SALVE|SHABDAAWEG| BI-WEEKLY EDITORIAL

My father’s side of the family was originally from what is now Bangladesh. During the partition of Bengal, they fled their homes and had to start afresh here, in India. The connection with their roots, where they grew up, was shattered. I remember hearing stories about those lush green fields, those ponds where all the family members used to sit and catch fish on a cloudy day. And the fresh catches were cooked that very day in a big courtyard. The whole family then enjoyed the food together, chit-chatting amongst themselves. …

FICTION

The ride was bumpy. The skies, cloudy. His mood, sour. And the tea, well it had already spilled on his trousers a few moments back. Wasn’t a pleasant start for a healthcare worker you may presume. He felt the same. Trying to calm his nerves. He could do nothing about the potholes, nor could he do anything about the spilled tea. But he can look outside of his car window and watch the sun play peekaboo with the clouds. And he did that. Imagining the infinite layer of fluffy clouds taking various shapes, faces of dragons, of people, some of…

FREE VERSE

Rains and the kind of you are not the most important thing, to be honest, and all the time to explore the possibility of working with the images,
from the heart of our life is not right for me to be honest,
and a bit of patience and understanding the other details,
is not right for the other.

Nature is the first to be used to say magic realism is one thing in a nutshell,
of any kind in the world.

Plants and water from the heart is a bit more time to explore new ways,
of learning poetry.

Mountainside…

FREE VERSE

My city is those dingy narrow lanes bustling with an everlasting sound,
rays of sepia light flickering and illuminating the nooks and crannies,
my city carries all the burdens and loneliness of its people,
its roads soaking in the teardrops and balancing the happily tipsy feet,
it all teaches me to live but who pacifies her?
when my city cries itself to sleep at night?

Maybe those footprints of someone new, who arrives in the city,
maybe those dreamy eyes who look at the city with so much affection,
maybe those lost souls who returned back to its motherly lap after long,
or…

FREE VERSE

The endless river and the little infinitesimal waves strewed across,
waves that caress the boat one after the other,
as it oscillates slowly, sometimes faster,
as if some invisible magnet controls it far into the horizon.

Is it really a wooden boat or just one made of paper?

As an angry storm brews over the sea, those black clouds paint the horizon,
the boatsman’s heart skips a beat as he looks at his prized catches of the day,
he closes his eyes for a few seconds, fingers clasping the god’s miniature photo,
would the thunder puncture those clouds soon? …

FREE VERSE

When it rains now, the fat dollops of cold molecules,
tipper tappers on my skin, why do I run for a shelter?
fear of getting wet connected to catching cold and fever,
perhaps.

Whilst years back that anticipation and the eager wait,
eyes looking at the grey clouds to pop open like a jug,
the smell of petrichor,
and the ecstatic heart would run to the roof of the house,
the skin and the soul in unison as they got drenched in rain,
the dry umbrella cried in the corner.

As droplets of rain wave at me through the glass…

A NEW LITERARY IMPULSE CHALLENGE

Hello Dear Writers,

Hope you all are doing well and staying safe. We had been thinking for quite some time to come up with a new prompts challenge but then there was a EUREKA moment! Why not try something new? How about get a list of a few very uncommon poetic forms from various regions and request the amazing Medium writers to create anything out of them?

So this time around the poetic form is fixed but the theme stays universal. Doesn’t that sound good? We are sure you’ll all come up with some exceptional poetic pieces.

There’s no specific…