THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I’m good with whatever happens
I’m good with if it doesn’t
Trying to get it with put me away
From the moment where I stay
Just like Trees have no complaints
It sheds and grows without a frain
Trust the Universe and how it plays
Everything in Existence has a special place
Just like a baby you are taken care
Only when you SURRENDER you get there.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
To think about you is my favourite hobby,
To knit those thoughts into words makes me so happy.
The day our eyes met and then met again,
Others might not know, but it rained.
To get ready for you gives immense pleasure,
Just for your one look, I can leave every treasure.
Your ineffable eyes have the power to resurrect the sinking ship,
Do others know about the heavenly embrace that can make any life flip?
I hope to make the stars jealous even when it’s sunrise,
Staying around you is the spectacular dream I want to live and realize.
To write about you fills me with abundant delight,
It feels accomplished to have you always by my side.
I know you love to read what I write for you,
Let’s meet again and let me live the ‘dream of tea’ with you as my view.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
Though faithless all night long
Though faithless all night long
when you wake up, you could
attempt a prayer
you could resume the piano chant
from grand or upright versions
consoling with sharps and flats
black and white keys
varied pitches ,octaves ,accidentals
sheer sustainment of chords for relief.
Standing but not tallest,
while we are faithless ,
the sky is not liberal
blocks you like the ground -
hands raised upward
must lift in supplication .
What enters your vulnerable heart
is no music just the pitter - patter
of rainstorms which turn scary .
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
In a new home
with a new name,
she slowly adjusts
with a smile.
She rises at dawn
for son and husband,
rests late at night,
a forgotten star.
Sweats tirelessly
over the hot tava,
a sighing chapati
with dark circles.
A backstage artist
of clockwork existence,
the crucial cog
in thankless relations.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
Angāra→ I love you●
The factory gate declares
to a busy, indifferent road
In fresh white brushstrokes against
Brown fungal walls stinking of rotted garbage and urine.
Algae frame those larger-than-life words.
The letters are all
in upper case – uneven; smeared
on the layer of powdered rust upon the Iron Gate - sticking
against hope; weighed down
by the diligent dusts of traffic jams.
The painter must be going somewhere –
home perhaps,
after frugal dinner and ample drink,
finishing off the residual paint
on a daunting factory gate; his friends
goading his unsteady fingers to declare
to the world his freedom
to love, a blooming lotus
amid muddy swamps.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
Does this happen in your jungle or just the case at mine?
Is the wolf in you put to cages and the bird not wanting to chirp?
Is the weeping willow still entertaining, the norms of this world?
Is it bowing to the waters, not wanting the world to witness its falling tears
while embodying all the pains and fears?
Is the candle consuming its light or dissipating with all its might?
Will the pain turn to numbness or would the woods wander for change?
While the weeping willow wonders if it’s love for water would consume it or make it reign..?
But oh how the waters whisper that the willow wood was meant to make magic wands..
And stay afloat while the world drowns..
The willow’s wisdom was whispered for the weakened to cross waters while finding strength
And for the light Warriors to ascend
So witness yourself as the wondrous willow, that re sprouts when cut.
Your woods have the strength,
Strength to cast a spell.
Your inner resilience has a way to bring change
So go make magic
as you’ve let Magic make you
And weep not my wondrous willow..
But teach what you can while the world is under your pillow
Maybe the willow tree was always at war with the wuthering winds and withering world
Maybe the weeping willow just bent to not break. It’s resilience was hard for them to take.
Maybe You never lost if you’re still trying hard to wake.
-By khwabida_ki_parvaaz
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
For everything that has been left behind,
All those who have left,
Left their prints in my mind,
For everything that was once essential,
which makes no sense now,
All the fights and grudges for it,feels silly somehow.
For all those fulfilled dreams,
which I hardly treasure;
the ones which were my yardstick to measure.
For the ones who are still with me,
But it isn't the same as before.
Much like your favourite shirt, favourite still,
but doesn't fit you anymore.
For all those moments, when I felt alive.
