Untitled - Dawngi Chawngthu

The fading lights
Of the city of joy
Flicker in the distance

And approaching lights
Of the city of pearls
Growing brighter every second

Promise a new beginning:
Beginning of unknown
Things to come.

I embrace the beginning
Though it leaves me sad
And apprehensive

But there really is no choice
Time has come
To let go…

Let go of bits and pieces
of trivia…
Enough to fill a dustbin maybe.

A memo from a lunch
That rainy June
To let you know…I care

A ticket torn in half
From the movie
That had us in splits

A letter signed with love
Not really a love-letter…
Nevertheless, full of love.


Dark shades…now broken
Sent all the way from the old city
You remembered….


Looks across the dinner table
Winks across the room…
Blank stares…yes, that too…


Little acts of kindness
Words of care
Whispers of love

Forget the dustbin…
The abstract
Outnumber the concrete.


A decade holds a lot.

Catch the Star - Somte Ralte

Only these beating hearts
Ebb against this tranquility:
I love this moment with you
In all its naturality:
I do not feel beyond myself
This is my home.

Butterfly kisses and feathery gaze
Now break the silence:
Claim me, I am here
Lying with you vulnerably.
Nest me in this warmth
Not foreign to mine own;
As I breathe you in
Every air is my contention.

This is it: my destiny
This is my complacency:
Every heartache and broken dreams
Were leading me to you -
I should have known I was better then.
No more white leaves under my pillow
No more tossed coins across the rivers
No more wishing at the falling star:
You are with me,
This is my fairy tale.

Causatum - Lalrinmawii Khiangte

I am in my Gethsemane

I sweat out blood
The pain of Joseph's forgiveness.

Dying I live
losing I gain
such profound death and life
loss and gain.
I have not lived in vain
to experience this
resurrection from the pit to glory
the peace after the tempest
the joy after the pain
the light after darkness.


Lalrinmawii (Mamawii) Khiangte has been writing poetry in English all her life, and works at Govt. Aizawl College.

Picture: Dawn over Champhai, photographed by Lalrinmawii (Teteii) Fanai.

Silence - Somte Ralte

Time slips away ever so slow

In the vastness of this vacuum

--- All is still.

I lie awake

Too tired to sleep:

No more anticipating

For things I thought I knew

Or things I had wanted.

The whole world has ceased

Yet I am still here -

Engulfed

By the sound of deafening silence:

A trickle or a whisper

Could only collapse the heart.

This eerie comfort

Is mine now

And I have got

Nothing left to lose.

Lalmalsawmi Ralte graduated with English honours under Gauhati University in 2007 and completed her Masters in English from Mizoram University in 2009. She presently teaches at a mission school for tea-tribes at Khelmati, Assam.

Photograph: Zualteii Poonte

Inside A Womb - Bd Chawngthu

Inside a womb darkness is a friend

Of day and night the difference is none
I can barely think but I can hear
Sad grieves in my seven months of stay
I sleep to the tune and live within the tune
Is this what they call a cry!
Mother who bears me sound
I am a part of you, part of your grief
Two months then I shall join your world
And then I’ll see with my senses
If your world is indeed sad.

Inside a womb your grief is a friend
Of day and night the sound is all I hear
Am I your grief? Am I your relief?
A fetus in darkness learns what is hurt
But what lies beyond, is there a counter-hurt?
Inside a womb I can barely foresee
Mother who bears me sound
I am a part of you, part of your hurt
And if your world is all that you have cried
Then why should I plunge to interrupt
And truth be seen which is indeed sad.



Lalbiakdiki Chawngthu lives in Khatla, Aizawl and is presently doing her MA in English at Mizoram University.

Picture: Untitled, oil on canvas by Laltanpuia