5
Trembling with awakened love
they dart off,
then contract into two moist buds.
An instant they shamelessly stare,
a moment glisten with shy indirection.
Dear girl so artless—
who is it you look at
as though the feverish spell lodged
in your heart
had rushed to your eyes?
6
Why weep in silence
striking aside
angry tears with your fingernails?
When spurred by cheap gossip this fit
gets completely out of hand,
your lover will
tire and grow grim and indifferent.
Then your tears will break
violently,
out of control.
7
You provided love,
you touched her
intimately for a long time.
Now in a fatal twist
you’ve inflicted the most savage wound.
Tender words can’t assuage
her unbearable jealousy.
Our friend needs to cry now—
grief has
unlocked her throat.
8
Your lover sits
dejected
scratching figures in the dirt outside.
Your friends won’t eat
their eyes are swollen from crying.
There’s no silly chatter from the
household parrots
and you’re a wreck.
Stubborn one, isn’t it
time to quit
sulking?
9
Women of intrepid
charm
can’t be stopped—
they’ll even steal what they want.
Why be timid? Tears cannot bring
satisfaction.
You want him,
he’s hungry for sexual pleasure—
try some crudely explicit suggestion
and make
him your own.
10
She binds him
in her arms
pliant as tendrils.
It happened again.
Stammering in front of her friends
she draws him into the bedroom,
his misconduct apparent.
Lucky man—
the crying girl playfully strikes him
he laughs and denies
everything.
11
Don’t those who depart
always return?
Sweet creature, you fret and are
wasting away….
I stammered through tears.
She stared blankly
swallowing her own emotion.
Shame lay across her dark pupils.
Then a dry desperate laugh
said it all—
she intended to die.
12
Forcing my face
from his
I glared at his feet.
Desperate for his voice I closed
my ears, even hid the
sweat on my cheeks with my palms.
But friends, what could I do—?
Where my thin top
gathers my breasts a hundred
stitches had split.
13
After the first watch,
the middle,
or is it toward dusk you return?
Not gone the whole day?
Words choked with emotion she
stalls his departure.
And he’s intent
on a district
a hundred days off.
14
We were making love
when something hurt. I cried
get away!
He tore himself
from the bed and departed.
Impetuous, pitiless, he tramples on romance—
but my heart
craves him shamelessly,
what do I do?
15
All night the two of them
exchanged
intimate words—
now dawn
the household parrot
chatters it out to the in-laws.
She slips a ruby
from her ear, mortified,
into the parrot’s beak—
it could be a pomegranate seed—
and stifles the
unguarded cries.
16
Stupidly, out of
sheer wickedness—
my face turned in grief—
you embrace me.
What does cheating get?
It comes down to this—
your chest
streaked with tawny
paste from your girlfriend’s breasts
now smudged with
oil from my braid ends.
17
Rising to greet him—
still far off—
she avoided sharing a couch.
When he reached for her
off she ran for betel-nut leaf.
Nor could he speak to her
so diligent was she
to the servants’ instructions.
Shrewd girl, every courtesy
applied just
to get back at him.
18
Rascal,
he slips behind his two
seated lovers.
A playful advance—
he covers the eyes of one—
then turning his neck
kisses the other.
A deep erotic thrill goes through
her cheeks
the flush of a
secret smile.
19
When she’d been icy he
dropped at her feet.
But accused of cheating in secret
he bristled and
left. She exhaled audibly
both hands on her breasts
and glanced
through moist eyes at
her girlfriends.
20
Why is this enchanted
creature asleep,
a sash fastened over her robe?
He was softly querying
the servants
when she cried bitterly
Mother, he disrupts my dreams even here!
and turned as if
sleeping to make room
on the couch.
21
Each turned aside
on the bed
silently suffering
secretly hoping to reconcile but
afraid to lose face.
At some point their furtive eyes met—
there was a quick
unintentional laugh and the
quarrel broke
in one wild embrace.
22
Thinking I’d see how
she took it
I put on a hard implacable look.
Why can’t this snake even talk to me—?
said the glare on her face.
Charming stand-off
eyeing each other warily.
When I gave a cautious
smile she lost her nerve and broke
into tears.
23
In bed he whispers
the wrong name.
She feels her youthful enthusiasm wilt
and curls coldly away
from excuses.
He falls silent.
And she turning back softly
eyes him—
Don’t go to sleep.
24
Why fall at my feet?
You can’t hide
the unguent from her nipples
streaking your chest.
Where? I said rising quickly—
and to rub it away
took her fiercely. Rough
pleasure—
the slender creature
forgot everything.
25
Your eyes enchant me.
Remove this camisole and
take my glamorized heart
captive.
He fingered her
knotted braid as he spoke.
Delighted by radiant
eyes and quick smile of their friend—
perched at the end of her bed—
the other ladies with soft
excuses
withdrew.
