The
Special 100
Irregular Sloword BirthMonth Festival
2021
Featured Guest - Mona Banerjee
Mona Banerjee, from Kolkata, was born into a family of real literary giants; her maternal grandmother was Lila Majumdar, the well-known Bengali writer of children’s books. From her dad’s side, she’s linked to THE Tagores.
Maybe this fueled her love for reading, writing, drawing … stuff like that. Family pressures put all this on the back-burner for years, though she wrote occasionally.
Now that she’s free, she’s writing again. (And, boy, are we in luck!)
Check out the links at right to see more of her work.
Previous Entries for the Irregular SloWord BirthMonth Festival: Lost Friend and other poems
Feature
Presentation
LETTER TO LOVE AND HATE
I didn’t have time to write a letter
Of love or hate or neutral or worse.
Which led me to think …
Wouldn’t it be better
To pen a few lines of doggerel verse?
A letter of hate to what we call Love,
And then of love to that opposite thing.
Maybe ‘twill fit like the proverbial glove
And lots of fun to our friends t’will bring!
So here I go, with faltering pen
To pen the epistle demanded of me.
Hear me out, my friends …
And then …
Of the good or bad the judge you’ll be!
I start with hate for gentle Love.
Dear Love, for you this letter I write.
You’re always known as a gift from above,
A bringer of joy and sweetness and light.
We dream of you all through our life,
At every step of our weary way.
The love of parents, of kids, of wife,
Of husbands and friends and companions gay.
But Love, the gifts you cast our way
Are balloons that pop and bubbles that burst.
They’re dreams that fade at break of day,
And chill and fear and hunger and thirst!
So Love, my dear, stay away from me,
For I don’t believe the tales I hear
Of your beauty and grace and purity …
Hah!
I only feel your pain and fear!
And now, Dear Hate, painted so black
And loathed and feared in equal measure.
Here’s a letter of love from me …
For … alack!
No-one sees that you’re a true treasure.
We try and avoid you and piously raise
Our eyes to Heaven and say you’re bad.
We avoid you ever, and Love we praise,
And if you leave, we say we’re glad.
But nobody sees the true nature of you,
The cleansing fire you bring to our life.
The feelings you bring are real and true,
And clear a path through the swamp of strife.
Our minds, when clogged with social norms
And fogged by thoughts that others may bring,
Is cleared by you in all your forms …
Our thoughts are free to soar and sing.
Hate, my dear, you’re the finger that points
To our true nature and depths of our soul.
You show us all our cracks and joints
So we can repair them and then be whole.
And so I dare to write this letter,
Of love for Hate and hate for Love.
But I admit, my friends, it’s always better
When Love and Hate fit like a glove!
