Alone Together

by Anjani Raj

I am connected
to millions of people
Like a sardine in a shoal.
All go the same way
Into a boxed can

Gold

by Archana Nair

There is something I hate about this metal – gold.

The way the chain sits on my collarbone,
glinting brighter than my skin,
reminding me of my skin colour that’s unacceptable to my mother.
The chain ends in a heavy locket,
one of the many uncooperative gods pricking my collar.

The earrings that my earholes can barely stand
fat jumkis punctures my earlobes,
hang loosely like ripe grapes, ready to be plucked.
A nerve that goes to my brain has paused on the way,
one tuck and there shall be blood.

The iron shackles like bangles around my wrist,
that took two sisters and a mother to soap and slide on.
My sisters also have tickets booked for this fate.
The heavy ancestral rubies cut my hands each time,
I press into the blood, hands folded and back straight.

I am put on display on the living room sofa,
among chitter chatter for a family of thirteen,
with the potential buyer, rich this time, I am told.
I peek through my kohled eyes, hiding fear and acting shy.
I see another pair of eyes that always rest on the gold.

The Giant Sleeps (Peacefully) In Zhongnanhai

By Lara C Caldwell

I will tell you the real story of Goliath. The only one that is true.

The stone grazed his left jaw. And if he fell (because this is disputed), it was only for a moment before he rose again. And came after the boy (because it is always a boy).

The boy setting alight his maroon robe in Xiahe.
The boy opening his yellow umbrella in Mongkok.
The boy reciting his green Quran in Urumqi.
The boy waving his white bandana at a tank in Tiananmen.

It was over in a matter of seconds. The sling (robe, umbrella, Quran, bandana) wrenched effortlessly from his small hand. A thumb pressed until the oesophagus collapsed. The incident (and the boy) forgotten in three days.

It was only that we wanted the boy to win. So, we called him David and took pictures of him for the cover of Time magazine. To frame this losing as a type of winning.

But here is what actually happened.

The boy in maroon burned while opening his yellow umbrella and the giant ran down a million more boys who looked like him with one tank. (There were no pictures.)

And Goliath became the King of Kings. And seemed happy.

And David, if there ever was a boy named David, and if he lived (because this is disputed), then he is sewing up the seams of my favourite blue jeans in a re-education camp in Urumqi. Learning to speak Mandarin.

The End of the Day

By Philip John

They lie in bed. Both reading.
His piece is grim. Her novel’s French.
Outside, a wind ransacks the trees,
Like some officious autumn wench.
They turn the pages on the hush,
And let the hour grow dim and lush.

This was the hour, he once believed,
That books and jazz and quiet wine
Would lace with thought and desire –
Instead, they talk of coriander past its prime
Or argue about the heat,
Or lists of milk or what to eat.

She murmurs toast. He answers eggs.
They plot breakfast like a truce.
And still, beneath such homely lines,
A stranger thread slips something loose:
The way she breathes, the way he shifts,
Each knows the other by these drifts.

And though the years have dulled the urge
To call things “tender”, “true”, or “blessed,”
Their limbs, by chance, incline the same,
Like two spoons laid side by side to rest.
Love, if it lives, may not be grand,
But still it finds your sleeping hand.

Fuck Love

By Rakshita Hiremath

Why do I struggle to write a sonnet of love,
When I once was the die hard romantic
Who could send poems with a turtle dove?
Alas! Something no longer clicks.

Could it be because I sit around no longer
Waiting for a serenade and a diamond ring?
My yearning for sweet solitude having grown stronger
I’d rather buy myself flowers and a big rock with bling.

I am the happiest with my curated tribe,
Friends and lovers, bros, and sisters,
All those who match my vibe.
So, what do I do with you, mister?

Let me tell you; I won’t be caged in a relationship
What I want now is a fun, racy situationship.

Prayers

By Rahul Krishnan

Inside the gates, odours of God –
lamps, wet earth, and elephants long gone.

A loose fist found my heart,
My chin reached down to the chest –
all that my grandfather taught.
Prayers clawed the insides of my throat;
a nervous gulp kept them in check.

I step aside for the crowd behind,
in envy of those, who can still believe.

‘The Best Way Out is Always Through’

By Ullas Marar

A friend has taken to scuba diving.
She had her belly rubbed by
a Manta Ray at Hanifaru Bay.
She almost died, she says.
It’s a hyperbole of the good kind;
the sweet death a lover’s touch
or a dog’s wet nose causes.
Now, she wants me to try it.
It’s hard at first, but then,
“You just surrender.”

I tell her about my first ice bath.
It feels similar; strength sometimes
takes the form of cold surrender.
Just keep breathing, in and out.
and that’s what sees us through –
a bit of Wim Hof; a bit of Robert Frost.

Verity

By Tasneem Khan

In the midst of the lies,
the half-truths,
the propaganda,
the disinformation,
the misinformation
the fake news,
the retractions,
the concealments,
the evasions
the omissions,
the obfuscations,
the doubts,
the distrust,
the mistrust,
the accusations,
the denials,
the posturing,
the blustering,
the blaming,
the demonisation,
the dehumanisation,
there is one thing that I know
to be true.
Children are dying.
Dear God! The children are dying.
Is there anything else worth knowing?

Excerpted with permission from The Bangalore Writers Workshop Book of Emerging Poets, edited by Bhumika Anand, Atta Galatta Books and Publishers.

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