Two Worlds
A blue lake captures my soul in its
unmeasured, unimaginable depths
where a new world better than lands
survive drinking immortality.
Howling wolves pierce melancholy
and the dropping leaves stuck with
fever of spring bows down
before the majestic stance
of endless sky and waters.
Echo of unknown sounds emerging
from the unexplored ends of the woods
run wildly and circle around ears
like unquenched souls.
Striking against the trunks of topless trees
they become one with lingering serenity.
The bridge connecting them to my land
is left broken for years;
perhaps broken by the conflicts
and none has dared to swim across
for both the worlds,
one of religion and other of reason
stand with obstinate swords and spears
wearing T-shirts of barriers and laws
in either side of the bridge.
***
On a Rain Bleached Day
Painted in its own course
This rain bleached sky re-recites a morning
Of cornflakes, school dress and the alarming wait
Of the horn
The horn of the school bus,
Splashing through waterlogged potholes
(an ever piercing bug of punctuality).
Same reel of outmoded records
propounded by saintly sanity of winds
calms my waywardness into
a restlessness of melancholy.
Twisted neck towards the cassette
plays a thin tune out of a chained gramophone
(far afield cries of souls)
And it’s a loneliness standing beside me
by the balcony attached window
murmuring an intone to spread
its effect
to the dancing trees into a quarrel of stillness
to the shivering stray dogs
to the fallen fruits in storm.
Am I the chosen performer today
to perform the songs of loneliness
for those maidens who come as air, fragrances
and move apart
as the vapour-lost clouds, spreading apart
by the lining of a peeping sun?
***
Rolling Time
Whims hinged
between the blade of an axe
and the trunk of a tree
pull over the fabric layering
old days of woodcutting
still alive and preserved
under the care of belongingness.
Images arising out of sub consciousness
play games among themselves
without noticing my company.
Layers of time
move like an escalator
returning same steps
to several generations
and phases of time
again and again.
Sonnet Mondal is a much discussed Indian English poet and editor of the younger generation. Born and brought up in West Bengal, Sonnet currently resides in the city of Kolkata, India, from where he carries out his literary activities.
With a long list of magazine features, Sonnet’s works have been included in the editions of The Sheepshead Review (University of Wisconsin, Green Bay), The Penguin Review (Youngstown State University), Two Thirds North (Stockholm University), Nth Position, Fox Chase Review, The Stremez (Supported by The Ministry of Culture, Macedonia), California State Poetry Quarterly (California State Poetry Society), The Thing Itself Journal (Our Lady of the Lake University, Texas) and Dark Matter Journal (University of Houston-Downtown) to name a few.
He is the founder of the international poetry magazine: The Enchanting Verses Literary Review (ISSN: 0974-3057) and is on the editorial board of the multilingual magazine Levure littéraire (ISSN:2268-9915) based in Paris, France. He guest edited Nothing Noone Nowhere Magazine, no. 5 2013, Virgogray Press (ISSN: 2158-1223) in 2013. He is probably the youngest Indian to have represented India at the Bridges Poetry Event (Struga Poetry Evenings), Macedonia.
Sonnet poetry collections include Prismatic Celluloid (2013), Diorama of Three Diaries (2011), Twenty One Lines Fusion Sonnets of 21st Century (2010), Ink and Line co-authored with Sukrita Paul Kumar (2014) among others.
His poem The Portrait of The Deer from his first book back in 2007 got appreciation from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the then President of India.
Sonnet introduced a new brand of 21 Lines Sonnets in his book Twenty One Lines Fusion Sonnets of 21st Century released from Sparrow publications in 2010. These Sonnets were translated into Macedonian by former Macedonian PEN secretary Prof. Zoran Ancevski and appeared in Stremez Journal, the oldest literary magazine of Macedonia. The book was eventually archived in the Library of Congress, Columbia University in the City of New York, University of Chicago Library, Duke University Libraries and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He was one of the main persons behind the collaboration of Stremez magazine, Macedonia with The Enchanting Verses Literary Review. This endeavour of international literary exchange got special mention multiple times in the Bulletin of Ministry of External Affairs of Macedonia.
Sonnet was featured as one of the Famous Five of Bengali youths by the India Today magazine in 2010, as Writer of The Month at The Spark Magazine in June 2012, in Special Features of Inspiration Unlimited magazine in November 2014. He was also featured in Kavya Jagathi section of Andhra Bhoomi Newspaper in 2012, as an achiever in The Herald of India in 2010.