Poems Of The Week 026: To Wish Upon A Star

Poets are often stereotyped as being cynical, and that may or may not be true. But this week, we wanted the poets of the APM Nation to visit one of the most primal urges of any human being — the desire to wish upon a star.

It’s not rational, it’s not scientifically proven, and it certainly doesn’t appear to have a very efficient success-rate, and yet it’s something that we find ourselves doing over and over again — looking up towards the sky and hoping for a small miracle. Whether the miracle is that tomorrow’s exam will be magically postponed, or that our best friend will move back to our neighbourhood, or that our favourite musician will make one more album, or anything else equally improbable, we’ve all been in that position at least once in our life.

So, this week, our prompt for the APM Nation was:

To wish upon a star

This week, we were stunned by the poetry that we received, particularly the poem that got Rank #1, written by Srinitya Duvvuri. The writing itself was incredible, and the poem, as a whole, was incredibly heartbreaking.

That poem sets the tone for what is a wonderful collection of poetry below. Each poem is unique and different from the other, not just in terms of the writing style, but also in terms of the tone, subject-matter, and pace. Please give these poems a read, we promise you it’ll be worth your time!

POEMS OF THE WEEK 026

to wish upon a star
is to confess
to the murky river
how much you loved
your grandmother
as it swallows her ashes
whole. There are
cracks in the sidewalk
shaped like her crooked fingers
and toes.
my fingers are not enough
to seal them, but I must
try. I place them
on the cracks
and wonder what to do
with the shoes she has
left behind for us to fill.
I think of the blazing trail
left in her wake as she
answered the sky’s summons,
how the trail in the sky
is already broken in
scattered
into molecules by grief
and going separate ways.
The sun retreats into the sea,
lending its torches to search parties
of restless waves,
hoping to retrieve her ashes
and bring her home
to put things right.
but to hope for such a miracle
is to hope
that the waves
will raise its hood
and stand tall to
intercept death,
that the sun will spin
backwards and
reverse time to
arrest the tumors
in our upbringings,
that the cracks in the sidewalk
will develop sentience
and withhold their own growth,
that her skeleton
will clutch onto my
grandfather’s hand tight
and long enough for her soul
to settle back into her body,
that my newly wed cousin
will get to say
her goodbyes
in the privacy of
familial mourning. To hope
for a re-do
for a solution
to the hungry void
in our family
is to wish
on a dying star -
the most it can do
is go down blazing,
trail zig zagging
across the sky
the most it can do
is listen
to our rushed ramblings
as it hurtles back
into the universe’s womb
the most it can do
is let you sift
through tongues of
flickering light
in search of its ghost.

it was the most she could do.
and how was she to know
that the dead portrait
of a twinkling star painted
on earthly skies
could not satiate
the years she shone
to build galaxies around her.
how was she to know
that the weak earthly gravity
of her shadow
could not compare
to her dark matter
that held our universe together.
and I can wish upon a star
and watch it stagger under the weight
of my hopeless hopes
like a wounded man caught
in crossfire
and I can beg the sun
to search far and wide
and bring her back to us
like the lost puzzle piece
to an unfinished puzzle
but when all is said and done,
I must accept
that to wish upon a star
is not to hope,
but to surrender
and hand over the reigns
to the cosmos
the way all star-dusted beings must.
Someday.

— Srinitya Duvvuri

at night, we unravel

stories walk out of the shadows
loneliness warms its hands under lamplight,
intimacy crushes a cigarette under boot,

for some women, this is work,
for others, silence
for some, but intimacy,
tongue and teeth and geography

midnight oil braided down our backs, we
know the names of all the helicopters in the sky

ash sugared on our lashes, we
sing songs of burning

skeletons dancing in the streets , we
leave all the closet doors swinging

for some, this is survival,
for others, language

for me, but a helicopter,
starshine in broken-jawed sky
a poem, or maybe a promise,
some song about burning,
wishful moment of undoing,
of bodies becoming

— Nidhi Krishna

What is it like, to wish upon a star?
My wonderment touches horizons of civilisation
But comes back each time like a bunch of migratory birds
I am all the landscape you want captured
With the camera that your dad got you
The undiscovered isolated island
Refusing to be put on navigation maps
Secretly wishing to be discovered;
A mistake. The shooting star heard
And now the pirates have spotted me
It’s like nothing they had seen before,
So foreign and wild, they said
I should never have taken it as compliment
The beautiful captain kayaking
On the river of all my sorrows
The treacherous steep slope leading up
To the summit, an adventure sport
Why did you ignore all the warnings, dear
Low oxygen, climb at your risk
But you were determined and adamant
So I made way, handed you the key
And you came with hammers and roses
Breaking down walls, marching up
But now it’s cold and you can’t breathe
You say it’s your toughest expedition
So you flag your victory and plan to return
You say wildernesses is good for the weekend
But you can’t stay forever now
So when you uprooted your camp
You uprooted my oldest magnificent trees
You’ve caused a havoc, calling it a tourist spot
I should have known, seen it coming
And now all the flags after you are on you
No matter how hard I rain down
Some footprints can’t be erased
Oh shooting star, can you un-grant my wish
And drift me at the foot of Antarctica
Where no life could ever touch me

