Indian English Poems

A waif on this earth, Sick, ugly and small, Contemned from my birth And rejected by all, From my lips broke a cry, Such as anguish may wring, Sing, — said God in reply, Chant poor little thing. By Wealth's coach besmeared With dirt in a shower, Insulted and jeered By the minions of power, Where — oh where shall I fly? Who comfort will bring? Sing, — said God in reply, Chant poor little thing. Life struck me with fright — Full of chances and pain, So I hugged with delight The drudge's hard chain; One must eat, — yet I die, Like a bird with clipped wing, Sing — said God in reply, Chant poor little thing. Love cheered for a while My morn with his ray, But like a ripple or smile My youth passed away. Now near Beauty I sigh, But fled is the spring! Sing — said God in reply, Chant poor little thing. All men have a task, And to sing is my lot — No meed from men I ask But one kindly thought. My vocation is high — 'Mid the glasses that ri

A sea of foliage girds our garden round, But not a sea of dull unvaried green, Sharp contrasts of all colors here are seen; The light-green graceful tamarinds abound Amid the mango clumps of green profound, And palms arise, like pillars gray, between; And o'er the quiet pools the seemuls lean, Red—red, and startling like a trumpet's sound. But nothing can be lovelier than the ranges Of bamboos to the eastward, when the moon Looks through their gaps, and the white lotus changes Into a cup of silver. One might swoon Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze On a primeval Eden, in amaze.

"Hark! Lakshman! Hark, again that cry!                  It is, — it is my husband's voice!              Oh hasten, to his succour fly,                  No more hast thou, dear friend, a choice.              He calls on thee, perhaps his foes                  Environ him on all sides round,             That wail, — it means death's final throes!                  Why standest thou, as magic-bound?              "Is this a time for thought, — oh gird                Thy bright sword on, and take thy bow!            He heeds not, hears not any word,                Evil hangs over us, I know!            Swift in decision, prompt in deed,                Brave unto rashness, can this be,            The man to whom all looked at need?                Is it my brother that I see!            "Oh no, and I must run alone,                For further here I cannot stay;            Art thou transformed to blind dumb stone!                Wherefore this impi

             Love came to Flora asking for a flower                  That would of flowers be undisputed queen,                  The lily and the rose, long, long had been              Rivals for that high honor. Bards of power              Had sung their claims. "The rose can never tower                  Like the pale lily with her Juno mien" —                  "But is the lily lovelier?" Thus between              Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche's bower.              "Give me a flower delicious as the rose                And stately as the lily in her pride" —            But of what color?" — "Rose-red," Love first chose,                Then prayed — "No, lily-white — or, both provide;"                And Flora gave the lotus, "rose-red" dyed,            And "lily-white" — the queenliest flower that blows.

LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round  The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,  Up to its very summit near the stars, A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound  No other tree could live. But gallantly         The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung In crimson clusters all the boughs among,  Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee; And oft at nights the garden overflows With one sweet song that seems to have no close,         Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose. When first my casement is wide open thrown  At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;  Sometimes, and most in winter,—on its crest A gray baboon sits statue-like alone          Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs His puny offspring leap about and play; And far and near kokilas hail the day;  And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows; And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast         By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast, The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed. B

Lord Buddha, on thy Lotus-throne, With praying eyes and hands elate, What mystic rapture dost thou own, Immutable and ultimate? What peace, unravished of our ken, Annihilate from the world of men? The wind of change for ever blows Across the tumult of our way, To-morrow's unborn griefs depose The sorrows of our yesterday. Dream yields to dream, strife follows strife, And Death unweaves the webs of Life. For us the travail and the heat, The broken secrets of our pride, The strenuous lessons of defeat, The flower deferred, the fruit denied; But not the peace, supremely won, Lord Buddha, of thy Lotus-throne. With futile hands we seek to gain Our inaccessible desire, Diviner summits to attain, With faith that sinks and feet that tire; But nought shall conquer or control The heavenward hunger of our soul. The end, elusive and afar, Still lures us with its beckoning flight, And all our mortal moments are A session of the Infinite. How shall we reach the

