Ripening Desire
This smouldering desire—
a volcano’s wakeful sleep.
The self, drawing close to know beauty—
the crash of a wave roaring high.
As the fierce sun stands burning,
a thirst even water cannot quench.
Life gathers to quicken life—
passion raging.
The cow’s inborn hunger
longing for milk to well.
Rock softening,
stirring to know its lord.
The cosmic egg laid in the nest
where attachment conceives.
An attraction that comes to be
so two lives may move.
Sensing near it the wing-music of the season,
beauty itself opens as a flower—
honeyed nectar welling in loveliness.
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Life-Light
Can anyone prescribe a measure
for a flame dancing in a trance?
Can a ray of light help pluck out
a thorn that has pierced the foot?
If you obstruct the sweep of light,
will the shadow it casts disappear?
When desire is the body’s need
for light and life to move unceasingly,
why should yoga and fasting tremble?
Why should penance and solitude agonize?
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The Submarine Fire
As a continent lost in rapture,
I bow to your dark vulva.
Becoming Maal, becoming Mayan, I wander,
roaming all the desolate expanses,
fate driving me as deeds bear fruit,
drinking poison, becoming Neelakandan,
that I may perish and I be born,
Indra’s longing, with a thousand faces of fire,
burning, burning without end, cries out..
You who came as one face of duality—
Vajradakini of the whirlpool!
Yogayakshini bearing a flowering vine!
Mayamohini of the celestial world!
Lalithangini of left-hand Shakti worship!
Flame ripened within
Shakti’s triumphant body, hail!
Submarine fire, hail!
Nectar of the ocean of milk, hail!
Cleaving blaze! Consciousness of life!
Blossom of pure awareness!
Unbroken vortex of power!
May your sovereignty endure!
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Dwelling Together
The tenderness in which little girls rejoice,
mothering a doll
The compassion that grows generous
feeding a madman
The joy of the skilled worker,
drinking water, cooling as the sweat subsides
Goddess-woman, joined with you,
such is my life dwelling beside you.
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Endless Embrace
The trumpeting of many hundred tuskers
the searching of many thousand hawks
the ceaseless swimming of ten million fish
the desire of an unblinking eye
the howl of lust as musth flows
the ache of separation that makes wings quiver
the immeasurable yearning for the vulva
All that was desired and won,
attained and passed beyond—
a scattering of winged termites
that flew and wandered in the drizzle.
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The Songstress’s Music
The ascetic’s pleasure—
embracing the world in solitude
The miser’s pleasure—
amassing wealth, giving nothing
The thief’s pleasure—
sustaining life as a parasite
The scoundrel’s pleasure—
deceiving and ruling the powerless
The Lady’s pleasure—
the divine play of undying love
The Lord’s pleasure—
tireless effort becoming sacred accomplishment
The bard’s pleasure—
singing of desire and dwelling in delight.
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Unable to Bear Separation
Deep night
A moon without anger
A wave-battered shore
A termite-eaten boat
A black rock rising from the water
A wave that strikes and laments
I, one man, alone.
Throughout my memory
the sound of your teasing laughter.
Making my hair stand on end,
the tinkle of your anklets.
The crane and his mate, endlessly fondling,
their cooing never done with endearments.
Milk spills from the slashed spurge—
pus from our bond, severed by fate.
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The Bull’s Pride
The Maaran who, in your eyes’ shade, in your lashes’ memory,
forever merged and revelled
The mortal who entwined your vine-waist, your fragrant eyes,
as the climbing vine its supporting bough
The youth who left teeth marks, front and back,
on your four swelling mounds, pair upon pair
The Mayan who drew a kolam of saliva and poured ghee
on the fierce flame of your open loins
The warrior who raised a storm and danced in rain,
within and without your wet courtyard
The god who kissed and kissed, pressed and sucked
the sweat that seeped in your revelry
The valiant one who drank and drank your hissing,
hot golden stream, his desire still unquenched
The madman who burned as nose and tongue came to know
the monthly crimson scent trickling from your lips
The pleasure-seeker who, steeped in the yogic way, drank
every secretion of your body, crying nectar, nectar, never done
The Velan who wearies himself in ecstatic ritual dance,
crying: your life-force alone is atom and cosmos
The yogi who cradles your seven-tiered vortex in his lap
and holds it tight with twelve arms
The householder of the snowy mountain who, with a thousand tongues,
set ablaze the diamond-hard surge of thirst in your fire-red body
Other than being these,
I have no other hollow claim to glory,
my precious Sivai!
