Mary Magdalene

Welcome Lissy Jose of I MA English to Heart-Bytes!

She has attempted a flash fiction.

Hope you like reading it.

What is the tallest? Pride. What is taller than that? Hunger.

What is the loudest? This roaring sea. What is louder than that? The Mind.

What is the most frightening? Death. What is more frightening than that? To be hated by everyone.

I can’t remember when I started running. It has been months and years and I lost count. All I remember is that they were very angry. They flung stones at me and called me a harlot. They had had sweet tongues when they visited me at night. How can you make love to someone and hate them at the same time?

They ran me to the end of the world and now I am met with the sea, its boiling rage and blinding sun.  I collapsed onto its golden lap. Strangely I could smell my mother’s perfume. It was my favorite fragrance till the stench of shabby currencies sedated me. Hunger blinded me like a huge wall and my pride was dwarfed. I stooped to flesh.

I want to go back to my mother’s womb…

Suddenly I heard a voice like a thousand thunder bolts striking at once.  For a while silence swallowed the world. I heard retreading steps. Stones kissed the earth in apology. That moment I knew I met with the sea of love.

Writers' Forum September-October Contests: Open to the Public

The Sacred Heart College Writers' Forum contests are generally meant for our students. But we have decided to host a few contests every year that are not restricted to them.

The September-October 2012 contests are open to the public. Anyone from any part of the world can submit their entries. Please do see the individual contest descriptions for the rules.

Poetry

You can submit a poem, which does not exceed 30 lines, based on this picture. You are free to experiment with any of the poetic forms, or free verse.

Original thoughts and metaphorical expressions will be appreciated.

Picture credit: Balbir Krishan, acrylic on canvas (with the artist's permission).

Flash Fiction

 

 

Here's the picture prompt for flash fiction. I guess this will set your creative forces on fire!

If you need to know what Flash Fiction means, please do follow this link: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

Word limit: 600 words

Photo Credit: Mike Keville, London.

Caption

 

 

 

Yes, we have the caption contests this time again. All you have to do is to give an appropriate caption (1-10words) for the picture here. 

Photo Credit: Joe Pacione, Canada.

We will publish the winning entries in the blog, and also in an online literary journal that we plan to bring out late in 2012. We do not offer cash prizes, but please do note that there is no reading fee as well.

Deadline: October 31st 2012

 

You can send your entries in .doc/PDF format to sacredheartcollegeblog@gmail.com. 

Please do include a bio note in less than 100 words, with your postal and email address.

Sacred Heart College students can either make an email submission or hand in the entries directly to Prof. Jose Varghese, Department of English.

 

Call For Submissions: Writers' Forum Online Literary Journal

A Legless Soldier Talks To A Pair of Boots

Jesto Thankachan 

of III BA English Copy Editor 

presents a post-colonial poem. 

Sometimes, academic courses inspire you to write poetry! 

A Legless Soldier Talks To A Pair of Boots

The nagging, unorthodox, slippery tongue 

of my thinking, matchless, leather boots

shocks me now in an absence...

My boot was the son of 

a dead percussion instrument,

pseudo-womb of repressed reverberations

in a spell-bound trauma.

They recast him to fit to my feet
as an obedient silence.

But his paralysed, glittering body's

coarse soul lain blessed with its

adamant, pithy tongue of violence.

My boots could recite the tyrannical fate 

of rascals from the life of his molested mother,

in a piece of lyric from Shakespearean tragedy.

I prepared myself to die in a cold prison

with these burnt flesh where me legs started,

and the black sediments precipitated

in the unused vessel of soul.

I argued a lot; read a lot, strived and 

starved to save the tongue of my boots.

But the epic of enigma within me,

the injected peril of power,

killed my boot's hidden tongue last day.

Now I too search for my drowned words

of the soul, in  a plague-like silence.

I Am A Merchant

Collins Justine Peter 

of III BA English Copy Editor 

presents a mystical piece this time

I AM A MERCHANT

On this dark and windy night, I hear the clouds sob outside. I do not settle and I do not stay. Since my birth I was a maker and now I am a merchant. I have ‘it’ which the insane world despises and forsakes. I see the miry path, in the sudden light outside. I set out with my haversack full of ‘it’. I hold a staff in my hand and venture out without a map.

I pass dawns and I pass dusks. I trod the hills and cover the plains. Sometimes I stand still and look up to the raging star. Sometimes I lie down and bathe in the tranquil stream on which the star reflects. I hear no Coyote and I am walking again. I hear no more nocturnal choirs but the tick of destiny. Hidden behind those giant trees, they have their bloody eyes on my haversack. I keep moving and I am a merchant from my land.

The merchant enters a civilization of a Persian dream. In awe of me, they clear the way. I see merchants, some haggling and some cheating. Some sell ‘it’ in full and some sell the leftovers. A pair of hands see my thirst and respond with a pot of flowing water. The water tastes like the lady standing before me with a bowed head. She receives my haversack and we move along through the crowd. I am no longer a merchant and now I have a home.