rst cymbals beat upon the sky, Rousing the world to labour's various cry, To tend the flock, to bind the mellowing grain, From ardent toil to forge a little gain, And fasting men go forth on hurrying feet, BUY BREAD, BUY BREAD, rings down the eager street. When the earth falters and the waters swoon With the implacable radiance of noon, And in dim shelters koils hush their notes, And the faint, thirsting blood in languid throats Craves liquid succour from the cruel heat, BUY FRUIT, BUY FRUIT, steals down the panting street. When twilight twinkling o'er the gay bazaars, Unfurls a sudden canopy of stars, When lutes are strung and fragrant torches lit On white roof-terraces where lovers sit Drinking together of life's poignant sweet, BUY FLOWERS, BUY FLOWERS, floats down the singing street.

Unwilling priestess in thy cruel fane, Long hast thou held me, pitiless god of Pain, Bound to thy worship by reluctant vows, My tired breast girt with suffering, and my brows Anointed with perpetual weariness. Long have I borne thy service, through the stress Of rigorous years, sad days and slumberless nights, Performing thine inexorable rites. For thy dark altars, balm nor milk nor rice, But mine own soul thou'st ta'en for sacrifice: All the rich honey of my youth's desire, And all the sweet oils from my crushed life drawn, And all my flower-like dreams and gem-like fire Of hopes up-leaping like the light of dawn. I have no more to give, all that was mine Is laid, a wrested tribute, at thy shrine; Let me depart, for my whole soul is wrung, And all my cheerless orisons are sung; Let me depart, with faint limbs let me creep To some dim shade and sink me down to sleep.

Once in the dream of a night I stood Lone in the light of a magical wood, Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in the land of sleep. Lone in the light of that magical grove, I felt the stars of the spirits of Love Gather and gleam round my delicate youth, And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth; To quench my longing I bent me low By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

          Men's Voices Lord of the lotus, lord of the harvest, Bright and munificent lord of the morn! Thine is the bounty that prospered our sowing, Thine is the bounty that nurtured our corn. We bring thee our songs and our garlands for tribute, The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit; O giver of mellowing radiance, we hail thee, We praise thee, O Surya, with cymbal and flute. Lord of the rainbow, lord of the harvest, Great and beneficent lord of the main! Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows, Thine is the mercy that fostered our grain. We bring thee our thanks and our garlands for tribute, The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe; O sender of rain and the dewfall, we hail thee, We praise thee, Varuna, with cymbal and pipe.            Women's Voices Queen of the gourd-flower, queen of the harvest, Sweet and omnipotent mother, O Earth! Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us, Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.

Whither dost thou hide from the magic of my flute-call? In what moonlight-tangled meshes of perfume, Where the clustering keovas guard the squirrel's slumber, Where the deep woods glimmer with the jasmine's bloom? I'll feed thee, O beloved, on milk and wild red honey, I'll bear thee in a basket of rushes, green and white, To a palace-bower where golden-vested maidens Thread with mellow laughter the petals of delight. Whither dost thou loiter, by what murmuring hollows, Where oleanders scatter their ambrosial fire? Come, thou subtle bride of my mellifluous wooing, Come, thou silver-breasted moonbeam of desire!

Honey, child, honey, child, whither are you going? Would you cast your jewels all to the breezes blowing? Would you leave the mother who on golden grain has fed you? Would you grieve the lover who is riding forth to wed you? Mother mine, to the wild forest I am going, Where upon the champa boughs the champa buds are blowing; To the koil-haunted river-isles where lotus lilies glisten, The voices of the fairy folk are calling me: O listen! Honey, child, honey, child, the world is full of pleasure, Of bridal-songs and cradle-songs and sandal- scented leisure. Your bridal robes are in the loom, silver and saffron glowing, Your bridal cakes are on the hearth: O whither are you going? The bridal-songs and cradle-songs have cadences of sorrow, The laughter of the sun to-day, the wind of death to-morrow. Far sweeter sound the forest-notes where forest- streams are falling; O mother mine, I cannot stay, the fairy-folk are calling.