Those road trips, teenage proposals, my first drive,
favourite sunsets, silly friendships,
mum's cooked food, broken relationships
forming a beautiful story of life.
Looking back I see,
how life takes a bit of me from me.
and more than the people who were left behind,
more than the moments that wouldn't get rewind,
more than anything else I yearn,
for the part of me that is lost to time.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
In times, when truth be the victim
Stand by it
For truth, seek not validation
Shed trepidation
Hold thine head high,
When truth thee declare
For by it,
Thou shalt be known
Pick your speech with care
For truth is to heal, and repair
Farther misery in history,
Caused by lies
No greater a misfortune
Wrung ‘pon mankind
Deceit with quick spoils,
Stands alone
Thou must get its sins,
To atone
When choiced with honour or fame
Choose the one which keeps thee sane
Knowest among allies,
The antidote to evil
From morals, ethics, ideals, kindness and principle
With these,
Be armed thou must
To buttress,
Thine belief and trust
Then deep within,
Thee will always be strong
No matter how grievously,
Thee be wronged
With every dawn,
Shall rise the belief
Only thine truth,
Will bring reprieve
Baulk not,
If thine truth hath no patron
I shall hail thee,
From wherever I be
Truth may toil for justice
But win it must,
For a soul’s armistice
Remember,
Great men have walked alone
Their greatness, later in glory,
First, from the path they owned
Every person be great,
Not alone by fame
But by truth, to their name
In this I trust
When thou shall shine,
Thence, pride and honour be mine
So, remember
In times when truth be the victim,
Stand by it
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
The emptiness of shouting out your loss,
so that once you lose the grips,
the world surrenders its weapons pointed at you.
To quiver together at the cold fall that fills the abandoned while
instigated by shrieks inside,
remembering their laugh, cry, smile, and skin-wrapped smirk,
the old scents they flowered themselves with
and the hopes they bloomed your life with.
Also, their roughness to balance for namesake and life
It's a long-held river, squirming, and ready to cover its full length,
crossed and revised by the bridge of changes and belongings.
The snippets of their memory passing through you
like the corals in the waves of the ocean,
and like the owner’s house building onto itself and its story.
But it's more of a person we care or do not care about that stays with us
like a souvenir, not in their memory
but in our stories that mingle in for retelling.
The memory remains still, but of losing.
They say that you lose people and their memories,
but you lose people and the time you could have spent.
It is the nostalgia that creeps in and not the memorized guilt.
The sandcastles you could have forged together,
the quilts you could’ve woven and knit together,
the ice creams that could’ve ended your long car drives,
and the same losses and gains you would have made together.
An unsound dream that can never be fulfilled in reality,
one that soothes your soul but cannot be addressed
as an affair to your conscience.
How paradoxical it is,
once the memories are sustained,
they also get stained by our relentlessness,
and somewhere our longing puts us in extreme pain.
It is not the one like a mother goes into labour
or a woman burning herself to death,
but the one like a flower goes through, on its broken pedicel,
like the baby elephant on the death of his mother.
Unknown of any familiar feeling,
It longs and longs enough.
Knowing somewhere that he’ll never be caressed that way,
a feeling so unfamiliar yet so close to his heart.
How embedded it is,
that of death only death could metaphorically describe it rightly.
Death, a loss which is an exception to its like,
one that rips and frills you at the same time,
it evokes repentance and absurdity at the same time,
it lights on end of life and preparations for the afterlife altogether.
So that even if one has shattered beliefs,
he can recollect and find his saviour in them,
this loss is familiar to every human breathing,
and the fear that ends with it also creeps in from a juvenile phase,
and grows a being to become one.
The meaning of life arises from the fear of death
like the meaning of love arises from the existence and fear of hate,
attachment strives due to its uncalled end.
End, meet me slow,
do not hurry this time like every time you do,
I might look strong but I’m not,
I’m the one who craves comfort in mellowed and scented arms,
showing up numb to the friendly ones.
