Poems From the First Week of Poetry Writing Month 2025
- poemsindia
- Apr 8
- 12 min read
1. Slice open a sad guy by Ann Lilly Jose
slice open a sad guy; you'll find in him a memoir,
of post-valentine roses and white, vile jasmines,
cursed by a tender storm—crushed / by touch.
break open his ribs; you'll find in them mad men—
thousands, building homes upon hibiscus deaths,
forgetting the face in their baptism fonts.
slide along his arms; you'll find disappointments,
tinted dirty marigold—the colour of joy,
stuffed and stuck in the glisten of his eye.
feel his legs; where they take him this evening,
along aster fields alive and aglow—piercing death,
needling fierce eclipses onto skin.
follow him into the garden; you'll find in him a memoir—
one of bent knees, withered leaves, and
damned, forsaken dreams.
2. Manifesto for the Underground Press by Sneha Roy
Because truth mushrooms even in the most unlikeliest of places, thriving all the more in
The wet unworthiness of the world and its weariness. Because man's first discovery was not fire, it was violence. Because the first wound we registered was the absence of language, so here we now create one where a scream is a necessary vowel. Because the cruellest cosplay these days is playing the devil's advocate. Because we are learned in exhaustion, so we learn to bloom buried in our graves. Because we consider metaphor to be the first act of architectural brilliance (apart from of course, the mausoleum of your many silences). Because mould has a cult following, given how altitude is nothing for how it makes its way through a fortress. Because friction is not necessarily fiction, but fiction is definitely friction and the only correct inference. Because you can, of course kill two birds with one stone but we are more interested in the stone's torment, which was later reprogrammed as intent. Because propriety was never the real origin story of magnificence.
But most importantly, because words, even though late, are the only flowers we accept at our funerals.
3. The Garden of Girlfriends by Ishita Desai
I see my girlfriends in bougainvilleas,
The way they bloom without asking,
bright and wild, colours bursting,
stubbornly climbing, twirling and gripping,
whatever surfaces they can find.
Turning walls into canvases and streets into galleries,
ugly into beauty,
taking up all the space to stretch and soar,
building themselves into canopies and analogies.
There’s a quiet strength in them.
Every new flower is a declaration, a shout without words,
That you can bloom in spaces the world deems barren.
I see my girlfriends in bougainvilleas,
The way they make everything around them
come alive with possibilities.
4. Weather, Undone by Keerthi Reddy Kuncham
This morning, I peeled the sky off like old wallpaper,
let it curl at the edges, left the town bare—
a hollow chest waiting to be filled.
I cracked open the wind, let it sigh in the voice
of mothers calling their children home,
of names whispered once and never again.
It does not howl—it grieves,
carrying the weight of unsent letters,
twisting through streets like a lover’s last breath.
The sun spills out in fractured ribbons,
a broken yolk staining rooftops gold—
but I pinch it between my fingers at noon,
let the light tremble, then snuff it out,
replacing warmth with a hush of silver rain.
But this rain does not fall—it rises,
lifts from the ground like forgotten prayers,
like last night’s tears rewinding their descent.
It gathers in the air, hanging heavy,
a storm of everything we never said.
And then, the thunder—
not a growl, not a roar, but a cracking open,
like ribs parted for an unburied heart,
like a wound remembering the knife.
By dusk, I thread the sky back together,
sew it shut with threads of fireflies,
let the moon bloom like a bruise,
soft and aching in the dark.
Tomorrow, the sky will reclaim itself,
but tonight, this town breathes in a weather
stitched from my hands—
a storm of sorrow, a drizzle of dreams,
a day that will not be forgotten.
5. A Manifesto for the Underground Press by Aishwarya Roy
FOR THOSE WHO SMUGGLE THE SUNLIGHT
The ink runs dry mid-sentence.
The journalist licks the nib, tries again.
Outside, a minister heaves a sigh —
he has just jailed a comedian and freed a rapist. Phew.
The morning paper arrives, stained
with yesterday’s curry and someone's blood,
only one of them will be washed away.
A headline celebrates "development" —
right where a slum stood last week.
The boy who sold tea there has vanished,
but the flyover is almost complete.
At the university, the professor pauses mid-lecture.
He looks at the door before he speaks.
History is now a multiple-choice question —
only one answer won’t get you arrested.
WHAT WE DO
We etch truth onto the bones
of the world’s largest democracy —
a body so tall, they think no one will notice the funeral.