Lamp of my life, the lips of Death Hath blown thee out with their sudden breath; Naught shall revive thy vanished spark . . . Love, must I dwell in the living dark? Tree of my life, Death's cruel foot Hath crushed thee down to thy hidden root; Nought shall restore thy glory fled . . . Shall the blossom live when the tree is dead? Life of my life, Death's bitter sword Hath severed us like a broken word, Rent us in twain who are but one . . Shall the flesh survive when the soul is gone?

Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet, Through echoing forest and echoing street, With lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam, All men are our kindred, the world is our home. Our lays are of cities whose lustre is shed, The laughter and beauty of women long dead; The sword of old battles, the crown of old kings, And happy and simple and sorrowful things. What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow? Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go. No love bids us tarry, no joy bids us wait: The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.

O LITTLE MOUSE, WHY DOST THOU CRY WHILE MERRY STARS LAUGH IN THE SKY? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer's granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord is dead. O LITTLE DEER, WHY DOST THOU MOAN, HID IN THY FOREST-BOWER ALONE? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah! who will quiet my lament? At fall of eventide he went To drink beside the river-head; A waiting hunter threw his dart, And struck my lover through the heart. Alas! alas! my lord is dead. O LITTLE BRIDE, WHY DOST THOU WEEP WITH ALL THE HAPPY WORLD ASLEEP? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will stay these hungry tears, Or still the want of famished years, And crown with love my marriage-bed? My soul burns with the quenchless fire That lit my lover's funeral pyre: Alas! alas! my lord is dead.

From groves of spice, O'er fields of rice, Athwart the lotus-stream, I bring for you, Aglint with dew, A little lovely dream. Sweet, shut your eyes, The wild fire-flies Dance through the fairy neem; From the poppy-bole For you I stole A little lovely dream. Dear eyes, good night, In golden light The stars around you gleam; On you I Press With soft caress A little lovely dream.

You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn, Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan. You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon, Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment's grace, You cry, "I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE." Shall any foolish veil divide my longing from my bliss? Shall any fragile curtain hide your beauty from my kiss? What war is this of THEE and ME? Give o'er the wanton strife, You are the heart within my heart, the life within my life.

This is a noon for beggars with whining Voices, a noon for men who come from hills With parrots in a cage and fortune-cards, All stained with time, for brown Kurava girls With old eyes, who read palm in light singsong Voices, for bangle-sellers who spread On the cool black floor those red and green and blue Bangles, all covered with the dust of roads, Miles, grow cracks on the heels, so that when they Clambered up our porch, the noise was grating, Strange………   This is a noon for strangers who part The window-drapes and peer in, their hot eyes Brimming with the sun, not seeing a thing in Shadowy rooms and turn away and look So yearningly at the brick-ledged well.   This Is a noon for strangers with mistrust in Their eyes, dark, silent ones who rarely speak At all, so that when they speak, their voices Run wild, like jungle-voices. Yes, this is A noon for wild men, wild thoughts, wild love. To Be here, far away, is torture.   Wild feet Stirring up the dust, this hot noon, at my Home

Father, when he passed on, left dust on a table of papers, left debts and daughters, a bedwetting grandson named by the toss of a coin after him, A house that leaned slowly through our growing years on a bent coconut tree in the yard. Being the burning type, he burned properly at the cremation As before, easily and at both ends, left his eye coins in the ashes that didn't look one bit different, several spinal discs, rough, some burned to coal, for sons to pick gingerly and throw as the priest said, facing east where three rivers met near the railway station; no longstanding headstone with his full name and two dates to hold in their parentheses everything he didn't quite manage to do himself, like his caesarian birth in a brahmin ghetto and his death by heart- failure in the fruit market. But someone told me he got two lines in an inside column of a Madras newspaper sold by the kilo exactly four weeks later to streethawkers who se

Sky-man in a manhole with astronomy for dream, astrology for nightmare; fat man full of proverbs, the language of lean years, living in square after almanac square prefiguring the day of windfall and landslide through a calculus of good hours, clutching at the tear in his birthday shirt as at a hole in his mildewed horoscope, squinting at the parallax of black planets, his Tiger, his Hare moving in Sanskrit zodiacs, forever troubled by the fractions, the kidneys in his Tamil flesh, his body the Great Bear dipping for the honey, the woman-smell in the small curly hair down there.

