Most Famous Poems of Suman Mondal

Meditation on Mortality 

I travel midst the mind of my last,

Sure, I can’t go far enough to see,

Where last breath hides inside of me,

Pride of long past abates into dust.

I ask shyly, “So far in life I have gone,

Tasted drops of honey from nectar’s pot,

Woe and glee both be, and that’s a lot,

What if too long has this vessel shone?”

Attempts are futile, no answers cry a call,

Only a silence distinct from silence,

Eyes closed, only dark odour’s sense,

And, in precise instance, my body does fall.

Empty vessel, I hear only mourn and grief,

Fresh morning dew on the grass so green,

Seven drops of grievance on my face be seen,

And a long life, it seems, finds subtle relief.

Upset, as dirges are sung by pals in cluster,

Once had I been jocund in their own way,

They walk, and on their shoulders I sway,

And so, my body meets earth all the faster.

They return and carry wild dolorous pain,

Eyes that had never watered before now anguish,

Some call the vile marks they never wished,

Some stir up amiable greetings in the group again.

For some, betrayed in life, too have gone,

Or give obdurate affliction that one endures,

To some, whose quietude of mind cures,

The last breath to heave, or heave forlorn.

Life, they know well too must fall and yield,

But, so short is life, and so much hatred, love—

Fear, joy, sorrow, peace, chaos, dreams above,

Solitude, faith, doubt have never been revealed.

So, let my existence fade and cease at the end,

And, remember not what I was or did to you,

Or, what cost you envy, or perhaps all that’s due,

Let you forget, and drink until to me you, too, send.

Art of Appreciation 

Butterflies

touching petals

of fallen blossoms—

torn into many pieces 

cloudy serene evening 

walked beside me

beneath silence.

Evening 

subsiding into the trees—

silence abated in the darkness

colourful wings giddied amid

shredded pieces of beauty

How buoyant they are

amid the blanched beauty—

relishing fugitive rapture

I realized: art of appreciation. 

What art could be  

Art as observation 

beauty found 

in ravished petals

Appreciation as bliss—

unnatural except for the one 

who cherishes the whole 

in precise instances

finding quietude of mind

and staying elated until glory comes.

My sapped heart learned jubilance

revelling in every moment

Out of the blue, a silence spoke through me:

“Happiness comes with disillusionment.”

Phantom

Every night, when sunlight dims,

The life-cycle crumbles

And the cool air wraps around,

Relics rekindle in the stillness.

Philosophers in the late night,

Thoughts dissolve, love ebbs, 

And life unstitches.

A girl resurfaces the carcasses,

Withering pulses beat for her father –

A boy snared remnants from dustbin,

A dog throbs, shivering in the cold.

A young girl blurs in darkness, fearing  –

The murmurs of demons flickering –

Some struggle for crystallized dreams,

Some breathe their last with quiet teardrops –

The mother at the old-age home sees the phantom

Of her son and his daughter-in-law, emblazoned.

Forlorn?

Postmodern Hopelessness

I. Description of Chaos

The empty roads, not always empty,

Or maybe they are,

Filled with the presence of those who have left,

Or never arrived.

Sun blooms every morning in the garden,

Flowers rise from the deep blue sky.

Eyes close in tumultuous morn,

Open in deep solitary darkness.

Morning never comes, only the lights,

Peeping through the flowers, rising in the sky.

The garden, the sun,

Gives bashful rays.

Night never comes too, only the darkness.

Moon, from the serenity of the mind, shines.

Lunar eclipse falters,

Shining rays struggle to glow.

Earth and Moon align in a nearly perfect row,

Every day the soul drowns in hopelessness,

A silence untold,

So many untold emotions.

Every night arrives, and a thousand die,

Reluctant to wake up in a sinful morn.

Words hum and haw,

Marking the weight of pain.

II. Day to Night Chaos

Morning roams the road with a torchlight,

Fashionable, colorful, in luxurious garments,

Nine layers of powder on its face,

Shining brighter and brighter

Until its glow subsides.

Torchlight dims, transforming into a tank,

Filled with water sucked from mankind.

The floods come and drown

Millions of hearts, and the morn itself.

Afternoon walks and runs around hungry people,

Phentermine in one hand, opium in the other,

Injected into drowsy brains,

A colossal elephant crumpling a thousand trees.

Evening subsides the Phentermine effects,

Dancing around exhausted intellectuals.

"Hurled headlong, flaming,

With hideous ruin and combustion,

Down to bottomless—"

Hungry hearts stagger into groceries and bars,

Two glasses of painkillers in hand,

Drinking until the late night calls the next day.

Everyone is a great philosopher in the late night,

Brimming with philanthropic zeal,

Thinking of death and impending doom,

Aware of the heartless future.

Corruption, system collapse,

Religions abate,

Spirituality dies long before modernity’s demands.

No, dying must not be the way to end,

But dying every day

Must be the way to live

Amid the chaos we see.

III. Hope Unusual

Hope never comes, only consolation

From the uneducated, unestablished

Gentleman and Lady,

Their minds dwelling in the afterlife's speculative pleasure.

Oops—what can be hope?

Oops—what can be a solution?

Oops—what can be happiness?

Religions and spiritualism,

Bound in a chaotic realm,

What can people see?

What can they expect for peace?

With abundant pleasure,

Happiness seems a mirage.

The only way to embrace it all

Is to die every day in chaos,

Until the final breath.

No hope can save life,

Life must fall to find peace.

It may sound strange,

But it's the only way

To arrange the pieces of life

Into a beautiful exchange,

A blissful exchange.