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The Nature of Desire
By the nature of the land,
water turns and flows.
By the nature of the wind,
fire spreads and dies.
By the nature of the sky,
the bird soars and descends.
By the nature of desire,
character gives and begs.
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Maaran’s Magic
The kohl that graces your eyes
The bangles that adorn your hands
The necklace that clasps your neck
The flowers blooming in your dark hair
The golden pendants in your ears
The flash of light on your nostril
The anklet bells that keep time with your steps
The patterns of henna
The body aglow with turmeric
The entrancing elegance of your clothes
Are adornment, not beauty.
Urging your heart
to put on those lovely ornaments,
Rousing my vigour
to melt in your natural beauty,
Desire alone is the lovely ornament,
the subtle ornament of magic.
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The Stainless State
Freedom from rebirth
was what I asked for
whenever ignorance
grew dark.
Freedom from death
is what I ask for
whenever the beauty’s sweet scent
reaches me.
Knowing what sustains,
knowing what ennobles,
Discerning life,
discerning the body,
Tending the three eyes,
to become Umaiyoru Paagan
Only after my fingers have plucked
the pearls on your breast-peaks
Only after my tongue has sucked
the honey at the crown of your thighs
Only after our two searching tongues falter
and great breaths hiss
Only after the throbbing rhythm of hot blood
leaps in a headlong rush
Only after our serpent bodies entwine and dance,
duality become oneness
All that I see
all that I see
is stainless vision,
the splendour called desire.
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The Nature of Life
To relinquish attachment,
many hundred paths.
To be attached, only one way:
longing for a mate.
All that comes after
can wait till after.
All else
will later turn to ash.
Knowledge too comes to nothing;
being too becomes nonbeing.
Why sever attachment
when there is the bond of love!
Why this blind play of intellect
when there is the goddess’s embrace!
Why mind-bewildering religions
when this woman cradles me in her lap!
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The Great Union Beyond Compare
The moment death and birth fall away
The moment waking and sleep scatter
The moment without thought or forgetting
The moment letters and numbers are forgotten
The moment doubt and clarity are severed
The moment two lives and bodies become one
The moment earth and sky blur
The moment days and planets whirl
This moment this moment this moment
The great moment of crawling in the great goddess’s lap!
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The Language of the Eyes
The tenderness before which I bowed
in the flames of the Mother’s temple
The peace in which I sank,
wearing sacred ash in Siva’s hall
The chariot festival that stirred me
at Maal’s great temple
My courage to marvel at humanity, stand apart,
and follow the path of reason
My deer! My peacock!
My flower-eyed one!
With silence alone as language,
your gentle smile,
your blossoming shyness,
your tender expression,
the story your eyes tell,
the watchful care of your gaze,
the command of your glance,
the laughter bursting from your narrowed eyes,
the call of your eyes in pursuit of desire—
when these bestow it all at every moment,
where else need my mind rise?
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The Sacred Banyan
Life with you
is not merely help, food, and coupling,
sheltering shade
and family.
Who are you?
The heedless generosity that gives to the poor.
Sweet music that enchants the madman.
The healing herb a fool has found.
The goad that subdues the brute.
A staff in the blind man’s hand.
Knowledge of the soul, a lamp in the darkness outside.
To me, a poet who knows nothing of this wretched world,
the sacred banyan that grants silence.
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The Delight of the Five Senses
A delight to the eye,
the lovely form of your vine-like body.
A delight to the nose,
the honey-scent of your two-petalled flower.
A delight to the ear,
the command of your tender, faltering words.
A delight to the tongue,
the salt that blooms on your land.
A delight to the senses,
churning your ocean and bathing in it.
A delight to life,
the nectar of woman, known in intimacy and marvelled at.
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She Whose Form Is the Universe
Before tender youth
nothing can stand:
man’s keenest intellect,
valour crying out for victory,
the arrogance of male authority,
the conceit of vast wealth,
the mighty restraint of penance,
the inward attachment called I
and the outward attachment called mine—
before a maiden’s beauty,
before the story her eyes tell,
they bow, my girl, tails tucked between their legs!
Drooling tongues stretch out over your flower-feet!