It must come as leaves to a tree or not at all yet it comes sometimes as the black hen with the red round eye on the embroidery stitch by stitch dropped and found again and when it's all there the black hen stares with its round red eye and you're afraid.

Yet like grandfather I bathe before the village crow the dry chlorine water my only Ganges the naked Chicago bulb a cousin of the Vedic sun slap soap on my back like father and think in proverbs like me I wipe myself dry with an unwashed Sears turkish towel like mother I hear faint morning song (though here it sounds Japanese) and three clear strings nextdoor through kitchen clatter like my little daughter I play shy hand over crotch my body not yet full of thoughts novels and children I hold my peepee like my little son play garden hose in and out the bathtub like my grandson I look up unborn at myself like my great great-grandson I am not yet may never be my future dependent on several people yet to come

Images consult one another, a conscience- stricken jury, and come slowly  to a sentence.

Composed as I am, like others,   of elements on certain well-known lists, father's seed and mother's egg gathering earth, air, fire, mostly   water, into a mulberry mass, moulding calcium, carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,   into a chattering self tangled in love and work, scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,   only by moving constantly, the constancy of things like Stonehenge or cherry trees; add uncle's eleven fingers   making shadow-plays of rajas and cats, hissing, becoming fingers again, the look   of panic on sister's face an hour before her wedding, a dated newspaper map,   of a place one has never seen, maybe no longer there after the riots, downtown Nairobi,   that a friend carried in his passport as others would a woman's picture in their wallets; add the lepers of Madurai,   male, female, married, with children, lion faces, crabs for claws,   clotted on their shadows under the stone-eyed god

When she left me after lunch,I read for a while. But I suddenly wanted  to look again and I saw the half-eaten sandwich, bread, lettuce and salami, all carrying the shape of her bite.

I Now tidy your house, dust especially your living room and do not forget to name all your children. II Watch your step. Sight may strike you blind in unexpected places. The traffic light turns orange on 57th and Dorchester, and you stumble, you fall into a vision of forest fires, enter a frothing Himalayan river, rapid, silent.     On the 14th floor, Lake Michigan crawls and crawls in the window. Your thumbnail cracks a lobster louse on the windowpane from your daughter's hair and you drown, eyes open, towards the Indies, the antipodes. And you, always so perfectly sane. III Now you know what you always knew: the country cannot be reached by jet. Nor by boat on jungle river, hashish behind the Monkey-temple, nor moonshot to the cratered Sea of Tranquillity, slim circus girls on a tightrope between tree and tree with white parasols, or the one and only blue guitar.     Nor by any other means of transport, migrating with a clean v

1 Lord of new arrivals lovers and rivals: arrive at once with cockfight and banner— dance till on this and the next three hills women's hands and the garlands on the chests of men will turn like chariotwheels O where are the cockscombs and where the beaks glinting with new knives at crossroads when will orange banners burn among blue trumpet flowers and the shade of trees waiting for lightnings? 2 Twelve etched arrowheads for eyes and six unforeseen faces, and you were not embarrassed. Unlike other gods you find work for every face, and made eyes at only one woman. And your arms are like faces with proper names. 3 Lord of green growing things, give us a hand in our fight with the fruit fly. Tell us, will the red flower ever come to the branches of the blueprint city? 4 Lord of great changes and small cells: exchange our painted grey pottery for iron copper the leap of stone horses our yellow grass and lily seed for rams

A.K. Ramanujan I resemble everyone but myself, and sometimes see in shop-windows   despite the well-knownlaws   of optics, the portrait of a stranger, date unknown, often signed in a corner by my father.