We encode our words
in the rhythm of folk songs,
in the secret knots tied in handkerchiefs,
in the poetry scrawled onto restroom walls
where even dictators must kneel
before their own mortality.
We are smugglers of sunlight,
passing it hand to hand, so that even in the deepest dark,
no one forgets what it means to see.
WHY WE WRITE
Because journalists who ask the wrong questions
end up in morgues,
and their killers in Parliament.
Because places of worship echo
with sermons on morality
while bells drown out the cries
of the boys violated inside them.
Because farmers die in debt, their fields
swallowed by corporations, while leaders
hold feasts in their name.
We write because someone must.
Because silence is not peace.
Obedience is not patriotism.
And words are not illegal,
yet,
just dangerous.
TO THOSE WHO READ
If you have ever swallowed your words in fear,
know that we speak for you.
If you have ever clenched your fist at the news,
know that your rage is a weapon.
If you have laughed at the absurdity of this manifesto,
know that empires have fallen to
jokes that landed too well.
They think they own the story.
But stories have wings.
And we?
We are the wind.
6. If the sky stumbled at my doorstep by Anurag Mohanty
If the sky stumbled at my doorstep,
jaded, drenched in blue -
just once, just for a day -
I would breathe life into its ailing winds,
place my cat on its wispy nose;
because there are things I need to do.
I would unstitch this heat,
snatch the sun’s yellow tendril,
peel away its brass veneer,
and let the old, timid chill
creep in on cat’s paws once more.
These concrete thickets, towering glass shells, multiplying like paper-hives,
blotch the dwindling lakes with their perverse shadows,
each one a pitiful mockery of shade.
I would wring the clouds like wet linen,
let them weep for their days of yore,
so the lakes might remember their names.
The air would hang heavy with the scent of wet earth,
and the sullied streets would gleam,
not with sweat, but with the shy shimmer of asphalt and receding dust.
The ducks would return,
bewildered, trailing a rumour of resurrection.
And then, I would pause.
For the trees—oh, the trees—
their pink trumpets, let them blaze,
reckless and bright,
as if to mock my fragile dominion.
Who am I to dictate color,
to interrupt their unyielding gospel?
No, I would let them preach,
let their petals fall like elixir
on the marred graves of what the city’s lost.
For even in this borrowed April,
even under my feeble reign,
they would outlast me,
outdream me,
outpaint the sky with their defiant joy.
Perhaps hope, too, is a flowering tree
rooted in scorched soil,
blooming against the odds,
carrying the scent of memory
into another April.
At dusk, when my reign crumbles,
when the pavement begins to sweat again,
I’d leave one gift:
a single cloud, small and stubborn,
lodged between two office towers,
just to whisper:
This was possible.
7. Demigods, Demolition and Dividends by Ananya Dasghosh
Between my teeth, there’s a hotspot where gods run debates and lawsuits, where the petition of a suicide letter is trafficked by demigods and the constitution.
the ghosts of a fallen apple decomposed
under heavy boots shriek in locales.
It is the
revolution of the seasons, and the city
shuffles its demography under wedges,
saws and hatchets. The mogra, banyan,
gulmohar, crows and eagles lay under a
zodiac prophecy of demolition and dividends.
Mortals checkmate, gods degenerate.
Flies are homeless. Cows on march.
giraffes blindfolded. Politicians on mirth.
Death of crows. Dislocation of willows.
Choking cherries. Drooping dahlias.
a radical sunrise, a Nazi empire.
and, a fascist saffron.
All things standing tall is now
a wreck to the Parliament.
Prayers. Farewell. Corpse. Funeral.
A forest is now a martyr and a patriot.
Saints are on sale, the rough bark of trees sells.
The nation is stained in madness and
mother nature’s birth chart in transit,
Persephone conquered wild covers.
Protection Act. Conservation laws.
Regulation treaties and conventions
on dissecting tables. An orphan broken
in human war and wrath, Gods playing chess,
a hierarchy of chlorophyll abolished.
An existence erasing, burning footprints
and global warming fit the pollution scale
and ignorant human skins. Gods now in panic,
the apocalypse of forest covers, four paws
switched territories and there’s calamity
under the equator. The priest has forgotten
the prayer because Anthropocene is a cycle
of ruin, and this is a homicide under the cleanliness drive.
The air is acidic, rancid, arsenic, of kerosene,
of gunfires making a canopy of a dystopia.
And, extinction is the final receipt paid.
All things diminishing, and everything’s unholy
because God's creation is at the altar and
we are still making prayers on discounted rates.