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The Gathering Breeze
Past the calling cry of the peacock
pacing the wall, its train trailing,
past the mother hen’s guarding cluck
as she scratches and leads her chicks to forage,
past the sound of mothers
wearily pounding paddy,
past the courtyard where laughter blooms
as maidens spin out their talk,
past the neighbours’ envy
and their slander,
wafting, embracing the heart’s longing,
comes the green scent of henna
you grind with a smile.
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Guidance
O Sivai! O crimson light!
O glorious, perfect truth!
To quench me, blazing with anger,
offer your red feet for me to kiss.
To counter the deadly poison of arrogance,
lift my face and clasp it to your breasts.
To undo the pride of my vaunting arguments,
bury me in your pubic mound and be my righteous path.
To banish fear and raise my strength,
draw me to your vulva, that sleepless eye.
To drive away the maddened demon hordes,
grant your grace: soothe and guide the bull.
Let the hump’s pride subside, let my eyes close in sleep;
cradle me in your lap and sing me a lullaby!
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The Hunt
Your shyness is a rain-bud
blossoming as it falls and falls.
Your laughter is the roar of waves
embracing again and again.
Your transgression is a fish’s leap,
vanishing and reappearing.
Your eagerness is a squirrel’s restless longing,
running and running, returning for the fruit.
Your secret love is a deer’s cautious step,
its startled eyes darting this way and that.
Your desire is a tiger’s speed,
crouching, crouching, then springing.
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The Seat of Shakti
The light that sustains is a maiden.
The darkness concealing light is a maiden.
The air pervading space is a maiden.
The expanse where the heavens dwell is a maiden.
The body that knows the cosmos is a maiden.
Even after becoming a mother, a maiden.
The vast world’s desire is a maiden.
The workings of longing are a maiden.
The rain of tenderness is a maiden.
The long, unblinking eye is a maiden.
The present embrace is a maiden.
Every unfolding moment is a maiden.
Life is a maiden.
Abundance is a maiden.
Sivai is a maiden.
What the maiden grants is a yogic union.
She who has taken possession of me is a rare maiden.
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Unceasing Wakefulness
An unwavering flame!
Imperishable grace!
The place where ancient karma persists!
The great landing on a mighty river!
A raft of refuge across births!
A trident standing radiant
for me to bow and worship!
A fragrant lotus blooming
as time lengthens and the moment unfolds!
The Om that rises into the heavens,
all music subsiding within it!
O great woman abounding in beauty,
is this your vulva, its eye never blinking?
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The Veda of Rapture
Where is
the knowing sickle
that severs desire?
Who has
the twisted rope of culture
that shackles feeling?
Where is
the divine path that calls
the longing for a mate base?
In what age is there
a single moment passing
without thought of the other sex?
In what world is there
red water where earth and rain
have not mingled in delight?
Where, where are
the five senses that do not know
desire’s dominion?
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Sivai
You are sky, you are earth
You are atom, you are energy
You are life, you are form
You are action and force
You are knowledge and grace
You are Sivai, you are Sivai
You are Sivai in wrath
You are Sivai in tenderness.
Taking shape as beauty,
enthroned as a woman,
you are the supreme, primordial goddess!
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The Bull-Embracing
As young men stepped forth, eager to embrace the bulls,
as all the villagers thronged the arena
to watch and rejoice in the festival of battling bulls,
you the maiden and I the bull were alone
in the cool shade beneath the magizham tree.
Love makes room, youth gives way,
youthful haste undoes our clothes.
Piercing the eye, flashing through the mind,
the dusky hump rises, thrusting.
Two dark eyes, like sharp horns,
stand erect, facing me.
As bloodshot eyes fall on you, as lustful hands touch,
your yielding body shivers, your navel whorls.
Desire and rhythm fall in tune;
vigorous nature mounts the scale.
Touched by the palm that clasps the hump,
the ample breasts nestle of their own accord.
In the two hands that draw the waist close and descend,
the lovely buttocks loosen and swell.
As horn and pambai and parai drums
resound somewhere, resound..
as rounded young breasts and broad loins
quiver here, quiver..
…the bucket on the well’s parapet
slips, rattles, plunges into the well..
..softened breasts press into a hairy chest,
bodies clasp, bodies melt,
the fragrance of blossoming sweat buds..
..in the melody-laden surge of music,
eyes half-close, lips soften..
..petals pulse, the body trembles,
at that moment of our mingling..
