Poetry: Lopamudra Banerjee

Lopamudra Bannerjee
Kolkata

Linger in my body and soul
Like the moist air which I’ve inhaled 
As my mother’s body metamorphosed into an urn of ashes. 
Linger in my body and soul 
Being that warm, ardent kiss of my first lover, 
Linger in the fresh, iron smell of my blood-red lips 
as he sucks the virgin blood from my lips.  

Linger in me, being my infant want for my mother’s milk which I never had,
Linger in me, wafting like the enigma of friendship between elusive light and darkness. 
I will seek you, tethered to the reminiscences of my lost days,
Days which have dissolved in the crooks and bends of unnamed alleys. 

Linger in me, like the thousand thwarted revolutions wrapped around my being, 
Which never found their closures. 
Linger in me, like the sticky oil ruining the pillow on the bed, 
And crinkled noses complain, how fishy, how obnoxious the bed smells. 

Linger in my body and senses, being a rhapsody of my desires 
After making love with my beau, 
Linger in my soul, as the quintessential Pragya-Parama-Prakriti,
The clarion call of childhood pals. 
Linger in me from one birth to the other, 
Victoria, Shahid Minar, College Street,
The dingy lanes of the Hedua of my youth. 

Come to me when I turn into a corpse, 
Come and touch me with your magic wand 
As the flames of my pyre burn.  

I’m taking from you all that I can, 
licking off my yearly debts from your body. 
Take away my flesh, blood, my earthly assets, 
When I am born anew. 
***


The Earth She Holds

[A poem born instantly and instinctively today from my humble pen as my daughter Sharanya worked on and finished an artwork/sketch of a human hand holding the wonder and miracle of hope, a universe of mountains and verdant green. Hoping of the resurgence of our planet, this is our small collaboration as a tribute to the people of this planet who, I know, will soon rise from despair into a new dawn of hope.]

Atoms of consciousness spurt, breaking open
In the sunlight of eternity. 
Through membranes of the fertile brain, 
The soft core of the earth resurges, 
pushing through the ragged, rickety truths of 
Diseased, war-stricken humans. 
The earth, in her diaphragm of hope and orange blossom of planet love 
The earth cocooned in supple hands, a legacy 
Of mountains and unborn plants in embryo. 
Her mirth and persistent dream of this earth, 
Yet to be born, is not a scream, a dissent. 
It is rather, a vision of a wordless world, submerged, a green song. 
The earth, like a cradle she holds, stumbling into poems of lovelessness 
The earth in our sheltered living room, 
Waking up from the wreckage of its ashes. 
***


Mirror, Mirror on The Wall 

The bedroom stains breathe and thrive
On shimmering streaks of air.
Each new luminous morning, starting to smell
The flames of the day.
The mirror, tucked away in a quiet nook
Smells of poetry in its atomic particles of dust.
The toiletries, jammed in the dresser
Bathes in the colorful beauty of the sun.
The mirror breathes in the looming shadows
And light, sings along a mundane, familiar song
With the walls in the room,
Smeared with dirt, ink and old habits,
The golden pulp of the coiled bodies
Smelling of stale, recycled dinner and
The colored promise of the sun.
The mirror is their oldest confidante,
He laughs and cries with the crumpled bedsheets,
The old, unwashed linen blinds.
The mirror takes in all–bodies engraved
In the warm sweat of the room, bodies moving,
Spinning fast, legs and arms bloated,
Dragged in a household of dreams and despair,
The lips that are peeled, sore, yet singing,
Sucking the blood beneath the fingernails.
The mirror luxuriates, reflects and enlivens
The powdered beauty camouflaging
The dark night’s empty crevices.
*** 

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