Poems by Laksmisree Banerjee

Laksmisree Banerjee

 

                           The Phoenix and Cacti

(In memory of a Corporate Fire Tragedy in 1989 causing a lifetime Injury to the Poet)

 

Survival is a gruelling task

when severely injured through

cruel negligence of another

 

One more day of their heat-eyes

standing erect as a black reminder

afflicting me into perpetuity

 

Their glare a spike in my flesh

though they often conspire

against my pulpy softness

 

I manage to return the spike

with struggling deliberation

against destiny and the doers

 

Their eulogies, emptiness, flowers

Explode into envious slips of flame

ignited callously at my back

 

Pushing them into some unknown

judgement day I am sure of

yet my injuries remain irrevocable

 

On that haunting day of hailing the Visionary

with unforgettable cramping memories

of arrogant pomp with no vision or piety

 

Their incendiary pavilion full of

meteor-eyes fuming as if to

have me burnt to ashes

 

When the flames ate my flesh and silk

someone enthused with callousness

“but isn’t she scarred beyond recognition?”

 

That day I garnered my realization

from the ruins of reality

from the cinders of cruelty

 

The fire tearing at my spirit and body

writhed upwards and inwards

like a hungry, lascivious female ---

 

My arms and soul outstretched

an umbrella hard to open

to save my only fledgling

 

Times have gone by since that inferno

but I have risen with the rainbows

in rain and sunshine from the ashes

 

A tigress or a phoenix I do not know

never debilitated nor sunk

yet unable to cremate

 

The charred corpses still deep inside

bristles over-crowding within

a tangled forest of cacti---

                                          REPAIRING A BURNT BODY

 

The doctors saw my body,

scarred, naked

and shamelessly identifiable

 

The scorched moon dying

with the shrinking sun

in my blood

 

My splintered self

breaking under the scalpel

with my simmering corpuscles

 

A lump of flesh examined

closely by burns specialists

while I made my consciousness

and awakening

wait outside ---

 

The body had to revive

and the spirit to die

with wilful erasure

 

Though I never allowed

the hard rocks in me

to ever wane or dissolve

 

Photographs of my

snake-skin grafts

 

helped Dr. Bhargava

to fetch his degree

Masters or Doctoral

in the skilled art

of redeeming

burnt bodies

 

I wailed in searing agony

with outstretched, dishevelled limbs

 

While he pulled out my bandages

to snap-shoot my bleeding wounds

     BOUQUET OF FLINTS

 

     My body feels like a grave

      With sprouting flowers

Adorning its lovely crafted facade

      My mind a lonely peak

Free and breezy at the summit

      In its dizzy stance of

World-watching in aftermath

      Defying the storm.

 

The cinders inside have

      Caused efflorescence, transformed into

Endless contentment of victory

      And forced tumescence

At having known and conquered it all.

 

I have learnt to walk on burning coals

      And feel yet the icy cool,

The balmy wind playing on my face

      And the slag of black pains

Which I have waded across

      Gathering still in memory

The aromatic white sprinkles

      Of the springtime grounds.

 

I have faced it, fought it,

      Learnt to accept the scars

Of hidden illness as trophies

      To make my bouquet

Of flints and sparks of victory.

                   

Now I see

      A scintillating, slim ray

Across an endless foliage

      Perhaps my fractured sun

Will rise yet again

      From the violent billows

And touch me with his baby-pink

      Soft incandescence

To light my thorn-ridden path

     Perhaps, perhaps someday ---

                                                                             ***

---

Setu, February 2025