As the fight for the LitSoc Shield (and hostel glory) draws to an end for the semester, T5E presents all the top five winning entries under the Poetry and Prose categories of Creative Writing(Solo).
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First Position
Prompt: It was like a vivisection.
By Zainab Ummer – Sharav
An Anatomy of a Star-crossed Lover’s Heart
It lives. Observe,
then,
the first faulty
scales of Justice
fist-sized,
rusting away
in cobwebbed corners
of forgotten knowledge. No ledgers
tally here: yearning
is always mired in red –
observe, now, the deep vivid warm red
in this antechamber
of churning dreams, flushed
with furious lust
fire raging in its belly
as it scampers up the trunk
of the tree of life
seeking out
every last leaf, every farthest
branch, every lurking bract
mapped on this body
mapped on this fragile, fierce body
quivering with a hunger
willing to shatter
all known laws of the universe
merely to meet another deep vivid warm red
if only at the fingertips.
Just the fingertips.
What the first faulty scales of Justice
doesn’t know
is that even faulty scales tip over
and sometimes
a thirsting aching dreaming yearning
body
is a weight the universe cannot bear,
will not bear, for fear
of learning
its laws to be empty words.
The universe writes new laws then:
to dream is to love disaster, to yearn is
to court aching, to ache is to ache more.
Now see how your red falters. See how
it retreats from cheek and lips
and loins and breasts, see
its fire and joy and promise
ring
hollow, veined with the blues
of a world
built on stardust and dream-ash
from charred bodies
of lovers
who dared defy stars and planets
and names
engraved upon once newly-clean
foreheads
ready to bear out new destinies
treading the same old trajectories:
the stars are indeed at fault, and what’s
in a name but the entire universe
sitting in judgment
seeking a blood price
for scripture and stricture
wounded?
And so life-blood pounds, lifeless, against
bloodless walls, seeking life –
wandering
from right atrium to ventricle to lungs
torn asunder in two
where blood meets breath meets hope
new futures pulsing and flaring
across
well-worn paths buried beneath scar
and skin
and it is written, and it is so:
lub dub lub dub lub dub
vivere, vivo, vivus
Tapping out, in non-code, against
remorseless rib cage
the song of bone and blood, muscle
and sinew:
I live. I live. I live.
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Second Position
Prompt: Begin with “Did you all just feel that?”.
By Soham Sarkar – Alak
The painting of Diana
“Did you all just feel that?” I whispered,
Eagerly looking towards my fair weather allies
Who sipped on a watery tea and made small talk,
Wrapped in their own world of fitful pretences
And blinding diamond jewellery.
I felt sad that none of them noticed
The painting of Diana on the opposite wall sway slightly,
For a good five seconds,
Just like it did every single day
For the past five months, two weeks and two days.
I sat mesmerised staring at the painting on the wall,
Willing for yet another instance,
Stronger than the previous one,
Which will make my guests sit up and finally notice
What made me feel alive
In the midst of endless despair.
I saw one of them from the corner of my eye,
Admiring the painting of Diana on the opposite wall
And I suddenly felt guilty
As I unassumingly revealed the secret gateway
To my new found goddess
Whose presence made me cling
To my own non-descript existence,
And made me dare to dream
About things I didn’t know existed.
I never met her my idol in flesh
Even though she lived next door.
I heard the deep hunger during the chilly nights
And the soul stirring whimper at the early dawn,
The faded wall shook with ferocity
That I had not known till then.
It stopped as abruptly as it started
And I saw Diana
Part her lips to inhale the moment
Which made my mind go hunting for raw emotions.
I often rewind back to the day
When he brought the painting of Diana
And a bouquet of violet lilies
To redeem for his infidelity.
Diana stared dispassionately at us
As the room reverberated with a creaking sound,
Filled with guilt and desperation.
I thought I saw Diana smirk
And I swore to revenge the insult.
Though I didn’t had to wait long
For the first tremor came the very next day.
Diana looked queer within the titled frame.
I felt a grim satisfaction.
And then came the tornado.
I was snapped out of my reverie
As I heard the faded walls come to life
I rushed out of the kitchen just in time
To witness Diana
Part her lips and sing the lustful song
That made my forget my helplessness
To make my man happy
And transformed me into a rightful woman,
Capable of yielding boundless powers.
But today, the song sounded unnatural
Fraught with terror instead of wistful sighs.
I was confused and looked at Diana.
My goddess was reduced to a mere mannequin,
Who screamed like a wretched soul
Begging to be rescued from hell,
While the wall kept up its relentless crusade.
I ran back to the kitchen and shut myself in.
I heard a loud thud a moment later
And wept a silent prayer.
They found the body the next day.
I stood by my door undecided,
Whether to pay my obeisance in person
Or let the memory disappear into oblivion.
