Poem: Homeland Memories
By Tikuli
years ago I bid adieu to my homeland
the colours of autumn that stained my heart
have long faded and the rivers that ran
deep in the lines of my hands have dried
By Tikuli
years ago I bid adieu to my homeland
the colours of autumn that stained my heart
have long faded and the rivers that ran
deep in the lines of my hands have dried
By Syamantakshobhan Basu
I wear you like an old watch
Which has stopped exactly
At the moment we met last.
By Aaqib Hyder
A shiny white blanket
spreads across the graveyard
embraces underneath
seeds of revolution.
By Lopa Banerjee
A house, a bed that remains
smelling of flesh, burnt out songs, wrinkles of coital nights.
Yes, the splinters and cracks of love,
Pushing a tear-stained face, birth marks into the pillow.
By Yash Pandit
Had we only enough
Turns on the clock,
I would resuscitate
The farthest of summers
Just to warm your wrists
On these winter evenings.
By Mubashir Karim
In love,
I want to collect
All your clipped nails
As a souvenir of my excess longing.
By Faakirah Irfan
The women who are raped in war zones
Aren’t martyrs,
There is no honor in rape.
By Debarun Sarkar
Narendra–the adarsh balak–leaned forward with an eager hand
‘his Barrack’ has been replaced by ‘the Donald’. Donald Duck.
By Zieshan Mir
I am a hundred and fifty years old
And the walls of this room are flaky
It has been burnt down with passion at times
It has rusted with passivity.
By Maaz Bin Bilal
In India, today, we have no money.
All’s been burnt for the greater good.
To think otherwise will cost you, sonny.
By Karthik Venkatesh
Your faux rebellion
convinced no one.
Your social conscience
was a smokescreen
for your ideological vacuousness.
By Trivarna Hariharan
These three poems are excerpted from Trivarna Hariharan’s collection of poetry, The Necessity of Geography. Reviewer Archita Mittra describes Hariharan’s poems as “the kind of poetry you read on a lonely night,” and that is as apt a description as any.