In Madurai, city of temples and poets, who sang of cities and temples, every summer a river dries to a trickle in the sand, baring the sand ribs, straw and women's hair clogging the watergates at the rusty bars under the bridges with patches of repair all over them the wet stones glistening like sleepy crocodiles, the dry ones shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun The poets only sang of the floods. He was there for a day when they had the floods. People everywhere talked of the inches rising, of the precise number of cobbled steps run over by the water, rising on the bathing places, and the way it carried off three village houses, one pregnant woman and a couple of cows named Gopi and Brinda as usual. The new poets still quoted the old poets, but no one spoke in verse of the pregnant woman drowned, with perhaps twins in her, kicking at blank walls even before birth. He said: the river has water enough to be poetic about only once a year

Today the world is a little more my own. No need to remember the pain A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing Words at me like pots and pans, to drain That honey-coloured day of peace. ‘Why don't you join the others, what A peculiar child you are!’ On the lawn , in clusters, sat my schoolmates sipping Sugarcane, they turned and laughed; Children are funny things, they laugh In mirth at others' tears, I buried My face in the sun-warmed hedge And smelt the flowers and the pain. The words are muffled now, the laughing Faces only a blur. The years have Sped along, stopping briefly At beloved halts and moving Sadly on. My mind has found An adult peace. No need to remember That picnic day when I lay hidden By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun Standing lonely in the sky.

Friends, our dear sister is departing for foreign in two three days, and we are meeting today to wish her bon voyage . You are all knowing, friends, What sweetness is in Miss Pushpa. I don't mean only external sweetness but internal sweetness. Miss Pushpa is smiling and smiling even for no reason but simply because she is feeling. Miss Pushpa is coming from very high family. Her father was renowned advocate in Bulsar or Surat, I am not remembering now which place. Surat? Ah, yes, once only I stayed in Surat with family members of my uncle's very old friend - his wife was cooking nicely… that was long time ago. Coming back to Miss Pushpa she is most popular lady with men also and ladies also. Whenever I asked her to do anything, she was saying, 'Just now only I will do it.' That is showing good spirit. I am always appreciating the good spirit. Pushpa Miss is never saying no. Whatev

Nissim Ezekiel This normative hill like all others is transparently accessible, out there and in the mind, not to be missed except in peril of one's life. Do not muse on it from a distance: it's not remote for the view only, it's for the sport of climbing. What the hill demands is a man with forces flowering as from the crevices of rocks and rough surfaces wild flowers force themselves towards the sun and burn for a moment. How often must I say to myself what I say to others: trust your nerves— in conversation or in bed the rhythm comes. And once you begin hang on for life. What is survival? What is existence? I am not talking about poetry. I am talking about perishing outrageously and calling it activity. I say: be done with it. I say: you've got to love that hill. Be wrathful, be impatient that you are not on the hill. Do not forgive yourself or other, though charity is all very well. Do not rest in irony or acceptance. Man should not laugh when he is dying. In decent

Nissim Ezekiel Her mother shed a tear or two but wasn't really crying. It was the thing to do, so she did it enjoying every moment. The bride laughed when I sympathized, and said don't be silly. Her brothrs had a shoe of mine and made me pay to get it back. The game delighted all the neighbours' children, who never stopped staring at me, the reluctant bridegroom of the day. There was no dowry because they knew I was 'modern' and claimed to be modern too. Her father asked me how much jewellery I expected him to give away with his daughter. When I said I did't know, he laughed it off. There was no brass band outside the synagogue but I remember a chanting procession or two, some rituals, lots of skull-caps, felt hats, decorated shawls and grape juice from a common glass for bride and bridegroom. I remember the breaking of the glass and the congregation clapping which signified that we were well and truly married according to the Mosaic Law. Well that's abo

Nissim Ezekiel In my room, I talk to my invisible guests: they do not argue, but wait Till I am exhausted, then they slip away with inscrutable faces. I lack the means to change their amiable ways, although I love their gods. It's the language really separates, whatever else is shared. On the other hand, Everyone understands Mother Theresa; her guests die visibly in her arms. It's not the mythology or the marriage customs that you need to know, It's the will to pass through the eye of a needle to self-forgetfulness. The guests depart, dissatisfied; they will never give up their mantras, old or new. And you, uneasy orphan of their racial memories, merely Polish up your alien techniques of observation, while the city burns.