I feel as if I understand longing and only satiable arms-
while you are one of the dizzy spectators,
who seeks a different meaning,
I sometimes wonder if this world ultimately aims for an end,
like can you please for once, forgive the rabbit for not winning it
and can you please comfort the tortoise to be victorious in any case,
irrespective of his newly found glory,
that lasts only until the tortoise remains an exhibitionist,
till the time people have an exception to their excitement
of someone who survived the death he was sentenced to,
by the lively corpses offering glory, in this place hoarding antiques,
representing the living who were born here and surprised this world,
by dying their way, again.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I am in the kitchen, thinking,
waiting for the second pot of giant pasta –
conchiglioni- to boil.
I have spectacularly burnt the first lot,
absorbed as I was under autumn sun
with poets,
drawing in through my dark glass eye
non-digital India,
Corona love letters
wild feathers, bright embers,
falling upwards, as ash...
…and while the first pot of pasta burns,
I am thinking.
Sometimes your head
does not quite connect
to your body, my Mother declares
when I have given birth
to a first, still, baby.
Still weeping blood for this lost one,
I run down tunnels of European stations
dragging cases full of river stones…
You’re right. Head does not
always connect to body,
dearest Mother. Did yours?
We have been hard schooled in intellect,
made to believe that thought and word
are the highest forms of Art.
Don’t take too much notice of the physical!
Body is merely the earthly vehicle.
Do not get caught up in its intricacies.
Think instead of the Body of Work
you are here to deliver.
I muse some more, sampling titbits
somewhat shy about giving myself
completely to own verse.
After a few more hundred years
of carelessly leaving out my soul
sprawled on someone or other’s verandah
lost as a cardigan, stray dupatta,
I wonder
if there’s really
any sanctity
in meta tongue of exchange.
Words that pass between us
beneficial,
or simply prompt
to some more, eventually filling
another slim volume
ardently awaiting its turn to be bound,
held, read, fondled, discussed, gossiped over,
clean forgotten?
I stare out of the kitchen window.
Monkey fists past, on her way
to pull pears.
Better to establish
a multispecies tongue.
Animals push us further towards
the heartfelt inchoate,
each meow-bark-hiss-snarl
real and felt.
The conchiglioni is done to perfection.
Chop chop fresh green beans,
melt butter,
sprinkle on handful of
Himalayan cheese.
Decide to learn to pounce,
curl, wash, observe.
Democracy of activity will fulfil
every one of my diverse bodies,
the fleshly, astral and atman.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I often wonder what it means to be free.
I grew up hearing freedom and liberty as the mottos of my democracy.
Am I free simply because I was born here, a natural citizen? Am I free because I have an identity card to prove my citizenship?
I grew up hearing that I live in a republic where the people are powerful,
But I go around begging for what is rightfully my due: rations, education, shelter, electricity, and healthcare.
I often wonder what it means to be free.
I grew up hearing secularism and diversity as the uniqueness of my nation, its pride.
I am beaten up if I don't chant a slogan, teased because of my skin color, and mocked for resembling the Chinese.
I grew up hearing that the law is for all, and all are equal,
Yet I'm beaten up for speaking to a girl from another religion, and I'm forced to tie a rakhi and call her 'behen'.
I often wonder what it means to be free.
I grew up hearing about freedom of speech and the right to equality,
But I'm often asked about my surname and my ancestors' occupation.
Whatever I speak is labeled as rightist, leftist, pro, or anti.
I grew up hearing that the nation comes first, and we are all brothers and sisters,
Yet when I voice my dissent against a biased bill or don't conform to the majority's stance, I'm booked for sedition and branded a traitor.
I often wonder what it means to be free.
Flying within a cage, going in circles,
Flying at a controlled pace with my clipped wings.
I'm made to fly blindly, as I'm led and told to follow the flock.
I fly with my head ducked in fear, living just to see the next day's dawn.
I fly to survive, at 'the cost' of my freedom.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
Cross that door, evolve.
Step ahead and resolve
miscreations, misunderstandings, misinformed gore,
and tread as you would
if wings grew out of your spine.
Tearing out wide and strong.
Open those gates,
Closed, rusted, pushed aside.
Bust out.