..as magizham blossoms fall auspiciously on our bodies,
how was it that the sound of a bull being embraced
reached our ears so softly!
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A Woman in the Mirror
The captivating flower-face,
the lightning-bright gaze,
the uplift of the nose-tip,
the alluring moist lips,
the beauty of ample breasts,
the curve of the vine-slender waist,
the fullness of the buttocks,
the veena-shaped grace,
the musical summons of bangles,
the hints in the stir of anklets—
all harmonized in one woman,
a gentle music unfolding its melody—
now a faint shadow’s movement,
a withering after youth has passed.
Even after the pulse of blood has slowed,
the gleaming skin has dried,
and she has entered old age,
the spring of desire wells ceaselessly
in memory, brimming over.
In some unfulfilled longing,
seated before the mirror,
she desires herself,
this old woman, past her prime.
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Good Desire
A great flame,
a blazing mass of profound consciousness,
a serpent of ravenous hunger,
the inner frenzy
of a toddy-drunk monkey,
the torrent of a mighty waterfall
dancing, pounding the earth, its waters smoking—
do not call my desire
any of these, O Supreme Consciousness!
Call it yet another monkey
scratching its own wound,
finding sweetness in sweet pain.
Call it the resonance of a wail
that has taken refuge in a conch.
Call it gold that has ripened
reveling in embers.
Call it a bird that grows a sky
within memories and swims through it.
Call it a pure, sacred radiance
in which heat and fragrance have dissolved.
Call it a god
dwelling within itself,
worshipping itself.
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Vow
May I become the madman Indra
each time a thousand vulvas bloom.
May I become the reclining Nedumaal
each time I feel the ocean of a woman’s body.
May I become Ardhanari of Siva-wisdom
in every instant of the joy of union.
May I become the primal Shakti of the Agamas
each time you seep through me as blood, Sivai.
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Great Is Desire
On the towering summit
desire cried coo-coo.
All the splendour of flower-milk
swelling breasts like radiant gems is desire.
The sun’s heat and sustenance are desire.
The moon’s coolness and grace are desire.
The rain’s notes and silence are desire.
The universe’s expanse and the atom’s humility are desire.
The body’s scent and life’s fragrance are desire.
The sky’s vastness and the stillness that comes to be are desire.
The wind’s lovely youth
and its violence are desire.
All that is in desire
man found in God.
All that is in God
is in compassion, said the sage.
I have never known compassion
without desire, O Supreme One.
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Torments of the Mind
A longing to be forever coupling.
The heart urges, yearning and yearning.
Won’t work, mate! Settle down,
says the weary body.
One for one another,
thunders culture.
Every sight, every thought,
every instant, a clamour of desire.
Haven’t you got
any other fucking thing to do?
So frets and frets
the shrinking, tormented mind.
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When Desire Takes Root
Except that we have grown
accomplished at acting,
what is there
in this relationship of ours?
What I conceal and guard
from you,
and you from me—
dishonesty,
distrust,
irresponsibility—
how much! How much!
My secret betrayal
that bolts beyond
your love,
and your anguish
that seeks another way
beyond my consolation
never cease to say
one thing alone.
“When desire takes root,
it torments life!”
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Licensed Deviations
To hide my faults,
bearing with yours,
to point out your faults,
marvelling at my virtues,
to hide your virtues,
forgetting my own—
in the absurd play we perform,
desire alone is true.
Snarling, fighting, clawing the flesh,
with blood-clotted wounds,
we are animal mates
living and coupling in a house.
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Ravanam
What you savoured
in Mandodari,
what dancing Tilottama
did not deny you,
what the maidens waving yak-tail fans
longed to show you—
asking it of Sita,
your great lust
came to ruin.
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The Hunger That Torments from Within
Across the sky combed by drizzle,
a sparrow swept in flight.
Like the light
of a lamp turned low,
the rain
made night of dusk.
Sheltering in the omai grove,
he saw a tiny ant
circling
the nipple
of a broken-headed statue,
and thoughts of his wife
rose in him.
In the hearth’s light,
a lizard’s eye glittered.
A spiderweb had blossomed.
Pecking at the rice,
the blue rooster swallowed
the ants among the grains as well.
From the ploughed field where they had gleaned insects,
birds flew off with a clatter of wings.
In the courtyard where manoranjitham bloomed,
the ploughman’s wife awaited his return.
Just as she had imagined,
the ploughman looked at her.
