The sun ripens
with the sky turning opaque and amber
losing its innocence, blueness, transparency
~growing old, wearisome,
resembling the monotony of a sour marriage,
chewing the cud of old lies
till the language morphs to become still born syllables.
The day with its usual cacophony blows across the face like desert wind
The city is a prostitute; past her prime,
her jaded beauty failing to lure young men,
songs of abandonment float across the muddy waters of Hooghly,
the collage of October Pujo, roads and rallies, rickshaws and cafes form a part of chlorophyll memory.
The television blares,
news channels and internet fence the world within our anti-glare frames
We live from one set of disaster to another... forward one set of memes to the next,
Ukraine is the latest on the list -
empty eye sockets remorsefully look out of skeletal buildings,
cold deserted streets,
ghost towns breathing out tales of horror,
yet a hope flickers..
of sunflower seeds, that may bloom
someday.
On a dreamless night the walls close in
War, pandemic, holocaust are scary words.
Closure too, I realize.
I curl up,
pull the cover over my head.
Here it is dark.
Lonely.
Mallika Bhaumik is a widely published poet with two poetry books. Her poems, short stories, travelogue, article, and interviews have been published in many well reputed mags and journals and anthologies like Guftugu Journal, Cafe Dissensus, Harbinger Asylum, Get Bengal, Shot Glass Journal, In Parentheses Journal, Kitaab, Pangolin Review, Narrow Road Journal, The Bengaluru Review, Oddball Magazine, Stag Hill Journal, Mad Swirl, Madras Courier,The Grey Sparrow Journal, The Alipore Post, RIC Journal to name a few.
Her first book, 'Echoes' by Authorspress, has won the Reuel International Award for the best debut book,2018.
Her second book 'How not to remember' was published by Hawakal Publisher, (2019).
She is also a nominee for the Pushcart Prize for poetry, 2019.
Three of her poems from 'How not to remember' are included in the Post Graduate syllabus of BBMK University, Dhanbad, 2020
She lives and writes from Kolkata, India.