Nissim Ezekiel There is a place to which I often go, Not by planning to, but by a flow Away from all existence, to a cold Lucidity, whose will is uncontrolled. Here, the mills of God are never slow. The landscape in its geological prime Dissolves to show its quintessential slime. A million stars are blotted out. I think Of each historic passion as a blink That happened to the sad eye of Time. But residues of meaning still remain, As darkest myths meander through the pain Towards a final formula of light. I, too, reject this clarity of sight. What cannot be explained, do not explain. The mundane language of the senses sings Its own interpretations. Common things Become, by virtue of their commonness, An argument against their nakedness That dies of cold to find the truth it brings.

Remember me? I am Professor Sheth. Once I taught you geography. Now I am retired, though my health is good. My wife died some years back. By God's grace, all my children Are well settled in life. One is Sales Manager, One is Bank Manager, Both have cars. Other also doing well, though not so well. Every family must have black sheep. Sarala and Tarala are married, Their husbands are very nice boys. You won't believe but I have eleven grandchildren. How many issues you have? Three? That is good. These are days of family planning. I am not against. We have to change with times. Whole world is changing. In India also We are keeping up. Our progress is progressing. Old values are going, new values are coming. Everything is happening with leaps and bounds. I am going out rarely, now and then Nissim Ezekiel Only, this is price of old age But my health is O.K. Usual aches and pains. No diabetes, no blood pressure, no heart attack. This is because of sound habits in youth. How is your he

Nissim Ezekiel To force the pace and never to be still Is not the way of those who study birds Or women. The best poets wait for words. The hunt is not an exercise of will But patient love relaxing on a hill To note the movement of a timid wing; Until the one who knows that she is loved No longer waits but risks surrendering - In this the poet finds his moral proved Who never spoke before his spirit moved. The slow movement seems, somehow, to say much more. To watch the rarer birds, you have to go Along deserted lanes and where the rivers flow In silence near the source, or by a shore Remote and thorny like the heart's dark floor. And there the women slowly turn around, Not only flesh and bone but myths of light With darkness at the core, and sense is found But poets lost in crooked, restless flight, The deaf can hear, the blind recover sight.

Nissim Ezekiel I am standing for peace and non-violence. Why world is fighting fighting Why all people of world Are not following Mahatma Gandhi, I am simply not understanding. Ancient Indian Wisdom is 100% correct, I should say even 200% correct, But modern generation is neglecting - Too much going for fashion and foreign thing. Other day I'm reading newspaper (Every day I'm reading Times of India To improve my English Language) How one goonda fellow Threw stone at Indirabehn. Must be student unrest fellow, I am thinking. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I am saying (to myself) Lend me the ears. Everything is coming - Regeneration, Remuneration, Contraception. Be patiently, brothers and sisters. You want one glass lassi? Very good for digestion. With little salt, lovely drink, Better than wine; Not that I am ever tasting the wine. I'm the total teetotaller, completely total, But I say Wine is for the drunkards only. What you think of prospects of

Nissim Ezekiel I remember the night my mother was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours of steady rain had driven him to crawl beneath a sack of rice. Parting with his poison - flash of diabolic tail in the dark room - he risked the rain again. The peasants came like swarms of flies and buzzed the name of God a hundred times to paralyse the Evil One. With candles and with lanterns throwing giant scorpion shadows on the mud-baked walls they searched for him: he was not found. They clicked their tongues. With every movement that the scorpion made His poison moved in Mother's blood, they said. May he sit still, they said May the sins of your previous birth be burned away tonight, they said. May your suffering decrease the misfortunes of your next birth, they said. May the sum of all evil balanced in this unreal world against the sum of good become diminished by your pain. May the poison purify your flesh of desire, and your spirit of ambition, they said, an

Getting a man to love you is easy Only be honest about your wants as Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him So that he sees himself the stronger one And believes it so, and you so much more Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your Admiration. Notice the perfection Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor, Dropping towels, and the jerky way he Urinates. All the fond details that make Him male and your only man. Gift him all, Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts, The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting A man to love is easy, but living Without him afterwards may have to be Faced. A living without life when you move Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that Gave up their search, with ears that hear only His last voice calling out your name and your Body which once under his touch had gleamed Like burnished br

