2 Ekphrastic Poems: Pradip Mondal

Pradip Mondal obtained his Ph. D degree from Visva-Bharati (Santiniketan, India) in 2021. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Lal Bahadur Shastri Govt. P. G. College Halduchaur, Nainital (affiliated with Kumaun University). Beside academic writings, a few of his poems have also been published in anthologies and literary e-journals like Suburban Witchcraft (Serbia), Muse India (India), and Setu (USA). His edited the book Dystopian Deliberations: Essays on Dystopian Fictions and Films (Atlantic). His review articles have been published in venues like The Wise Owl (India), Indi@logs (Spain), Borderless Journal (Singapore), and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong).

Soiree of Sins

(based on Bosch’s painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights”)

 

There are red apples in every orchard.

The serpent spits the venom of envy.

Eve cannot resist eating one.

Lust coupled with fall from grace.

 

The vulpine cravings are seen on the dinner table,

gearing for the game of ‘Mate and multiply’.

The blood of lust runs like that of a goat when

Gluttony gets ready for mollycoddling.

 

The protean paramour garnishes the dish of love

to pursue puny pleasure.

We move from one plate of sin to another.

Ours is the sojourn for the trip from heaven to Hades.

Droop and Diagram

(based on William Blake’s painting “Isaac Newton”)

 

If germs of discovery plague one’s cerebrum,

then nobody cares whether his groins are

carefully canopied or not.

 

Crouching on the coral-covered rock, he draws a

diagram to measure the majestic universe.

But can the crazy compass confine the infinite?

 

He could have watched the blue, green, and golden

lichens behind his back. Afterwards he could have sit

by the rock to ruminate over a right angle or rhombus.

 

Let his hair be auburn like algae,

he keeps on solving the tricky geometry.

Doesn’t he feel like looking at the inky sky for once?