Laksmisree Banerjee |
Laksmisree Banerjee is an established Senior Poet, Writer, Literary Critic, Educationist, Scholar, Rotarian (a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow) & practicing Vocalist, with many National and International Awards, Books & Publications to her credit. She is a Senior Fulbright Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar and a National Scholar in English from the Calcutta University, India. A University Professor of English, Poetry & Culture Studies, an Ex-Vice Chancellor, she has lectured & recited in Universities and Literary Festivals across the globe. Has been widely anthologized with Five Books of Poetry, One Hundred Twenty Research Publications and Three Academic Books on Poetry.
TIME CONTINUED
Yes, he waits upon us breathlessly
Like a statuesque gatekeeper
In an old, worn-out, dusky T-shirt
Glaring with sunken marble eyes
Like an antique, invisible stern icon
Prevailing in corners, cups, biscuits, bathtubs
Sun-soaked curtains, rain-smothered windows
The sinking, wet tea-bags and gates of life.
Yes, he winks, ticks and blinks at us often
Playing the miracle healer or invader
Through his surreal wrought presence
While perhaps embalming some wounds
Which sit tight in our bruised souls,
Tiny scabs of glow worms with dark dry wings
Till we pull out these desiccated patches
To throw into the waste paper bins
Perhaps willingly in mindful forgetfulness.
Yes, these invisible marks still flutter
Like grey moths tingling deep within
Our fluid selves tucked away carefully,
Screened off in endless seasonal cycles
Buried silently within our covert terrain
In pathos symphonies often mixed with revelry
Our rocking rail-ride continues with speed
With this invisible, ruthless engine driver
While we meet for a while sipping sweetness
Like ex-lovers prattling on a treacherous journey
Through long stretches of a strange no-man’s land
When the train stops jarringly with an abysmal jolt---
***
FENCES
Let us not lie to ourselves and you
That we live till date under the same blue
Let us not lie that we are done with Partition
With this new menace of a new Nation.
Imposing the Self on the Other hue
Let us not pretend that we never knew.
Let us not lie through rain and sun
When sweets and kites have given way to the gun.
When fences are created for differences of birth
Where is that loving embrace to weep in mirth?
If Terror has no colour, faith, race or creed
Why rail against any diverse breed?
If Dissent is not Democracy
Why veil the evils of Autocracy?
The gates are closing, the death-knell ringing
Beware the void of a bottomless beginning!
We cannot build on the dreams of the past
Since History is catching up faster than fast.
***
RED ROSE CALLING
listen soulfully to
the whistling rose
a red sizzling bride with
the fresh florescence
of the springtime fire
lovingly cuddled within
her nuptial bed of balmy leaves
laughing with the endless
kisses of nature’s tumescence
with her open arms
for the beloved or in the
cascading warmth of
a mother’s embrace while
she softly unfurls her
coy quivering petals with
her deepest secrets in coitus
with the blessed bees abuzz
nestling in her amorous gaze
as she glows with the soft touch
of the coaxing green hands
in her bridal bower making
this redness a song aloud
of love’s godly cadence
with the echoing chords
of human essence
***
AWRY DREAM
ah! a jolt to wake me up
from my aphrodisiac sleep
there I go and force myself
into the entrenched grooves
the twists the turns the quirky pain
of must-be worked out nothings
for daily life and living
of having to heat up
the late-night food
to prepare a bed for
someone else to snooze
to draw the curtains or
switch the dim light on
to pull up someone else’s
quilt and then be gone
to chop the onions or
spice up the food while
my burning eyes spill out flood
to slice the veggies often
with cut fingers oozing blood
or burning oil scarring my face
when singed marks remain
to vanish after months or years
never counted through joys or tears
pushed out of my comfort zone
once twice thrice forever
to create a salubrious zone
for those not myself but some other
I play my role pretty fast and well
like a cowherd or agonized village belle
brought up in these times but caged in
a tutored mind-set of days far gone by
seems like dark aged static pre-history
or when Time has gone elsewhere to play free.
waking up before sunrise
going to bed after sundown
late later latest last
the hard chores which have
chiselled sculpted etched me
with a never-ending blast
lacerated me into a full being
other than my own self
while I live and die every moment
drowned as a void pearl shell
deep in the ocean floor
floating with my rudderless boat
my treasure trove of songs, books, poems
and unfulfilled fanciful remembrance
as the cool silver moon winks
once in a while looking at me
and through the clouds smiling
as if his angelic dwarfs scintillating
would soon coax and sweep me off my feet
to my very own Wonderland with rhymed beat.
***
RED AND BLUE
poetry pushes me through
eerie grooves and magic grottos
across dark shimmery gleams of
cryptic lightnings which
strike me yet do not do so ----
I live with my love-filled heart
where the songs of heaven rule
and my enchanted rhapsodies
in the drift of the breeze
lilt across diverse clusters
of islands torn apart ----
I still pacify my reigning beloved
across the benevolent blue
I hold his heart in my scented
clasp while my singing lips
kiss his soul in lambent hue ----
the silvery slants of the rains
drench me while I swoop and
swim in arcane silence across
the oceans in zestful glee
with love beams where the horizon
in red intense glory marries
me in the restless heaving sea.
***
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