Abduct my Seetha

Why do you need covert plans and sinister strategms? A golden deer, a mendicant's bowl and a plan to abduct? Do you think she is a bottle of perfume locked in a cupboard to be anointed only a limited number of times? Do you think she is a draught of nectar that can only quench a single thirst, a single time? Have you not heard? She is her father's daughter, a soul of the soil. She is her country's princess, the body-less one. She is a jasmine bloom that shall exude fragrance till she drops to her mother's lap. She is a bubbling cascade that throws up water unmindful of anybody's thirst. Come to our hermitage then. Not at the crack of the dawn, at high noon or at dusk For I shall be lost in penance and she shall be lost in my penance. Come just after the sandhya and partake of our fruit and drink. I shall then go to gather some firewood. Talk to her and know her soul. She loves strumming her vina but is still an amateur. She likes listening to stories, especially those of the magical northern lands. She doesn't like ambition, so do not talk of your battle and wealth. She doesn't like harming animals, so do not talk of your love for meat. If you must indeed abduct her, then do it with your words, your heart and your soul. The flight in your vimana will be all the more pleasant if you are not distracted by her struggling or in battling guardian birds. But bear this in mind. She is not yours, not mine. The bow was not broken to make her mine, but to gain her respect. So, come, sit, talk and gain her respect. Then carry her away if she comes. But before that O wise ten headed one teach me to sing Vasanta, for she craves that in the evenings.

Gods' death

I write a verse in bleeding red
The chaste god dies of lust
in the arms of the long nailed siren
trading principle for kisses,purity for pleasure.
Videha's princess is the forest queen
She toils in the day, dreams in the night
And at dusk strums the demon king's lyre.

I sing a song of soothing black.
The shepherd god never steps out of the sheep's pen.
He knows no battle, no stratagem, not a lie.
Herds in the morning, sings in the noon
and at dusk becomes hi beloved's footstool.
He ages, forgets and fades in oblivion.
He dies in sleep, a shepherd's son.

I sing a song of verdant green
The god of gods is but a grocer
His bounteous wife borrows to make ends meet
and loses sleep over her errant sons.
The elder is a glutton and the younger philanders.
Their home after all could be next to ours.

You, mortal, go ahead and
Worship
Build
Murder
in the name of your god.

I close my pen and put it away.
Endless gods die in its stillness.

தமிழில்

Ondhymandian, the spotted owl(et)

Ondhymandian had a big scowl
He looked unhappy and was afou(w)l
For he found it tough
To play blindman’s buff
As he was a tiny spotted owl

Note: Image sourced from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spotted_Owlet,_Athene_brama_indica_-_Flickr_-_Lip_Kee.jpg

Winter spring

Winter afternoon
I awake suddenly
Spring's dance on tree tops

Unknowing

Why all this talk of searching, of teaching and knowing?
What matters where we come from or where we are going?
Why speak of solace, of enlightenment, of being whole?
What do we see inside and outside, of body and soul?
Does the mango tree speak of roots and shoots and many sweet fruits?
Does the spring koel speak of notes and beats and many sweet tunes?
Sing my heart, if music sings to you
Bring forth a fruit, if water you drink true.
But speak not of it, nor try to know
Seek not for it wherever you go

For,

Those who fruit, those who sing
They know not music not what they bring.

Descent into darkness

Darkness! Darkness that stretches out to infinity and eternity!

And then my eyes open to darkness of a lesser nature. Darkness of mere mortal night, of mere mortal death.

I know not what sleep, death or spell brought me here. I lay supine, my eyes open staring at a lightless emptiness, my body unwilling to stir. Sediments of stupor cling to my tattered raiment. My chest feels heavy, crushed as though some impassioned lover held me in her desire's embrace. It suddenly dawns on me that I am no longer breathing. I panic into a voiceless scream that is swallowed up by whatever succubus sits on my chest. Fear lends my body motion and I sit up in cold sweat.

I am still not breathing.

I rub my eyes and try to pierce through the darkness. With no light to ally, my eyes beat a hasty retreat to the cave of my soul. My sight broods there in silent defeat. I see vague memories of a summer sun, fair open meadows and love's sport.

My love! My love!

