GRAND FINALE OF THE 12 WEEK POETRY COMPETITION

                                                                           BY

                                          ON FIRE CULTURAL MOVEMENT
                                                                                 

  

CONGRATULATIONS to my dear FRIENDS who helped my poem win this competition by listening and sharing it so widely !

MY HEARTFELT GRATITUDE **********THIS IS YOUR POEM AND YOUR WIN !!!

I will be happy if you still keep spreading this message as this mission does not stop with this competition.

Congratulations to all my fellow poets. I feel honoured to be one amongst such honored poets.
My heartiest congrats to some excellent poets who although not in this list are outstanding poets of great calibre.

Thank you team On Fire Cultural Movement for this great experience and honour.

 

      

                          

 May 31 at 9:30pm ·

Drumrollllllll! The results of the Grand Finale of the 12 Week Poetry Challenge is here!!!

The 12 Weekly Challenge was a riot of Poems, but the Grand Finale was... even better! We are so happy and thrilled at the enthusiasm and commitment of the poets that instead of Top 2, we have decided the Top 5 winners and their poems will be featured in Aatish 2, our upcoming Anthology of Poems.

So put your hands, pens and keyboards together for......
1. Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal
2. Imran Yousuf
3. Sunil Kaushal
4. Santosh Bakaya
5. Sunita Paul

Congratulations and we can't be happier than your wonderful poems will be in Aatish-2


THE POEM- IS SILENCE A SIN......?

In a poetry competition by On Fire Cultural Movement, I was one of the winners and my  poem’s theme was –PROTEST.

(As I was writing this poem, there were thousands and thousands of farmers going towards Mumbai to seek redressal of their grievances. Writing a poem on Protest, I couldn’t help but make them a part of it.)

 MY WINNING POEM:

 

IS SILENCE A SIN ….?

 

Isn’t silence a sin, a slur on decadent mankind

gasping in the throes of  its own putrescence

while the quagmire called life, sucks out the last breaths,

from lungs choking on the slime of depravity?

 

Before all voice are silenced forever, those who still can – speak,

speak man speak, speak and shriek for those who cannot, 

lisping children before their innocence is bitten into by pedophiles,

girls sold into brothels, child brides deader than dead,

women, choking on the spittle of humiliations

when marital vows already dishonored, bind them still,

the weak, the trampled, the oppressed, the condemned,

victims of lawlessness, injustice, ignorance and lust

their silenced souls burnt into dust.

Speak on their behalf or else you a coward and your silence a sin !

 

The fields trudge interminably with blistered, bleeding feet,

to meet  Mumbai, a wall - deaf, blind and dumb, 

all sensibilities, all senses frozen numb

turned away with a beggar’s bowl  filled with platitudes,

some limp back, to again fill millions of stomachs

while some feet walk towards the heavens.

 

In the garden of silence

who plucked the colors from butterfly wings?

Who stole the flower’s fragrance from the winds

Who filled the oasis wells with waters of venom?

spewing noxious fumes of racism, sexism and religion,

bartered cool moonlight for scorching hatred

singeing throats, silencing humming bees and bird songs?

Can you and I not plant a song in this silence again?

 

Blood thirsty warlords, playing with bombs and guns

killing babes at the breast, raping mothers to be,

scientists mutating animals, vegetation, drugs into disease,

men into machines, narcotic kingpins, Swiss banks shielding rogues,

hark ! hark ! for what goes out, comes back full circle,

one day, these fireworks and crackers you tinker with

shall set ablaze your backyard too, searing your tongues,

forcing you to break your vow of sinful silence.

 

Governments, law makers, moralistic preachers and zealots

peel off those masks of oxygen, reserved for the privileged corrupt

and breathe, breathe the contamination of scams created by you,

let the common man celebrate your worthy demise !

 

Unlike the press, before you gag and throttle me, I shall raise my voice,

for causes and rights worth saving, to right the wrongs of many.

 for I cannot turn my face, just shut up and keep living my life,

it shall not make me any greater or happier

I voice a loud disapproval of existing ills,

criticize oppression and condemn corruption

before my protest dies on my lips

and my silence add to my sins.

Copyright@ Dr. Sunil Kaushal