26
Scowling I knot up
my forehead
but this traitorous eye shamelessly lifts.
I refuse words but
my rebellious face softens.
Make a stone of my heart
and on its own
this aroused body tingles.
Anger just
can’t keep its grip
when that boy
comes into view.
27
The lord of her heart
made some
injurious remark.
Lacking the counsel of friends
she could not compose her bewildered
body or phrase
a slant reply.
Blue eye petals darting about
she just wept—
tears on bright cheekbones
locks of stray hair.
28
Now I know everything.
Please go. Talking is pointless.
You don’t bear the
slightest blame,
fate has simply turned from me.
Since your so abundant love
comes to this
what pain could I experience
if hateful life—
mere flicker of nature—
were to go also?
29
Milky chatter
of pearls
at your breasts
over your belly a jangling belt
gemstones clattering along your trim ankles.
If you set off with a drum roll
to meet your lover
why do you tremble, child—
as though every
slight shadow
might catch you?
30
Dawn after dawn
our lovemaking
took the sleep from my eyes.
A weight lifted.
For once my heart felt light.
Now what have you done?
Go—you are foolish and miserable
and death no longer scares me.
One day you may hear
down which road
I’ve decided to go.
31
My bracelets are gone.
Tears, those sweet friends, departed forever.
Courage left instantly
and my heart
went fastest of all.
They set off in concert
when my beloved decided
to leave.
You should go too, life—
why lag behind that troop
of dear comrades?
32
He sleeps, dear,
you should sleep too.
My girlfriends withdrew and
a wild hunger
consumed me. I pressed
my mouth to his.
But he was already aroused—
I felt it—he’d shut his eyes
to deceive us!
How shy I got—
but he dispelled it with touches
the late
hour warranted.
33
Those days a slanted brow
meant anger,
silence a quarrel,
two smiles forgiveness.
Grace was held in
a glance.
Look at the wreckage
that’s come of love.
You at my feet groveling,
me thrashing about
in frustrated anger.
34
Sweetheart, please speak.
Look at me
collapsed at your feet.
Your anger never gets this bad—
He was pleading.
She winced, jerked her tearful
eyes aside
and said nothing.
35
Her breasts
flattened against me
her flesh seemed to ripple,
at her thighs the sheer
silk parted.
I heard a mute don’t—
don’t—this is enough for me—
did she sleep, did she die then?
sink into my heart?
completely dissolve?
36
She averts a well-bred face
when her lord
fingers her skirt.
He moves to enfold her,
she extracts
her limbs mildly.
Caught wordless,
eyeing the conspiratorial smiles
of her bridesmaids,
at a first joke the girl
nearly perishes.
37
No kindness no word
of endearment
could soothe her bruised pride.
All day long
her heart strangled.
Two faces averted but
who can say how
the sidelong glance meets?
A smile
a quick laugh
and indignation was
banished.
38
Love’s bond is broken.
The heart’s high
passion has waned.
Even truth is a ghost
when that man
walks past like someone unknown.
Days long vanished rise up
dear friend to haunt me
and why this heart
doesn’t split into a hundred shards
who can tell?
39
The young lovers,
bodies a long time aching apart,
are now reunited.
How utterly
new the world seems and the
long day drifts past unnoticed.
At nightfall
they put off
for later their stories,
not so their lovemaking.
40
With dark eyes
not blue lotus
she fashions a welcome garland.
Petals she strews—
not various species of jasmine
but smiles.
Water she offers from ripe
moistened breasts
rather than ceremonial jars.
With only her own body
she makes for her
lover an
auspicious welcome.
41
At twilight today
he deceived me.
I’d banished him for some offense
and he returned in my
girlfriend’s clothes.
Na
ive, clasping the imposter,
I confided how urgently I wanted
to sleep with him.
“That will be hard to achieve—”
A laugh in the
darkness
he forcibly took me.
42
Suspecting I might
fall at her feet
she deftly folds them beneath her skirt
hides a sly smile
won’t glance upward.
To avoid answering she chats
with a girlfriend. If
displeased she’s this charming—
imagine
her passionate.
43
Instructed by servants—
skilled liars—
she chatters a quick excuse to her
skeptical husband.
Then to perform what the love god requests….
This is love’s
inmost enchantment—
innocence
adorns it.
44
When a lover is faithless
the eye in an
instant changes its theme.
He’s far off, it’s restless,
he arrives,
it turns to the side,
dilates if he speaks,
reddens when he attempts
an embrace.
He clutches her robe and its brow
twists like a vine.
He falls to the angry
woman’s feet
it wells up with tears.
45
Your body so thin
trembling
and cheeks pale as ash—?
When the lord of her life confronts her
the slim girl says these
things just happen
turns and between her eyelashes
Erotic Love Poems from India Page 2