— Astha Dwivedi

SPECIAL SHOUT-OUTS

The 5 shout-outs of the week are listed below. We hope you love them as much as we did! (The full text of each poem is below) —

1. Priyamvadha Shivaji

“Treading Water”

And so it goes:
The universe, vast and uncaring,
The stars so tiny that they could
Fit in the palm of my hand
And still not make me warm.
Me,
Bigger than the stars but
Smaller, according to the universe;
Slow to dance and slower to believe
I really could burn the world down.
Me,
Smiling but not really,
Trying but not really,
Living but not really.
Me,
Having been given water and
Spending years only treading it,
Having been given air and
Using it only to breathe inside a bubble,
Having given love and
Wishing I could take it all back,
Having been given love and
Wishing I knew how to accept it.
And so it goes:
The universe, going on and on.
The stars, going on and on.
Me,
Being swept on and on
With this slow, inexorable tide.
Me,
Wishing I could convince myself
The moon is enough.
Wishing I could convince myself
I am a star, too.
And so it goes:
The universe, certain of itself,
The stars, incandescent and infinite.
Me,
Skin so wrinkled and pale that
Its mortality has never been more certain.
Me,
Wishing I could swim on.

2. Uttiya Roy

Some nights I wander past the moon
Cheese wheels baked my sunlight
And paved roads
Also a lot of sweets and love
Love is a variety of emotions
Packed into one truth of repetition
You said “I love you” 180 times
I said it 200 times
You are those 20 times more
Make up the moonlit serenades
That you’d perform outside
Didn’t anyone tell you that you can’t sing?
Because you can’t, let me tell you
I mean of course you could hold a tune
Or play along with a word or two
But, mostly, not always
You’d create a conundrum in my ears
About whether I loved music more
But, then
Look I cross the moon weekly now
Sometimes when it’s crescent
(crescence? You were the science one))
I use it as a swing
Flowing onto sightly naked feet
On a barstool
With leather
Hey, but, then
Your guitar song ends and I have another day
Another week
Another year
So, today let’s call it quits
In the fiery mountains
Let’s meet after a decade
I hope that you still find the strength to love me
I know I will

3. Srijani Roy Choudhri

When a tag of narcissism illuminated
the footfalls of a human’s wish for attention,
along with the ‘save’ besides all the letters of the words of the sentences she learnt:
I tamed a wild cat on my way.

To wish upon a star means
to sort between a fiction and
hate the reality for two whiles;
Close the eyes that run on the void
and hold the right hand with the left:
be the lover and the receiver, both for a time,
detach the muse, omit the purple of purpose
and hate, hate, hate a human self by the mirror.

When the only lightbulb inside the room threatens a sad demise,
and street lamps are just for the fancy shit show,
which never encourages young girls to travel at night,
the bridge by the other end screams of danger.
I go beyond my ordinary,
do less; feel a little more than the wild cat I just made peace with,
Two men making their way through a gray,
I, for once, wish upon a star.

Dream,
Is just for lucks,
riches and extraordinaires.
They’ve bought it with rights and ages.
Dream,
Is a word, with double the weight,
half the meaning, no conclusion.
Dream,
Is I on my island on a day without storms or
Parades of crying pedestrians; my friends being content.
But dream,
Is only five uncertain letters, a competition of disappointments; an obsessed persona.

It gets unthinkable
when sleep finds a purpose;
breathing does not.
when empathy is what poets don’t use anymore,
others have no clue of.
when the question sorts between half-filled and half-empty.
when a cry or two saves by the way,
tears wonder into the oblivion.

And I wish upon a star,
to be able to afford a dream, someday.

4. Kiana Manian

Dead Stars///

And the sky is the limit though, isn’t it?
Dead stars constantly tricking us into believing them,
We turn words into tunes that sit sweeter on our tongues
Call these lies, myths and legends
It’s been centuries since even one of them was alive to grant us hope
Which, had they ever bothered to, would’ve been like shedding cells every day,
We would’ve caught debris flaking off from the sides of ageing rocks in our palms
And called them
Miracles
A touch of ethereal to what can’t be explained, but
These days I feel like none of it can be explained
And so all of it has been

And it’s especially funny how we paint truth like we do light, streaming in from doorways
Eradicating shadows under the eyes, beneath the floorboards
Illumination is somehow synonymous with revelation
And all the night sky is, is a million illusions
As though that weren’t enough, but
Perhaps a million is too small a number,
And because the inconceivable is just that-
We must resize our world
So as not to forget our own bodies

And trust me this is not fear speaking, I’m just tired

I have wasted time I don’t have on wishes that never came true
On truth that fell apart as soon as it realised what it was
Like Medusa staring at who she’d become
The horrors she endured until they consumed her
Until haunted houses became a hall of mirrors
And what is fear besides a warped reflection
And what is any of it besides our eyes pretending they were stars-

It seems to come down to power; making time your servant
Finding it within yourself to fool people into thinking you exist even after you die
Or that you ever did
That shining through a vacuum Is enough, that visibility counts for all of it
That any of it can be counted, and if it can
How can it possibly be real?

