KING HALA ?

Gathasaptashati

…..

After a quarrel,

The breath suppressed,

Their ears attentive,

The lovers feign sleep:

Let's see who

Holds out longer.

…..

At night, cheeks blushed

With joy, making me do

A hundred different things,

And in the morning too shy

To even look up, I don't believe

It's the same woman.

…..

Hair like ruffled feathers,

Half open eyes

The body in tremors needing rest:

Having played the man,

You know how we suffer.

The way he stared,

I kept covering myself,

Not that I wanted him

To look elsewhere.

…..

His form

In my eyes

His touch

In my limbs

His words

In my ears

His heart

In my heart:

Now who's

separated?

…..

While the Bhikshu

Views her navel

And she

His handsome face,

Crows lick clean

Both ladle and alms bowl.

…..

From the river thicket

Where it saw a girl deflowered,

The astonished flock rose

With a shudder.

…..

Her breasts

Against the gate,

She stood on her toes

Till her feet ached:

What more

Could she do?

…..

Bookish lovemaking

Is soon repetitive

It's the improvised style

Wins my heart.

…..

Though the wide world's filled

With beautiful women

Her left side compares

Only with her right.

…..

He groped me

For the underwear

That wasn't there:

…..

Fore-legs positioned on the bank,

Hinders agitating the ripples,

A she-frog strokes her own reflection.

…..

'The third watch is ending,

Now go to sleep.'

'O friends, the night jasmine's fragrance

…..

Careful, girl.

Stealing away

Into the night

For the tryst,

Looking brighter

Than a flame.

…..

The deft bee,

His weight held back,

Endues the bud and sucks

The white jasmine's nectar

…..

For our quarrels

Let us appoint another night:

The bright one slips by.

…..

He finds the missionary position

Tiresome, and grows suspicious

If I suggest another:

Friend, what's the way out?

…..

In the last weeks

Of pregnancy

She's distressed by

Her inability

To mount him.

…..

Don't let fustian

Dishearten you:

Dalliance unties

Even silk knots.

…..

He, for whom I forsook

Shame, chastity, honour,

Now sees me as just

Another woman.

…..

Looking restless,

Breathing heavily,

Yawning, humming,

Weeping, fainting,

Falling, mammering:

O traveller,

You'd better not go.

…..

The lamp-oil finished,

The wick still burns,

Encrossed in the young couple's

Copulation.

…..

Bless you, summer,

For the perfect tryst-place:

A small dry pond,

By green trees surrounded.

…..

As the bridegroom

Feigning sleep

Sidles towards her,

Her thighs stiffen and swiftly

With trembling hand

She clasps the knot.

…..

Always wanting me

To come on top

And complaining

We're childless,

As if you could brim

An inverted water-jug.

And those

Are the servants:

…..

Friend, you should've seen

His hand fumbling inside

The thin skirt glued

To my wet fanny.

…..

Thunderclouds in the sky,

Paths overgrown, streams in flood,

And you, innocent one, in the window,

Expecting him.

…..

I greet them all:

Love born of deceit,

Love born of coercion,

Love born of cupidity,

Love born of impediment.

…..

O pumpkin-vine,

Leaving your own firm trail,

You get up another,

And will soon come to grief

…..

In summer, behind doors

Shut, like eyelids,

The village at siesta; somewhere

A hand-mill rumbles,

As if the houses snored.

…..

The go-between's not back,

The moon's risen,

Night passes, everything's amiss,

And no one to confide in.

…..

Why Mohua flowers, son?

Even if you grabbed my skirt,

Who'd hear me in the forest?

The village's far, and I'm alone.

…..

Always wanted

To be your girl,

And didn't know how:

Teach me.

…..