountains remain
And will remain the village;
Memories lace old pathways
With a painful tear or two,
Lo dried with a mystic touch
Fine sorcery time can do.
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