Basab Mondal (Voices Within 2023)

Bipolar

...........

unclear protocols

undecided issues

unending feuds

 

Let us fight

until hegemony reigns.

Let us quarrel

until the world ends.

Until logic proves itself

to be logical.

 

Me and the me within

have issues

to solve .

 

 

The other darkness

.............     

Every evening

i water the plants

in my balcony.

 

The street lights

cacophony

and the darkness within

amalgamate

to touch the pinnacle.

 

The pinnacle of

obscurity.

 

Then too

I maintain the status quo

with ultimate care.

 

Somewhere surely

at that point of time

someone plucks

the blooming flowers

while I care

 the blooming ones

in my own backyard.

 

Untitled

 

I dream of hartal

keeping my barbed eyes

open for ever.

 

Let silence reign

for ever

through the breathing mountains

and sweating rivers.

 

The pebbles on the river bed

and towers atop

the hills

embrace each other

in solitude.

 

When will you come?

 

Don't answer

for i know

that the world

has gone online.

---

Setu, November 2023 :: Voices Within 2023

Voices Within: Basab Mondal

Basab Mondal, is a teacher by profession. He is from Kolkata. He is a bilingual poet and columnist who writes in English as well as Bengali. His poems, stories and translations have appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines. He writes to gratify his own inner self and the world around him serves as the cue.

QR Code

Buy your dreams

in black and white

and send the exchange value

in the virtual.

Illustrations galore,

vivid and variant-

inscribed like inhouse litigants

they unfasten 

to fasten you into a web-

a web of uncertainty.

Like a bathing scarecrow,

amidst the greenery,

bare yourself

matching to the demands

wearing out from inside.

Until then

respond to the flashing light

and get decoded.

***

Night

As soon as I

switch off my bedroom light

the opaque dungeon

that lie inside

open up

like eerie-glowed phosphorus.

Nights are 

like multiple choice questions 

and the answers-

 range from

 life here to life hereafter.

***

---

Setu, February 2022

Basab Mondal: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

 Basab Mondal, is a teacher by profession. He is from Kolkata. He is a bilingual poet and columnist who writes in English as well as Bengali. His poems stories and translations have appeared in several anthologies and literary magazines. He writes to gratify his own inner self and the world around him serves as the cue.

Muted

I peeked at the sky, after
almost a week.
The liberating smell,
bounded me.

The muted cage, hanging
Birdless-
made me realise, that
stifle, has a language.

I unfurled my feathers,
and tried to fly-
Probably a flight within.

Harmonica

I breathe into the holes,
through my mouth,
sometimes hard,
at times very lightly.

Thy sly holes,
lying parallely, whisper
to the nights.

They probably, help me
to communicate, with
my father, from whom
I inherited the Harmonica.

 

A Sum

Walking through my own vacuity,
I discover,
a radio station
in between the thick foliage
which has,
silence as its signature tune.
 
The internal democracy,
of silence,
feeds me with a sumptuous diet,
of unfulfillment.
 
I divide my demands, with
my unfulfillments, and
get sorrow for quotient
and the same demands
as remainder

---

Life, Cognition and Creativity 2021 :: Setu, January 2021

Basab Mondal: Poetry (Life, Cognition and Creativity)

Basab Mondal

Obituary 

Dew,like embers 

spark and vanish,on the

green undergrowth, which is

bathed by the slanting light 

of the half-eaten moon.

The puddle of hope

hiding deep in the 

murky diaspora of my broken heart,

tries to break,the shackles 

of obscurity. 

But dissolves 

in the palimpsest of time.

***

The call

I try to comprehend 

what the bees 

murmur to the flowers.

The nectar being robbed, 

the flowers dance

unperturbed.

Staring at my,

small terrace garden

feasty with bright foliage,

I love cleaning my false eyelashes 

trying to become 

a vagabond at heart.

***

Bio: Basab Mondal, is a teacher by profession who has unbridled love for literature.He writes poems in English and Bengali.He writes to satiate his own inner-self.His poems have been published in several little magazines and anthologies.

---

Life, Cognition and Creativity :: Setu, December 2020

Poetry: Basab Mondal

Basab Mondal

Illness

Remedy ruptures on its own.

Like the blazing freekick
that pierces the goal,
Death sits udetered,
Ready to pounce.

Sans peace-
Sans relief-
Sans dependence-
Life is an insurance towards nihilism,
A temptation towards eternity.

Remedy ruptures,
As it itself
is the brightest advertisement,
Of illness.
***


Promises

The lines of houses,standing lonely
makes me remember
The dreams,i had
promised to nurture.

The dancing boats,on the rippling stream
makes me recollect
That i had also,
Promised to return.

The falling rain
in the putrid alleys,
Rejuvenates the conjugal bliss,
That we had oathed of.

The passing rail-tracks
Overlooking my lacerated neighbourhood
Chokes me ,
to believe
that me and my promises
Will lay side by side
In neverending lines.
***

---

Basab Mondal, is a teacher by profession who has unbridled love for literature.He writes poems in English and Bengali.He writes to satiate his own inner-self.His poems have been published in several little magazines and anthologies.

Setu, June 2020