Suddenly I found myself hastening towards my idol
To behold Diana for one last time.
Her pale face stood out, pure and serene
Without the slight hint of a blemish.
As if death was indeed her last wish.
My eyes rested on her white neck
And found the marks I craved for myself all this long,
Raw and venereal, the scars looked unflinchingly familiar.
I felt a kick in my gut
And turned around to find him standing by the door
With a bunch of red carnations
And a brand new painting of Helen.
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Third Position
Prompt: Such a queer box this is.
By Tejas S – Cauvery
Old Man and the Bomb
Such a queer box this is,
This house of brick,
Cut off from the street,
The lawn yellow and brown
In a row of dewy green,
Windows papered and boarded.
Behind a heavy red door
That looked as if it were metal
I knew a man lived,
With hair a dirty grey, and clothes torn
And ridden with holes ringed by black
Where welding work had burnt through them.
The windows were laden with lead
And the room Spartan,
War-ready and simple.
A bunk bed, one for the man
Another for an unmet friend.
News reports on the wall,
Those faded and outdated
Stuck underneath the updates.
New ones altogether getting closer
To a relative centre on the wall;
Bulls-eye.
No data charts, no distance measurements,
Neither scientific evidence, nor predictions.
Only a mounting fear, invisible
On the wall,
Rising like a bloody cough
Up the old man’s throat.
When asked what
He was afraid of
He told them of
The inevitable explosion.
The wait for the umbrella
To defeat all umbrellas.
A closer inspection of the wall
Depicted
To the east, the wayward Young ‘Un
To the west, the Israeli Yahoo,
Above, the macho man who never Putin his papers.
Further west, the unpredictable Don,
Near home, the Paks packing them.
At home, an irrational paranoia
Whether his own would burn him
Nero Moda.
His mother visited him, doddering, toothless
And told him that the bombs would not come.
His sister too.
And once an old friend.
Lastly his old boss.
He was indisposed
To heed their entreaties.
They critiqued his lack of data,
Of diagrams
(Falsely) showed him the inevitability
Of him being in range of the warheads.
Yet he said he knew that they would fall
Crash into each other like the missiles
In arcade games
Fall thick and fast like his hair
And leave the land bare and smoking;
His shining scalp.
Data swam in front of eyes
Data for, data against.
A social scientist told him
About Mutually Assured Destruction
But he thought him to be mad.
His throat felt more and more constricted
And he knew the bombs would fall
Because his heart told him so,
Fluttering and growing older.
And when a shot was fired
By a vagrant in the neighbourhood
He thought the bomb had come
And his heart stopped
Momentarily.
He waited.
The cries of dogs
And cats
And other unheard beasts assaulted him.
He sat straight
In his chair, struggling for breath.
The news reports watched
From the wall,
The old ones craning unsuccessfully.
Over time the termites
Ate away the wooden barricade
And rust the iron
On the windows.
Softly past the lead lining
And under the kink in the tablecloth,
Swishing over the stench of decomposition,
A breeze caressing the cutouts,
Taunting the Winter.
Behind another door,
Disregarding data, disregarding news,
Believing in himself,
Another waited for the fall
And winters came and went
But never a nuclear winter.
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Fourth Position
Prompt: Such a queer box this is.
By Anshuman Karthik – Tapti
An odd confinement indeed,
Being here, the best of the best.
Climbing ladders without a top,
Not knowing what it is to rest.
We start so young and beautiful,
Gentle, warm and pure.
Typically, as I understand it,
The opposite of mature.
They say we have options,
Mountains and roads galore,
But every ascent, every peak,
Leaves us wanting just a little more.
For success is a queer box,
A fractal of longing and hate,
Devoid of all catharsis,
A most deplorable trait.
They understand us you see,
Make us run far and wide,
Ebbs, a foreign word,
To this maniacal tide.
Trapped we are, indeed.
It’s a game of lock and key.
Boxes within boxes,
Of forms completely alien to me.
We think we derive meaning,
From this entire race,
But what’s the point in fighting,
If to only not lose face?
A simple story, perhaps,
To better make it clear,
Of how ambition and talent
Turns to resentment and fear.
A tiny sapling, asked his mother,
Is it only upwards that I have to grow?
Yes my love, she replied,
For how else will you bear the weight of snow?
So upwards he grew,
For he knew of nothing else,
Until it became the only thing,
That remained of himself.
Broad and tall he stood,
Beaming at all those who looked upon.
Until, with the force of a typhoon,
He realized his mother’s con.
His leaves weren’t green,
His branches not strong!
His roots not thick,
And most definitely not long.
The sapling’s height,
his glorious trophy,
Was now all but indemnity!
Paid for his negligence,
Masquerading as assiduity.