8. The family WhatsApp group is a living room with no exits by Ritu Jain
The first good morning text
pulls back the curtains—
a digital sunrise that arrives even before the day begins.
The room sighs awake,
carpeted with unread messages,
where memes shuffle across like slippers
and quotes on positivity pretend to dust the corners.
Two cousins, plump as old pillows,
sink deeper into the sofa of silence—
only perking up when cricket or discount codes
pass through the hallway.
The aunties parade in digital sarees,
echoing each other’s, so pretty beta!
as they walk the feed like a fashion ramp
draped in filters and festive frames.
Children pin their certificates
to the virtual fridge for praise.
Their parents peek through curtain-texts,
smiling,
but saying little.
Grannies tap the voice recorder
thinking it’s a call—
summoning help for their evening tea,
or mistaking it for someone who will listen.
The table is cluttered—
with custom stickers that say “LOL Mausi!”,
wilted forwards,
and reminders about weddings, diets, and god’s blessings.
Uncles plant their arguments
in plastic pots of half-truths,
then water them with long silences
and the occasional “hmm…”
The room grows crowded by evening.
Emojis float like ceiling balloons,
and yet—no one leaves.
Because here,
love is awkward,
but alive.
Eventually,
someone says goodnight like switching off a lamp,
and the living room
slips quietly
into sleep.
9. The Ache of Almosts by Keerthi Reddy Kuncham
—a self-portrait as my online shopping cart
One velvet chair, forest green—
for the loneliness that wished
to sit with its back straight,
draped in something dignified.
A paperback: Ways to Disappear—
because some nights,
I want to vanish
with punctuation.
A clean exit.
A full stop.
Weighted blanket, fifteen pounds—
a stand-in for touch
that doesn’t flinch
at the weight of me.
Three candles—fig, rain, tobacco—
to set fire
to the women I almost became:
one earthy,
one tender,
one dangerous.
Lipstick in recklessly tender—
for the mouth that only speaks
in apologies
and almosts.
Knife set, matte black—
not to cut,
but to feel something in my hands
that understands precision.
Fairy lights—
for the ceiling I confess to
each night,
stringing stars
above my undone prayers.
Gold-foiled journal—
empty.
Not for lack of story,
just too much silence
between the lines.
Dusty rose scarf—
a softness I imagined wrapping
around the ache in my throat.
I wanted it to feel
like someone saying
stay.
Out-of-stock hoodie, size M—
added at 3:12 AM,
when I searched for warmth
and found
only fabric,
never arms.
This is the museum of my nearlys.
A girl curated in want.
Nothing purchased.
Everything felt.
10. A party in the reader’s bedroom by Avni Aryan
When it's 2 am, the bookmarks all gather
away from the murders in Little Kilton and heartbreak on the island of Trisda,
magic in the lost city of Weep and the
woes of Panem.
The paper bookmarks straighten their creases as they break-dance dance
and the theatre tickets criticize the movie adaptation with enthusiasm,
The last-minute stray yarn & ribbon bookmarks race each other to the finish line
and the superstore receipt sings a Daisy Jones And The Six’s song.
The feathers, finally out of the pages, flap their wings and play quidditch
with the paper clips,
And the domestic flight boarding pass narrates tales from the kingdoms of Ravka and Westeros.
The dried flowers & leaves drink butterbeer out of enchanted cups
and the displaced polaroids, now warming up to their new homes in the Forest of Enchantments after evacuating the albums,
ball dance with their neighbours, the dress-tags that reside in the Palace of Illusions.
The bookmarks party quietly but hard under the disco ball
drunk on Willy Wonka’s chocolate river,
high on sour cherry scones from Watford, the way Simon Snow likes them, and Turkish delights from Narnia.
They put on the Night Circus, do hula hoops, play murder mystery games, and
make fun of the dog-ears
And when the clock strikes 5,
They sneak right back between the pages in glass slippers like the coolest party-girl Cinderella that ever was,
to their numbered nooks and sleep
till the sun sets in Elfhame.
11. Things my shopping cart contains by Mrittika Chatterjee
Item 1: Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”
Price: Comfort, post-lecture jolt
Quantity: 1
Baba, bruised by verdicts,
bore each line along aching spine,
even when reckless lines
passed for prescriptions.
But when truth grew shapeless,
and justice wore the face
of failed men;
he folded into the pages
of the classic,
like defeat curling
into borrowed warmth.