We left that old ungainly house When my dog died there, after The burial, after the rose Flowered twice, pulling it by its Roots and carting it with our books, Clothes and chairs in a hurry. We live in a new house now, And, the roofs do not leak, but, when It rains here, I see the rain drench That empty house, I hear it fall Where my puppy now lies, Alone.. (From Only The Soul Knows How To Sing )

It smelt of new rains and of tender Shoots of plants- and its warmth was the warmth Of earth groping for roots… even my Soul, I thought, must send its roots somewhere And, I loved his body without shame, On winter evenings as cold winds Chuckled against the white window-panes. (From Summer in Calcutta)

Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind, Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment, Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite Dove, you build round me a shabby room, And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep, You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood, Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities. When you leave, I drive my blue battered car Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty Noisy steps to knock at another’s door. Though peep-holes, the neighbours watch, they watch me come And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion, A libertine, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts, And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is Shorter still, ask me w

At sunset, on the river ban, Krishna Loved her for the last time and left… That night in her husband’s arms, Radha felt So dead that he asked, What is wrong, Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said, No, not at all, but thought, What is It to the corpse if the maggots nip? (From The Descendants )

There is a house now far away where once I received love……. That woman died, The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved Among books, I was then too young To read, and my blood turned cold like the moon How often I think of going There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or Just listen to the frozen air, Or in wild despair, pick an armful of Darkness to bring it here to lie Behind my bedroom door like a brooding Dog…you cannot believe, darling, Can you, that I lived in such a house and Was proud, and loved…. I who have lost My way and beg now at strangers’ doors to Receive love, at least in small change? We will now divide the poem into three parts and read the first part once again.

Yes, It was my desire that made him male And beautiful, so that when at last we Met, to believe that once I knew not his Form, his quiet touch or the blind kindness Of his lips was hard indeed. Betray me? My body’s wisdom tells and tells again And even death nowhere else but here in My betrayer’s arms … (Summer in Calcutta)

Driving from my parents’ home to Cochin last Friday Morning, I saw my mother beside me, Doze, open mouthed, her face ashen like that Of a corpse and realized with pain That she was as old as she looked, but soon Put that thought away, and looked out at young Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling Out of their homes, but after the airport’s Security check, standing a few yards Away, I looked again at her, wan, pale As a late winter’s moon and felt that old Familiar ache, my childhood’s fear, But all I said was, see you soon, Amma, All I did was smile and smile and smile…

You planned to tame a swallow, to hold her In the long summer of your love so that she would forget Not the raw seasons alone, and the homes left behind, but Also her nature, the urge to fly, and the endless Pathways of the sky. It was not to gather knowledge Of yet another man that I came to you but to learn What I was, and by learning, to learn to grow, but every Lesson you gave was about yourself. You were pleased With my body’s response, its weather, its usual shallow Convulsions. You dribbled spittle into my mouth, you poured Yourself into every nook and cranny, you embalmed My poor lust with your bitter-sweet juices. You called me wife, I was taught to break saccharine into your tea and To offer at the right moment the vitamins. Cowering Beneath your monstrous ego I ate the magic loaf and Became a dwarf. I lost my will and reason, to all your Questions I mumbled incoherent replies. The summer Begins to pall. I remember the rudder breezes Of the fall and the smoke from

We have spent our youth in gentle sinning Exchanging some insubstantial love and Often thought we were hurt, but no pain in Us could remain, no bruise could scar or Even slightly mar our cold loveliness. We have lain in every weather, nailed, no, not To crosses, but to soft beds and against Softer forms, while the heaving, lurching, Tender hours passed in a half-dusk, half-dawn and Half-dream, half-real trance. We were the yielders, Yielding ourselves to everything. It is Not for us to scrape the walls of wombs for Memories, not for us even to Question death, but as child to mother’s arms We shall give ourselves to the fire or to The hungry earth to be slowly eaten, Devoured. None will step off his cross Or show his wounds to us, no god lost in Silence shall begin to speak, no lost love Claim us, no, we are not going to be Ever redeemed, or made new.