Feel the wind touch your skin,
as you're akin
to the cold winter night.
Each cold hit is like
that bullet in the eye
that left the world blind.
Feel it.
As it flows.
Don't stop,
Don't bow,
Don't deter.
Soak in the air,
and cross every door.
Tell every other,
Time is here, now.
A time like no other.
Where the blue cold beasts
won't stop hunting
even in the summer.
Tell them to gather.
For the floods, the fear,
And the fathomable tear
Of our belonging.
Together,
Slather with ink, voices, and gestures
a new world.
Before your spine falls
and your wings are cut off.
Go on,
it's time to cross that door.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
She says she has nothing new to offer,
She is nothing extraordinary,
And no one you haven't seen the likes of before...
I believe her.
She says she is nothing unusual,
She may have one or two stories,
But, they are not unheard of...
I believe her.
She says she is no hero,
She may act like the protagonist of a movie once in a while,
Stoic and strong...
But, we all do, sometimes.
She says she is nothing extraordinary,
I believe her.
She says there is nothing exceptional in the way I feel,
That there is nothing new,
Even... in this sense of invincible joy,
Of having known true happiness and beauty like nothing else before,
Or in this pain...
Of sinking to a bottomless ocean,
Or having a thousand shards of glass,
Rip right through your heart.
She says there is nothing extraordinary in the way I feel,
I believe her.
But, there is nothing ordinary about love.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
What do you do
When you keep giving too much of yourself
To someone who can only accept too little?
What do you do when you have a bouquet of flowers in your arms
But no hands reaching out for them,
Should I just stand by your doorstep,
Waiting for the petals to wilt before knocking on your door?
What do you do when you’re too much for someone
Who can only take in too little?
Instead of gifting you poetry in the small decorative bag
That you once told me reminded you of your mom’s rangoli,
I’ll text you good night
And go to bed trying not to think of you,
Trying to be less for you.
Instead of learning the words to all your favourite Prateek Kuhad songs,
I’ll play the first suggestion on Apple Music
And say I forgot you liked Hindi music.
I’ll tell you I forgot your regular coffee order,
I forgot your sister’s name,
I forgot your birthday,
I forgot it all.
I’ll try to be less.
I’ll try to give you less of me.
I can be anything you want me to be;
Just tell me you want me.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I hope to share with you all,
More poems from my healing heart's call,
Though it's been shattered and torn apart,
I find an anchor to mend each part.
Suicidal thoughts may haunt my mind,
But in this anchor, solace I find,
I'll spend quiet time to recombine,
My heart to myself, a task so divine.
Till I return from this tearful mission,
Reclaiming the pieces, my heartfelt vision,
My strength may have waned,
Yet I'll be whole again, no longer pained.
Drained of power, sweetness lost,
I'll rebuild, no matter the cost,
When I'm gone, what's left of me,
In memories, a place to be.
Innocence marked by time's delay,
These are the shadows of a darker day,
Unprepared I was for this strife,
But I'll find my way back to life.
Yearning for peace in a world of strife,
Chased in circles, this uncertain life,
By two-faced cabals in their games,
I'll regain my strength, no more in chains.
Pour me hope, a living stream,
Gallons of it, like a vivid dream,
In this journey, I'll find my way,
From broken to whole, come what may.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I want to walk down those lanes again
that once bore witness to my childhood.
I want to ask them if it was as lively as I remember,
The walks in the garden, the meadows, and the woods.
Was our laughter as loud as it still rings in my ears?
Was it as cheerful and free from all fears?
Were the trees as tall and the grass as green?
Does the scent of roses still linger, and is the view still as serene?
Is that trunk of a tree still lying there, which once fell to the ground and laid,
Which patiently bore us climbing on top, for all the evenings that we played?
Did it delay its decay and finally die when it was time for us to go?
Did it, on purpose, halt its growth and instead watch us bloom and grow?
Were the faces around me as happy as they are etched in my mind?
Or was I too young to see the grief that they perfectly hid behind?
Is that the innocence of youth they talk about,
Which once lost is never to be found?