Miles claw me from home—
replies limp late,
calls go unanswered;
A silence thickens—
and I want the book
to cradle it,
like the younger me
in his arms.
Item 2: Clove tea packets
Price: One lifetime of warmth
Quantity: 1
Grandma brewed dawn;
clove and hum
rising with the steam,
warmth sealing my cracks;
as clumsiness slipped away.
Winter tapped the glass—
we stayed wrapped
in conversation.
Now the cup trembles,
no stories to console.
Each sip: a burning hush,
a memory of being gently named.
The cups have run empty;
I lay two and mourn.
Item 3: Cute stationery
Price: Study session post an aesthetic picture
Quantity: 1
Pens with stars tied to bows,
markers in dawnlight hues,
a pink notebook—
ashamed it held fears
disguised as formulas.
Margins bloomed
with imagined patients,
crushes encrypted;
a teacher now laughs at them.
Some dreams don't break—
they yellow,
waiting at stations
while the passenger flies elsewhere.
Item 4: Oxidised Jhumkas
Price: Acceptance of repeating history
Quantity: 1
They echo a dancer,
the wind once wrote for—
ghungroos speaking,
where women were named
after silence.
The stage has changed,
the music plays on,
but the dancer lies folded
into corners by routine.
To buy them
is to build a shrine
she never wanted.
To leave them
is to lose her, twice.
Item 5: A pair of shoes
Price: One forgotten bill
Quantity: 1
A pair I've eyed,
as long as ached,
stitched with silence
each time I wanted to stand taller,
but couldn't afford to.
In dreams, I was a happy kid,
but reality brings receipts:
rent in one pocket,
resignation in the other.
Item 6: Bracelet
Price: 5 Gen Z slangs
Quantity: 1
In a physics lab,
whispers plotted to cheat time.
Five years later,
work shifts split us;
texts wilt unread,
calls leave longing.
Still, I know—
if my name brushes her day,
she'll string a wish
from thin air.
So when her birthday tugs,
I try to remember her wrist
from memory.
Item 7: A puzzle box
Price: Blurred memories resurfacing
Quantity: 1
A box with a thousand skies,
each piece a scent:
of mom's Kashmiri shawl,
and gravelled knees.
Now we forge pieces
from thin air,
apply force,
and call it healing.
No longer a game,
but grief in cardboard,
begging in a world
that thinks half is whole.
Are you sure you want to exit without buying anything again?
Remember, everything weighs more than memory ever admits. You can't escape.
Error Code: Extinct 2035 by Shama Mahajan
All you who (pretend to) sleep tonight
Far from the charred land of smoke and bones
your ears filled with the grinding bulldozers
Still
you wait in your beds for the alarms to ring
To take your kids to the zoo in the morning
But
Don’t look into their eyes
when you show them a peacock in its cage,
You might turn into a stone.
Last night
you read them the story of Mowgli from
The Jungle Book
They don’t know who Medusa is
Yet.
Tonight let me sing my last lullaby with
No hands left and emptiness around
to pacify my phantom children
Can you maybe ask your ChatGPT to turn their carrion ghosts
into beautiful Ghibli?
So I can plant a last kiss on their foreheads
with my searing lips
And murmur in their ears
In next life may you be born as paintings
Immortal,
in this life,
you are a geography unmapped
to be worshipped as the myth of Artemis
while
The whole world buries your tears
under ‘Nature-inspired’ Houses.
This is a game of Chess played with those
who know only hide and seek
The trees look at the creepers for help
while the squirrels ask the elephants
who is Queen’s gambit?
But have you seen the game where
Both lose
At checkmate?
To all you my children who will never wake up again
Far from the ones, who never loved you anyways,
All hands that crushed your fur and feathers
And let your blood dry in the soil below,
Know that those who trespassed weren’t alone.
The whole world slept with their ears open
Some called it a bad dream for a night or two
And some said it’s ‘Development’ for years to come.
Tonight
This lullaby also
Is a prayer
For the world that has no tears left
Just some robots, brick, mortar and cement
May the fingers of god find you in time
before you too are upturned
In your sleep,
while Medusa sings from the temple of Athena,
And to meet her fate
Is to die in the hands of your own
Yet
be called the Demigod.
So go,
Pray to your Elephant lord
he can hear even the whispers,
Reinvent your guilt into Gods of worship,
Implore them with a prayer of avoidance
And on the day of the apocalypse
Remember these prompts: Rivers, Oceans and Trees
Error Code: Extinct 2035