A burning hatred spawned,
One that seemed logical, almost profane.
For climbing up one ladder,
On others, kept him enchained.
The queer box he was trapped in,
The one that only moved up.
Trapped him even further,
Now what was he, a shrub?
Try not to be the sapling,
Try not to be the resentful tree,
Try not to get caught in
This stew of incongruity.
(Ah, but for what it’s worth,
I claim my sad hypocrisy,
For the reason I wrote this poem,
Is to win LitSoc points for Tapti.)
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Fifth Position
Prompt: Begin with “Did you all just feel that?”.
By Reganathan – Saras
“Did you all just feel that?”
My voice echoed weary and matt.
Did anyone have a clue?
What that comment would brew.
That another dreary day
Would take the awry way?
That an observation so slight
Will mark an onset so blight?
In my cubicle, I was
When this gave me a pause.
A tremor, a shudder, a paltry fright
And followed it, an eerie quiet.
Time froze, viscous, timid to flow
Leery of what the next second would show.
And then it hit, pandemonium acute
Screams, shrieks, anarchy’s hoot
‘Fear, chaos and terror’ it spat.
“Did you all just feel that?”
From up it came – the source to deafen
As if a gift, a blessing from heaven.
From up it came – the undulating sway
In its clutches the neighbouring building a prey.
From up it came – the paralyzing dread
Unprecedented fear, sweat beads filled my head.
From up it came – rapid illumination
Danger, terror, paving a survival inclination.
A voice, a notice, the drill came to mind
‘Evacuate, no lifts’ and to it I did bind.
Down I went – for up meant fear
Many did follow, the course ahead unclear
With humanity, the stairs did swell.
The air charged with a forlorn spell
For we knew, we knew the threat
The root cause of all this fret.
But I would survive, prevail the combat
“Did you all just feel that?”
But soon the going got slower, exhaustion set in
Phones were out consoling perturbed kin.
But then the worst was at rest
Tranquillity, we began to ingest.
Our sombre hearts went out
To our neighbours, their futures a doubt.
But we were fortunate and gratefully intact
140 feet had saved us from the impact.
A shimmer of hope, my mind begat
“Did you all just feel that?”
But again, it struck –this time so close
And utter consternation arose.
Now that we knew what fate had brought
Life was nothing but dismay, distraught.
The first man tripped and sparked it did
The heightening of chaos
The engulfment of dire pathos
Ruckus broke in, dissension soared
And the first heavenly voice roared.
‘To your right. Keep moving. Don’t stop.’
A much-needed boost, I began to dart
Adrenaline pumping, all fear did depart
Faster and faster my body did scat
“Did you all just feel that?”
The guardian angels were all around
Their gallantry evoking pure astound
For up were they flying, not below
Into the damned raging inferno.
They were all akin with a heavenly glow
Armoured in black and golden yellow
With heavy divine weapons did they soar
Their resolve, their grit, Oh! I did adore.
“We were saved”, with euphoria I sat
“Did you all just feel that?”
But from above did it come
A screech filling my eardrum.
But from above did it come
The iron and concrete phantom.
But from above did it come
From the man-made wonder, a mere crumb.
But from above did it come
The terminator of my heart’s blithesome.
But from above did it come
The instigator of my body’s journey to numb.
But from above did it come
The architect of pristine bedlam.
But from above did it come
The end I never did fathom.
But from above did it come
The sad truth of what I would become.
The end to all man’s problem
The closure’s pre-signed pactum
The end to the drama I did enact
“Did you all just feel that?”
I struggled to move, to live
But I was the iron monster’s captive.
The guardian angels did try hard
But their efforts, the monster did disregard.
I was left to the best of my fate
All efforts to save me did abate
Others needed saving, I was a lost soul
A number in the day’s rising toll.
Humanity swarmed over me tight
But in panic’s grip, I wasn’t worth their sight.
I was let alone to die
To say to the world my goodbye.
Oh, had I known that another dreary day
Would take such an awful way?
I would have chosen thousand dreary days to combat
“Did you all just feel that?”
When all was lost and death was close
A page from a calendar fluttered loose.
The last sight of my short existence
This cruelty’s souvenir of credence
A sombre mark on human history
An everlasting sign of blistery
The indicator of my journey to heaven
The macabre date 9/11…
Terror at its highest manifestation
An intense outlet of human frustration
Innocent lives, a count to gauge vengeance.
The world needs a new path of repentance
Peace and tolerance made a universal pact
“Did you all just feel that?”
This is an imagined account of a victim of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. He is a person working in the South Tower, which was hit after the North Tower. The South Tower however crumbled first. The guardian angels in black and yellow are US firefighters. The 140 ft is the separation between the towers and the iron and concrete monster, a beam which crashed.
