Poetry 2016 Winners and Featured Writers

  Longlist                                                       Shortlist

First Prize	Second Prize	Third Prize
Shloka Shankar	Akila Gopalakrishnan	Devika Dhond
Featured Writers
Saptarshi Dutt	Dipti Bayan	Sudhanshu Chopra
Garima Behal
Amrit Sinha	Manjit Banerjee	Gayatri Lakhiani Chawla
Akshaya Pawaskar	Debdip Maitra	Diwakar Pokhriyal

Poetry 2016 Featured Sudhanshu Chopra

Imperfecto

I'm such a fatso, she said
You won't be able to wrap around me
It doesn't matter, he said
I will wear foam fingers then
or hug you in half
It can be um,
a funny mime, tree hugging,
glaze of barnacle
on the whale
or simply a brush of
shoulders;
Viscosity of eyes, elements around
forgotten

Ripples of fragrance will unravel me
I'm the thread I was
holding onto
from open fields of stench
that tear me
to the marrow
Now no more
the muffling blimp in sea of quagmire
as unclipped bun on your head rebounds,
sprinkles dust and shampoo
into my nose

The smudges of paint
from turning pages of the book
I told you to read
form on your nails maps of unknown nations l will visit
while crawling through reams of paper
at work
Continents dipped in puddles of your tears
for I don't want to be drenched in the rain

How did you think, she asked
will all of this sound amusing
It will, he said
when I murmur it in your ear.

Poetry 2016 Firstprize, Shloka Shankar

Before Darkness

i become a silhouette
and a mere punctuation mark
somewhere in the city.

my instinct shrinks
to the size of a headless
red gummy bear—
fearful, restrained.

a heart-shaped balloon
lingers behind the skyscraper
of my dreams and reaches
for a chrysanthemum moon.

Poetry 2016 Featured Saptarshi Dutt

My Heart

I buried everything you gave me
In the orchard.
Then I let the silence
Come on like a good drug.
Already, the gunships loom.
Now the swallows
Come to me in sleep. And a boy
Whispers of Saint Francis and the wolf
He broke. In the sanitarium, some Christian brothers
Come offering solace.
But my heart is the smallest
Catafalque. Always,
I was such a strange sort of
Princess. Hiding in the horseweed with my crosses,
Yellow-haired and feral in the woods.
Now, neither birds nor the sea can save me.

Set me in the field and let the stars
Have their way.

Poetry 2016 Featured Manjit Banerjee

The Holy Women of Her Denial

There is something in her, that doesn't like denial
 the nonchalance and the acceptance of it.  
She likes Susanna’s lips and the words she mouths
not the scent of her body, nor the soul either
the roundness of her thoughts
her irregular unusual but blatant monologue
gives her a sense of being
she is the scent that she can and does wear everyday
but she does not like that self which makes her speak
She loves when she speaks to him wearing that red lipstick;
She likes the soul of Joanna, but not the toned flesh
the purity and the chastity of the soul
but not the skin cover that shrouds it
on long lazy evenings she loves her craving for her existence
gives her a sense of promiscuity
over long calls and clattered discussions
but she does not like that self which makes her speak
She loves when she speaks over the phone wearing that blue liner;
She loves the long nails of Mary
It lingers on her lusty soul at the fag end of the night
like the last golden drag of the cigarette
She does not like waking up naked with her
the shreds of dead skins in relationship with her painted nails 
reminds her of the stench of her tired instantiate lust
it harrows, hunts her during those solitary nights
she loves when she lies by her wearing that black nail colour;
She hates the balance of denial with which she lives every day;
the hollowness of denial and the fulfilment of it. 

Poetry 2016 Featured Gayatri Lakhiani Chawla

Addicted

Last Friday as I bathed you,
my newborn
warding off the evil spirits
from a bowl of coal fumes,
our eyes locked
we seemed to have met before
in another life perhaps,
your feet have walked
all over my heart before
I’m sure
they leave tiny carbon footprints
pieces of a lost memory puzzle,
a forgotten ship moving North
many past years ago,
a lake of frozen bodies
water washing away our fate lines.
Do I know you from somewhere?
You bring a smile to my quotidian life
a fountain of grace
sweetness personified,
our lives are crocheted
with the yarn of time.

Poetry 2016 Featured Garima Behal

Cadaver

Termites gnawing at wood, the never ending pain

of unspoken poetry

                                   (chipping away)

buried like breath

stilled beneath

                                   layers and layers

                                   and layers and   

                                    layers of layers  

of death, in a grave

                 discarded even by guardian angels...

The loss

      of wings, and halos, and hope

      and faith, and prayer, and good times

                         spread like the remnants of b-r-o-k-e-n china-

an effort to piece it all together

against the thumping walls of my heart

                results

                                in jagged edges

                                piercing the valves;

                fountains of blood, blood-red,

                tumble out of white wrist razor marks.

Unloved:ness.       

The onslaught of thought.

Termites crawling over a discarded grave.

       Termites chewing at my brain.

                 Termites gnawing at wood –

                                                    this never ending pain. 

Poetry 2016 Featured Dipti Bayan

The Gypsy...