A rain of bounty
descended into their bodies.
In the half-dark, the note of desire
sounded in harmony.
From the darkness, a cat came softly
to the doorway.
Watching the falling drops,
the striped tiger
twisted its body.
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Eight-Dot Desire
Tripurasundari draws a kolam.
Laughter welling up,
she takes some flour: a little dot.
Thinking of her lover’s baseness,
tears welling up,
a little dot.
Thinking of desire
that flowers even in old age,
a little dot.
Thinking of the men
who look at her too,
in wonder, a little dot.
Proud that desire is what she has learnt
without a flaw, a little dot.
Thinking of losing
the self called mind upon the bed,
in joyous anger,
another dot.
In the delight of knowing the body,
a slightly larger dot.
All the dots
lying in the bowl,
as they touch the earth,
become a flour kolam.
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The Maiden of Kolli
If desire
is the beginning,
is it ego?
Karma?
Illusion?
A soul that knows not
its lord?
A void weighing heavy
within the soul?
A ravaging hunger?
An unrelenting sickness?
A ferocity
that has forgotten mercy?
A fear
that remains?
A blindness
before light?
The eternal expansion
of darkness?
If desire
is the beginning,
is it a fate one cannot shake off?
A poison seeping within?
An evil lodged deep inside?
If what came first
was desire,
was I at fault
for becoming base?
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Thillele
In the burning heat
of her swelling breasts,
the celestial maiden lit a lamp.
With each swelling she lit
another lamp.
All around, a hundredfold
plumage of flame blazed.
To the movement of the wind
she danced, whirling and whirling.
Into that quivering, blazing flood
came strong-shouldered Seyon,
to plunge and dance in fire.
Seyon, O Seyon,
Seyon who delights in the forest!
Majestic Seyon,
blazing up with desire!
Seyon of the mighty spear-flinging arm,
who comes to perform the ecstatic ritual dance!
That all men become pure gold
through women—
this I have seen
with my own eyes, through you,
thillele, thillele.
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Original Desire
You took my phone
and deleted the numbers
of my women friends.
For a woman friend
who came home for a meal,
you hawked and spat into the coffee,
stirred it and served it.
This way and that,
you played
all sorts of dirty tricks.
You went to strike
my mother
You cursed the father
who begot me
Against people you harbour
an uncontrollable spite.
They say you are mentally ill,
possessed by the demon of suspicion—
so my family says.
I know:
this is original desire.
We are both
originals, darling!
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Sacrificial Altar
Forgetting your fiery words
that strike like a venomous snake
forgetting the mouth that froths with envy,
turns sour and stinks
forgetting your malice and bitterness,
devoid of fellow feeling
forgetting the blight of your conceit
that nurtures only self-interest
forgetting the fermenting stench of a nature
that knows neither sharing nor care
forgetting your seething arrogance
that knows no proper way to live
why do I grin and fawn, again and again,
seeking only the lushness of your flesh
why do I entwine myself with your vulva, a cobra in its mound,
and couple to ease the itch
why does blood spatter again and again
on the altar stained with desire?
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The Thorn Within
Even after forgetting every place and name
even after the knees knock and the legs give out
even after waiting for a little gruel
even after the temple ledge becomes my only refuge
even after there is no one left to talk to
the woman who came asking for water for her pot
the woman who came with word of a ceremony
the woman reduced to crushed sugarcane in the stream
the sisters who came to reap the grain
the hawking and spitting, the cheek reddened by a slap
the fine I paid before the village council
the righteous thrashing the crowd gave me
none of it has left my heart
even a caltrop thorn would be kinder!
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The Last Face
Opening his heavy eyelids,
he quietly
looked at his wife.
Knowing he would soon
be no more,
she wept, lips pressed tight.
Slowly moving his lips,
“Little darling..” he said.
She went inside, fetched
their daughter’s first baby photograph,
and handed it to him.
She put on “Kaadhal Siragai,”
the song he had always loved most,
and sat down.
On both their faces,
the clarity of sorrow lifting.
The precious flame of an earthen lamp with no ghee left.
Turning his face the other way,
he said, Saradha.
Though there was much to ask and much to say,
holding back her tears,
Saradha went out.
Three nazhigai later,
before his closed eyes
sat his wife.
Heavy rain began to fall.
It rattled down with thunder,
slowly slowly slowly
subsided.