And for all my energy that has been sapped by this thought process
Taken in by the channels for someone more deserving
I’m not going to stop, I’m too human to give in
And maybe that’s my failure
Maybe I think I’m self aware and one again I’m the fool

Someone once handed me the phrase
Optimistic Nihilism
Like a gift with teeth
Like a dead star.

5. Gurveen Dang

The Mannequin

No one ever talks about the rights of a mannequin
It is that every voice which was never allowed to speak for itself
Borrowing a voice from the sheets of someone else’s privileges
They traffic the hell they say
What if my mannequins fly kites without strings, and borrow a space on rent from the boots of hierarchies hoarding down on their freedom
The world saw their carcasses painting from red wine on a canvas
I see them alive just in their heads-
The canvas is left at its last stroke
People can never see how paintings can sometimes be alive too
They think art is a cheap drug, artists are shopkeepers who can sell themselves for no cents and no gains
The Mannequin weighs an ounce more than these privileged humans who got it for free
They have to carry the weight of their voices inside their heads
What can be rules
A decision for someone else
Lips of my mannequin are sealed
Sealed with a thin linen thread of red colour
Telling me for rebellion I need a street
Which I can never have
I walk on sand and on stones
An empty place is all it is
No one comes for me, to help me fight against the reign of the dead chariot
The wheels don’t dare to move
There’s a God ruling my direction they would say
But what if I saw the whole world but never moved
Standing at a place and seeing the indifference of people crawling on my foot
One place, a thousand stories
And my mannequin told me last night
It can’t move
It needs rivalry in backwards motion, 1/10 th of anti gravitation to set it on a trajectory for a pure free will
And Darling, there was never a free will which was designed for statues that can breathe ;
Statues that are designed by nature to have intelligence but denied freedom by a Ghost of Compulsive behaviours
Statues that people call them-
Demons of Hell unleashed on the Earth
Making your tomorrows look like a bargain for all the love they give
Where should I run if my mind is fighting with a monster I am unable to carry back home — bricks and stones and walls but no windows
My home looks too ugly from the inside
But on the outside, a white paint covers for the sins it makes every night and day
Homes grow bodies like weeds in the garden
To tell me I am needed only when Sun is too low to shine on me

My mannequin is a 4 ft. 10 inches tall body outside my body
I unleash it when humans make me feel less lonely than someone a part of my dear imagination
I call my head a war zone
But I carry no weapons
People are afraid of humans who can fight using plastic toys
There is no space if you don’t bring damage to others- run for the lies they fed you
Protect their truths that no longer start with H
Think of a word opposite of a human
It wouldn’t start with A
What is the worst that can become of you if not a human, An animal they say
Human’s antonym should be Un-human
Dogs never learned to manipulate, they speak in secret codes but never the language of racists
There was never anyone else that could bring destruction more than my species against me
You can’t fend for yourself not wanting to
Become unhuman, a lost china bowl turning into showpieces in the house of someone who learned only the language of steel knives , no flowers

No goat skin attached to its skeleton
But lingering on the plates of murder
So I call for help when I see that goat which never asked for death to fill your stomachs
Goat is a metaphor for that every human slaughtered in the name of love, religion and power structures

My mannequin is a short figure in my imagination but longer in strength
Listening is an art it excels at;
I’m fading into a death bubble and my mannequin is finding me a place where there is no hell or heaven
It’s a piece of land-
I will call it
Letter M
M for a Mannequin which can have metaphors dying in its stomach
Words melting in its mouth
Muse singing in abdomen
It will do better than Hu-Mans
My Mannequins know how to talk about their rights
My words are slogans in themselves,
And I fight against the structure, till it collapses within itself
Mannequin is a broken vase, all poetry inside me
Mannequin is a metaphor for you
And a scripture for the saffron coloured sheets of a Flag falling down
These days, I find their God crumbling down in its own religion

If you’re wondering what the 2018 100-Poem Challenge is all about, you can read about it here!

See you next week, where we’ll bring the best of week 027 for you!

Disclaimer: The copyright for each poem included in this blog belongs to the poet to which they have been attributed.