The ancient lamp post flickered
The amber light; somewhat hazy.
Reminiscence glowed,
And the shadow blazed.

The maiden under alone,
Her wait for the recluse.
Before it rains,she must be back soon.

The sling on her shoulder,
Heavy to carry,
Tired as always, but she being the gypsy.

The home is a distant far cry.
Where shall move on she?
The dark night bellowed,
Afraid not is she.

The amber light and the feather touch,

Is only to be relished.

Poetry 2016 Thirdprize Devika Dhond

Bipolar

Erect to the paving the hive
Swarming the bees where amass
Slipped an electron then alive
Plunged on the tassel ALAS!

Followed then what
Fate, trait or taught

---

Crayons colossal those crusty colours
Sketches unremitting the canvas
Bolster the blues petty the pink flowers
Portly the pictures, skinny the carcass

---

Prose; that frenzy wordy rose
Thorns like letters punctured; a scuffle
Panicky rhymes; caricature of a pose
Devoured books of pages; a muffle

---

Gotten then down
Hollow the bowed crown

---

Bee--zzzzz then danced out; sluiced
Bare empty vacant, vale on the chart
Bleak, worthless my mind; bruised
Clutching the bloody freight; my heart

Poetry 2016 Longlist, Anila Mathew

Nostalgia

Rose is the hue
Gaiety, merriment, contentment, aspirations,
Alter egos discovered
Promises recovered
From the recesses of time
Some broken, some not
Bathed in glory
Of passed time and youth
Sepia tinged pictures of joy
Piercing sadness
As reality beckons into a cold grip
Memories are flushed away

Poetry 2016 Longlist, Angel Jajo

To The Man I Once Loved

Our song “Wonderful Tonight” is playing on the radio,
and I can see us dancing, giggling like two lost souls,
and with your hands on my hips we are slowly making our way to the bed.
It’s been a long time since we last heard or seen each other.
But once in a while, when I lay on my bed bogged down by existence,
I visit our memories, not with a longing heart but from memories of an adored happiness which refuses to be gone.
I think we were like those flowers, looking for the right sunshine, for the right ground.
So we could bloom beautifully as we should be. And we did find the right place, but it was without each other.
And I guess with time, we have somehow beautifully moved on with our lives.
There were a lot of things we did, but I just want you to know that I will never forget our last December,
where I was learning to float in the ocean with your hands firmly on mine.
My fears were gone and I promised the ocean that I will be back better than what I am.
And now, even with the distance of space, faded memories and lost emotions,
I know every time I’m in the water I will always feel your hand.

Poetry 2016 Featured Amrit Sinha

His Doll House

he tried pulling out the drawers
but there were no damn keys
he ran towards the larder
where food was rotting for free
and there he hid
like a long lost kid
in streams of red
his heart would skip
as voices came closer
yet farther, still
he was scared of their laughter
breaking all his will
'cause he was a teen
who dressed like queen
and played with dolls
and danced in balls
trapped in dreams
and dust, and whim
the house that stood
on his table's rim
where he would sleep
once lights were dim
with a hope, and wish
his doll house, his bliss
he tried pulling out the drawers
but there were no damn keys
he ran towards the larder
where food was rotting for free

Poetry 2016 Featured Akshaya Pawaskar

Starfish and I

I still wonder whether starfish
Washed up the shores are
Fallen stars snuffed out by brine.
They fit in the cradle of palm
Bristly yet riveting until
They sting you back to prosaic.
You wouldn’t know they fear
For life too, that instinct
of flight, fight, freeze or fawn.
As you haven’t walked in their
Limbs, until they shed
Them and wait for its Phantom.
Just as we don’t know so much
Of our very own bodies
And souls, we tumbled stars.
We evert our hearts out, suck up
All that we thrive on, love.
Until stomached by sharks, blight.
We pull out of the jar, a January
A February and so on till
Emptiness breeds thick like slime.
We keep crunching numbers but
They don’t diminish, they
Just add up, we call it synergistic.
And we are just mere curios for
Posterity, an odd starfish
On someone’s mantelpiece.

Poetry 2016, Second Prize, Akila Gopalakrishnan

Spectrum of C

 

Cocoa
Dusted
rusted
frayed
watermarked
bitter-
sweet
melanin

Chartreuse
Spring and autumn,
forty and hormones;
how does the sky
carry its salt and pepper?

Cerulean
This sky is a spotless mirror
in water where the poet brings
his box of pastels,
they soak my blues.

Cerise
Like pimples, born supple,
smeared with sandalwood paste and
washed with aloe vera, tulsi, neem,
what does one do with
broken dreams?

Chestnut
Cupboards, beds, baskets, trays.
They talk about Burma teak.
He works with particle boards.
Five years, ten years, fifteen, twenty…?
Water – proof?
Termite – free?
Insurance?
Is there one today
when promises return in a coffin?

Charcoal
Q: What if everything crumbles into a handful?
A: We would turn our palms into constellations.

Chalk
Have you counted syllables of stillness?
Have you sought brevity of the quiet?
Or is the distance between us scripted in infinity?