Revisit: What's New, What's Old? (Laksmisree Banerjee)

Happy New Year

We have now set foot on this 
      Summit of newness on the ledge
Pledged our progress from  
      Tattered to Happy Good Times
Our bright painful tears
      Rolling down with the lilting rivers
Our glaciers already in summer thaw
      With the sun-sprinkles on a new born day
We will move surely to the next goal-post
      Despite the hidden crevices
Deep chasms and precipices
      The fear of a sudden fall
The wavering cloudy night will indeed
      Embrace the sun after darkness
The blooms will gladly unfurl
      The chirping birds will take to their wings
Across the multi-hues of rebirthing while
      This holy hour we look deep into 
Each other’s soul for solace
      With the balm that will heal and love
With open arms, clear hearts
      And closed lids of prayer and grace
      For all our world in this radiant new phase
      This rare blue-grey New Year whispers  
We are human and divine as well 
      So let us celebrate each other for
Better times to come beyond the haze.
***


Incandescence

You wish
to catch the fireball
whirring in
the whispers of your insecurity,
spreading its balmy luminosity
deep in the darkness
of your hidden green shadows?

You wish to tap
and trap it
in your small whirlwinds?

The fireball rolls high and far
beyond and above
every black entrapment,
filling the heart and face
of every tree, every mote
with the glitter of its own soul,
with the resonance of
its sublime trumpets,
over and up and down
and far away,

Till you succumb to
its torpedo-strength,
its starry far-fetchedness,
its ignited ablutions

In the dwindling sea-storm
the fireball catches you,
cleanses you,
fulfils you and lacerates you
with its own red blaze

Till you hold up
your washed flag
to its canonized fire.
***


The winds of change            

I am as gloriously temperamental as the wind
Playing frivolously in my erratic wings

The kind earth shivers as the cruel wildness
Of the Bacchic gale ravages in full rage

Scours through the lands, seas and skies
With its unruly hair running helter-skelter

The winds surge with unstoppable ire
Deluge expanses of plain, ocean and azure

The sapphire waves in frothy full-some foam, 
The grey roaring clouds the drenched loam

The pigeons, sea-gulls, cats, deer and lions
All tremorous in the merry tumult of my wind

Yet soon the volatile storm bursts to melt into
The soft breeze dancing in my lucent veil

My fluttering cover flying in the amorous cuddle
Of the breeze whizzing high to softly snuggle

The blazing orange sun in my translucent soul
Casting a tender glow of pervasive iridescence       

While diving deep down to kiss the green fields
The yearning twines and trees of tangled forests

 While swiftly the wind ascends from the unfurled sails
 of waddling riverine boats to heights beyond the highs

Then it wings through the white feathery clouds
                                                 Of the ether in variant shades of the cerulean and blue

Into the rainbow clouds of kaleidoscopic aureoles
Till the wind re-awakens life in all its vibrant hues 

As I discover my free bird-like Love in the flurries
                                                 Of its changes, caressing finally the wind -----  
***


Procreation
              
Nature’s fervent sunny semen
      Its white orbed radiance pours pulsating
Into the greenish brown vital germinating sites
      Of inscrutable networked jungles of bonding ---
In enamoured intensity piercing, hugging, 
      Loving through its sparkling secret tangles
To create, burgeon, fertilise and invigorate
      The infinite wraps of green corn fields,
The multi-hued efflorescence at its best,
      The baby leaves sprouting in moist warmth
The bees gyrating around flowers in natural coitus
      The foliaged trees in the flux of orgasmic songs
Ever in the warm shining spree of dripping nectar

       Longing to procreate a golden harvest of fruition
            Till the blazing, palpitating Circle goes down to rest
                  For another new day of Nature’s Creation
                          At its crowning crest.
***


Hide and seek
                   
pearly icicles drop
from the ledges
the wayward breeze
in cold wantonness
blows them in
against my tremulous
eardrops playing with
the peeping sun
an amorous naughty dandy
a lover boy of the freeze---

my happy hours blaze
and wither at once
with the changing notes
of the orchestra
as the blizzard comes and goes
as frivolously cruel
as the freaky glow
sunny gold and biting cold---

they play hide and seek
a game of awakening and sleep
of currents in the blithe deep
as I row and ride and run
unstoppable as the rain and sun
undaunted in high and low tide
while I laugh and weep
counting the milestones of love
till descends the flying dove
***


Hopes of tomorrow
                                    
Roving across the mind’s ocean
in sinuous waves
on pinions of saffron desires
on planks of pellucid images
on feathers quivering with fire,
    the seed
            in reverie
                    with eyes aflutter
dreams to
touch the sun.

Her nimble hopes
          soar through aerial stretches
                  the endless fields of the cerulean
in lambent molecules      
till she meets her god ---

Till the tall, great, tender, benevolent sun
tells the seed “I have come, my love, I have come”.
***

Laksmisree Banerjee
Biodata: Laksmisree Banerjee

Prof. Laksmisree Banerjee is an established Poet, Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Educationist, International 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 & Cultural Studies, an Ex-Vice Chancellor of Kolhan University, she has taught, lectured & recited in Universities and Literary Festivals across the globe. Has been widely anthologized with Eight Books of Poetry, One Hundred Twenty Research Publications and Several Academic Books. Of the many awards she has received, a special few need to be mentioned of her Sahitya Akademi  “Avishkar” Honour  for her multiple expertise, cited as “A Scholar-Artiste and Poet-Musician”, her UGC Postdoctoral Research Award for her path-breaking Literary Work on the Comparative Studies of World Women Poets, the Honour of The Connossiuer of  Creative & Literary Arts by the Tunisian-Asian Poetic Society, the Kala-Ratnam Award and the Reuel International Lifetime Achievement Award 2021,among others.
 Dr. Banerjee happens to be the Indian Rashtrapati’s Nominee on Boards of Central Universities & believes in using her Pen and Voice for Social Justice, Peace & International Understanding.

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