The carefree spirit that once ran wild
Is now shackled with duties, never unbound.
When did it all end? Was it all too sudden for me to realize,
Or was it when I bargained to be the master of my choices,
With what came as responsibilities in disguise.
We remained unaware of the worries of life, and the world seemed so fair and good,
Alas, this bubble of lies was burst,
And I think that marked the end of my childhood!
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
Hope diminishes like the image of a loving pot plant in driving distance,
one that grew in nurture drains and nitrogen rains,
smaller and smaller until a dot and then a vanish.
Just like that, hush.
Shouldn't I be protecting it, loving it,
holding it to my chest in aggressive need,
like the last ever heave of breath?
Shouldn't I be saving it
even in the mirage of its vague existence?
Shouldn't I be singing its praises,
of joy and triumph and delight and victory?
I try to speak, but vacuum stays for me,
I try to lean, but no shoulder holds me,
I try to stay, but ruined roots grace my ground,
I try...I tried, amidst frowned and ignored.
Ah, the butterflies are still now,
them who never stopped flying, in blush and ambition-
who never stopped;
tight grasps to the details of slow flutters and iridescent breathing wings,
the butterflies are still now,
resting, life slowly growing back into them,
caterpillars again, to feel more and
maybe to wake up to the sight of their pretty pot plant,
one they will grow in nurture drains and nitrogen rains.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I have an empty space,
That’s wrapped around my heart,
And anyone who's seen it,
Doesn't think I'm very smart.
They wonder about my life,
They wish upon a star,
To take away the vacuum,
Or fill the space up like a jar.
But I love my empty spaces,
I don't need to build a wall,
The things that need a way out,
Usually find one on their own.
My precious empty spaces,
Keep all things fresh and new,
Letting colors run freely,
Without painting things a certain hue.
I see no fear or trouble,
Because little do they know,
We all need a little space sometimes,
Some room for us to grow.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
I had a nightmare last night: a divided human race has been pitted against one another. The reason I can't quite remember, for the war that began had passed a decade and the land was strewn with bleeding drops of red. Vultures circled the dead and dying, bodies of able-bodied men, scattered crimson beads that broke away from a single thread. O, from a single thread! Mothers for their sons with lifeless eyes searching the bloody valley pregnant with the dead, the flame they had kept ablaze lies half-eaten by heartless feathered beings, a sight powerful enough to stop their hearts pounding loud. The ill-fated mothers of little handsome boys who are now fatherless see dogs licking off warm blood from their spouses’ arms that sheltered their family once. Snatching father from son, brother from brother. Why then should there be wars? Whatever the size of the reasons. Whose selfish desire? To conquer or to expand? Are courts the places where abhorrent ideas are sown? Are ministers the venom in the kings’ ears? From where does one get the idea to slaughter one's brother? I felt the earth shaking beneath my legs like a thousand incomplete lives asking why. Could the king hush the rebellion beneath the blood-soaked mud? The rebellion for justice! The rebellion asks why. Why is my wife a widow? Why is my child fatherless? Could the king sleep again? He can only if he chooses to be blind and deaf to his soldiers' living debris. He can sleep peacefully if he has a heart of stone. The child of no tyrant is graced with safety or goodwill. He can only be clothed in the comforts of purple for so long.
Tell me why another war?
Irene, wake up!
It's time!
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
It all started as a whisper,
You poured into me something sweet for the years.
Is it prose or a verse?
Or half-told lies?
Curious, I was in the beginning,
like a fiction without an ending.
It was nothing like a good old movie,
But I got hitched like you wanted me to be.
Long forgotten, the secrets are to be hidden.
But you and I let out a contagious infection.
Our words spread like a forest fire.
Reality? We were nothing short of liars.
Our victim got burned alive.
It scarred his mind for life.
An irony? or maybe we were lucky.
The source of the lie remains a mystery.
Our guilt came with the ransom.
It haunts us, turning each day fearsome.
Truth, it was him yesterday.
We could be next in line any day.
What started as sweet for the ears
Have turned into a poisonous rumor.