Lopa Banerjee



To Ruidoso

[A poetic tribute inspired by my very recent trip to Ruidoso, the quaint ski valley in New Mexico.]

Ruidoso, the quaint valley of sweet, sweet surrendering
Ruidoso, the green earth of melting swan-songs,
The deep blue of the Grindstone lake, the poetry, seduced by the unkempt winds—
Ruidoso, my love, my girly dreams sweep by your shores, your alpine treeline caresses my summer lust.
Ruidoso, there’s still some music in my bones
You can cook and make it a luscious symphony.
There’s still some new bride-like reluctance and ecstasy you can chew on like a cud.
Ruidoso, my ocean wants usurp you—
Fierce, masculine, like a sensual outpouring
On the first nuptial night.
My thirsty breath seeks you, my anchor,
My used up womanhood crashes into you.
Ruidoso, my eyes sting with so much bounty!
With so much beauty, can I go back to my prosaic truths?
Can I pack your euphoria of colors, your water-bodies, your painter’s palette
And move back to where my lamps still burn,
Where my smudged everyday awaits my footsteps?
Ruidoso, we never knew each other before, but our madness matched—
Your glittering rhythms, your breathless sonata
And my vain, urban verses.
All rights reserved. Lopa Banerjee. May 28, 2019






Tornado

(I)    
The winds hover around the quaint grasslands.
The sun’s hot, glaring smoke, a monotony of light
Leaves no fingerprints.
The splintered shadows of the clouds’ ashes and bones
Circle round and round, the earth cries, a lamb bleating
At the edge of sacrifice.

(II)   

Outside, in a squeaking car, couples squeeze hands,
Ominous sirens, dead, squashed birds
In the interstate, descending into purgatory,
Ascending into self-love, after a day’s bruises.
Outside the bolted window, the blackened sky waits
Like pregnant chanting,
Puddles washing away human sins.

(III)    

Tornadoes.
The earth spent her fertile years
Tending to wounds, to necessary pauses.
The language of fallen trees,
Lightning in suburban pockets.
In the pitch-dark, secrets gush in,
The childlike submissiveness, a moist story
Hidden for eons, beneath the earth.







The Mermaid
And Her One Night Beau

Far, far away at the terrain of the tidal uproar
Where the sea becomes the mermaid's one-night beau,
Her stories slide and sway, swept up by the ruthless lyrical riot.

She knows the Phoenix will rise and fly around
Only for a dreamy, unreal day.
Her love-words will fling from unforeseen crannies,
unfolding their soft petals.
But hey, the darkness of rooms, sterile, whispering,
Is only a night drive away.
And even if the rains explode with the sonata of the birds,
It is only her heart's untamed orgasm
Which will shrink, dissolve in tea cups and unnamed sighs
In a sheltered home the very next day.

Mad, fraudulent, she dips her fingers in the sea's fervent womb
And the rain seeps into the moonbeams of her breasts.
She knows her blood will soon ease
Into domestic broths and unwashed linen.
While her footprints will die in the sand, and the sea. 
All Rights Reserved. Lopa Banerjee. May 30, 2019


Lopa Banerjee

Lopa Banerjee is an author, poet, editor and translator based in Texas, USA. Her memoir 'Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant's Wayward Journey' and her debut poetry collection 'Let The Night Sing' have received honorary mentions in The Los Angeles Book Festival and New England Book Festival 2017 respectively. Her manuscript of ‘Thwarted Escape’ has been First Place Category Winner at the Journey Awards 2014 hosted by Chanticleer Reviews and Media, USA. She also received The International Reuel Prize for Poetry in 2017 and The International Reuel Prize for Translation in 2016 (for 'The Broken Home', her English translation of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's novella), both instituted by The Significant League, a literary group. 'The Broken Home and Other Stories’, her translation of two novellas and six short stories of Tagore is now a book in paperback version, published by Authorspress. Her literary works have been published in many e-zines and anthologies based in the US and India, also in UK and Australia. She has also co-edited two fiction anthologies, the bestselling 'Defiant Dreams: Tales of Everyday Divas' and 'Darkness There But Something More' and also co-edited an anthology of women poets 'Cloudburst: The Womanly Deluge', along with Dr. Santosh Bakaya. She has been featured in many prestigious poetry forums, including Houston PoetryFest 2018, I Want To Hear You Sistah (2019), Dark Moon Poetry (2017 and 2018), Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata (2018), among others.