POETRY COLUMN

LITERARY EDITOR ANANYA S GUHA’S NOTE:

Menang Thangkhiew, a nineteen-year-old writes from Shillong. Reading and writing are his passion. His ”Untitled Poems” here have an aphoristic twist and turn. He sighs over relationships, and this mad, mad world. 

ABOUT THE POET

Menangtei Kuparlang Thangkhiew is 19 and resides in Nongkseh, Shillong, Meghalaya. He has recently passed his Class 12 Board Exam in Science, and aspires to be a doctor as well as a writer cum poet. Science is his interest but he is also passionate about reading and writing novels and poems. His biggest inspirations are William Wordsworth and Robert Frost, and modern writers like Chetan Bhagat and Khalid Houssini. Their works have inspired him to, hopefully, become like them.  

Untitled

Every day is a pocket-sized adventure

When you live on the edge.

So, let’s go on morning rides

And sit on the ledge.  

 

We explored each other

With hesitant bites,

Savouring the taste

Of love at first sight.

 _____________________________________________

I found peace today,

Peace against the turmoil of the day:

I picked it up in my hands and leafed through its pages;

It’s my refuge in this dark age.

_____________________________________________

 

We were too drunk on each other

To notice the sinking ground,

Pulling us down further

This high that we found.

 

If only we could spread love

Like venereal diseases.

 

Your silence has my ears ringing

Loud enough to stop the angels singing.

 

Coffee shops

Coffee shops and bookstores:

Our favourite places to be.

So drunk on fiction, we soared

Above the realms of reality.

 

Flying cars

 

My head is an ocean full of stars,

Flowing high above the flying cars,

Free from the shackles of humanity’s fate:

Free from all forms of greed and hate.

 

If you wish to join me then take my hand

But I must warn you beforehand,

That to swim in an ocean full of stars

You must give up the flying cars.

 

Storm

Fierce winds blew and disturbed

My transparent thoughts and choice of words,

Blowing from soft lips spewing vicious flames

That curls in the same way when they whisper my name.

 

Her temper’s a tempest when she craves for more,

But her love’s magnetic when cuddling on the floor.

She’s a paradox: a shelter and a storm.

Oh she saved me and left me torn.