Through The Woods: Azure'14 Winner Entry 3

- A Rhymed Parable          

The forest lulled in morbid silence,

With the ice broken by wolves’ dismaying howls and vipers’ hiss.

Dark clouds hovered silhouetted by the latent moon;

The night and the woods turned towards him with malice.

A hiss here, a howl there,

And the ceaseless exasperating sound of crickets;

The anathema escalated to be smothering;

Snarled around him the savage malevolent thickets.

Constantly changing seemed the wild labyrinth,

By a devilish dominion as if, were the woods imprecated.

Yet, he trudged on, cautious and determined, though ‘fraid;

Faith and strength, kept him, in the face of impediments, invigorated.

An ingurgitating monster as the forest closed denser on him;

The pandemonium of its tranquility sent him a frenzy.

In collusion did the tribulations strive,

To debilitate his will and turn it dizzy.

The gray wilderness and the darkening heavens,

The ghostly swooshing wind and the mongrels which wail;

Premonitions painted the picture grotesque,

Exacerbated the incessant gruelling trail.

Alas, the torturous afflictions took over him;

His obstinacy to move on, now did moan.

Suffering and fear knew no bounds,

Evil spirits in the wild shook his own.

A barb in the wild pierced his flesh;

Yelped he in excruciating pain.

Moved as he in agony, a speck of light shone;

A hallucination perhaps, he thought, an ephemeral hope in vain.

Recollected as he, his senses, realized,

That the light was rather persistent.

His strength, after the hapless trail, waning,

Was riled up; yet again, was he exuberant.

Up the mound he climbed, through the thick foliage,

Towards the stimulus; robust, though languish.

Dragged he up his bleeding limb to find the Great Perhaps;

The pain itself ceded in making him relinquish.

Ostracized by the hunger, thirst and agony,

Did he traversed up to the top, exhausted; 

The nerve-wrecking escapade though, bore fruit;

Beyond the hillock rose a city beautifully illuminated.

Ecstatic he felt; the scene a toast to his vision;

A shower of respite after the scorching hot season.

From behind the distant hills, peeped the sun rising;

Obliterating the darkness, now in its dormancy, reitiring.

The soft wind sang a song melodious,

And the aviary chirped in chorus. 

Towards the heavens he looked, to bow to The Almighty;

For  having fortified his will, to win over the adversity. 

A tiny drop dropped, touched his lip first;

The elixir, quenched his persecuting thirst.

Snuggled he himself, 

In the grass, a tinge of yellow and green.

The cool downpour washed away 

The trickling blood, his body did preen.

Following the spate of anxiety, fear and unrestrained spree,

Felt he the serene and immense, a conqueror’s glee. 

Following the toiling labor was the contentment and thrill;

Invincible seemed the barbaric wilderness, but so was his will…

MANSI JAIN

Azure'14 Winner Entry 2: A Blissful Death Part-1

Yesterday morning,
As I opened my store,
I heard many voices galore,
A storm gathered at the square,
I closed the shop and went to hear.
They were protesting against the man,
Who called himself the king,
But in reality, he was Satan’s true offspring.
And let me tell you..
The time we were there,
Was not a blissful one,
As the government crushed love and humanity,
Shred by shred, ounce by ounce,
The people struggled as one,
And protested together under the jealous light of sun,
 Hoping of a day for freedom to arrive,
And also prayed for love to survive.
The torments that I vaguely remember,
Were not the physical ones,
They were the ones that were bestowed on us,
By the so-called prodigal son,
Who thought he can rule,
With a throne made of flesh and bones,
And skins of the dead as his cloak,
He’ll be the giant king of the small people,
Whose mere existence was a poison oak.
As I was standing at that square,
With the angels of suffering and pain,
I saw people...breathing with a struggle,
As every breath of theirs was taxing itself,
And then suddenly something happened to me.
I shouted, I screamed, I protested,
With every ounce of energy in me vested,
By the almighty one who lived above,
Maybe a sadist for souls below,
I didn’t knew what I was doing,
But a passion emerged,
And I started pursuing,
Then the army arrived.
They came and started hurting,
But no one ran away,
And all the fears were lost,
Like a needle in the hay,
The bullets departed from the bodies,
With bloody raindrops,
And people with open wounds crawled,
Like they were looking for repair shops,
But some others were taken by them,
‘Cause it was impossible to make them stop.
And with raging fires in our heart,
We stood before them,
Against a tyranny long and wide,
That walked with vanity,
An empire, senile and full of insanity,
Marching down the road,
Like a rising tide,
As they kept all the humanity aside,
That is when they caught us.
We still screamed, shouted,
But with our eyes,
Our every hope became clouded,
As we were bound by the darkest,
Force for us there can ever be,
A hell on earth anyone can ever see.
I was taken to the place they called prison,
Where innocents rotted,
Without any reason,
And I was there with every other person,
Who knew that something miraculous brewed,
Beneath the hearts that were sewed,
Together… with a belief of hopeful future,
A future with freedom as their new ruler.
Yesterday morning,
When I opened my store,
I didn’t knew that,
 Fate was also opening a door,
For a place that I will never forget,
A place without any sorrow or regret,
My own VALHALLA in the midst of hell,
Where forever my heart will dwell.

Ishan Trivedi