Where is she? My goddess with shimmering robes that could barely contain her budding charms. My verdant spring with hair of sunlight, eyes of lilies, breasts of bounty and fertile hips that welcomed the ploughshare. Joyful love seemed to me when in her keeping was my heart as she lay asleep in my arms. And now I am but alone.

I try to cry, to give voice to pain and loss. But nothing happens. It dawns on me that I can't cry because there is no pain, no loss in my heart. I am only aware of her non-presence. No feeling. Only vague mirages of memory.

Now the spring turns into an autumn night. I feel a fierce pain in my chest, as if it were rent by the tusk of a monstrous beast. I hear the gurgle of a river that I cannot see, the harsh voice of a sordid man with his eyes like the hollows furnaces on fire, a hungry monstrous worm...

Then all fades away. Like fresh rain washing away the muddy earth, I recall naught.

Then I see her. I see her eyes.

They shine like a lone evening star in the firmament of a moonless sky. From the light of her eyes mine get sight.

She stands by a window of frosted glass. Her majestic height is a striking counterpoint to the infinite langour of her poise. Her skin is the shade of an afternoon sun under an ancient tree. Her tresses are luxuriantly black rippling down in sable streams. She is robed in naught but this rayless cascade of night.

But she is not a vision of beauty that is. She is beauty that was. Her eyes shine with the light of a star that has been long dead. Her breasts are full with youth as the defy the downward pull of age, and yet the heave with sighs of unrequited desires. Her lips are luscious red flower petals, but even without kissing them I know they are cold to touch and yield no sweet nectar.

And then I see her hand.

Curled like the tremulous tendril of a creeper that holds a flower of beauty too flame-like her hand bears a pomegranate. A ripe red fruit whose every seed bears the immense allure of sadness.

I lick my lips as an immense hunger comes over me. It seems as though I have never eaten, not since I was born, not since the universe was born. Hunger now pushes me forward as I move on my knees to her.

She looks at me with infinite pity in her eyes...and yet...and yet...there is a hint of malice in them. That spark of malice travels down her supple shoulders to her lissome fingers. Her cruel nails cut the fruit open in tantalizing agony. The fruit bleeds crimson juice.

Then it dawns on me.

I breath no more...

Fierce pain...

The monstrous beast and its hunt...

And finally, the alabaster tusk ripping through like a pomegranate cut with an ivory knife...

I have no heart, I have no life. Cold is my body and wan are my thoughts. She holds my heart, my living heart, this goddess. Her cruel finger pries it open even as it nestles in her loving palm. I look on ashamed as her baleful eyes gaze into my open heart. She sees it all.

And then she turns my gaze on me. I tremble in fear for I know what is coming. But there is still hope.

For one moment she looks at me with great kindness. Her eyes cool to a moonlike pity as though she would spare me. But as her slender arm stretches out, I know it is not the pity of the tormentor that spares the victim, but pity of one victim that knows what another endures and yet inflicts it without mercy.

Her arm droops like a dying flower, the fruit hanging like a laden cloud above me from the very skies.

"I bid you eat this burning heart..." her icy command resonates off the darkness that engulfs us.

I know all that comes now. If I but refuse, I may go back to light, to spring and the summer sun. Even now, despite the aeons and leagues that separate us I see my goddess of light, her breasts leaning forward to my lips calling out to me, warning me not to taste what is offered. Fro one bite, one taste of the tiniest seed of darkness from this heart fruit would bind me to this sable goddess forever. The world shall still walk over the cool grass and drink of the living stream, but I shall remain here in eternal repose, buried deep in the cold loins of this queen who carries only memories of innocence.

A moment passes that is longer than the eternity of any god.

And then I stumble forward sinking my teeth into my own burning heart. She draws me close as I feed. I look up into her eyes and see that I am now suckling on her soft breasts. I am on her lap, her hands on my head guiding me into those ripened fruits that spew sweet bile, tears and blood into my hungry lips. Her hand ruffles my hair and her eyes shine with the pity of the Virgin Mother.

And then she cries. She doesn't shed tears for she becomes tears. She is now a river that washes over me cleaning the dregs of memory that remained. The furious screams of my spring goddess who has been cheated of her love, her prize are on longer heard. Life itself which just a while ago seemed like a nebulous dream is now erased without as much a trace of its existence.

All goes silent now as I clutch and drink of her breasts. Rest, repose and peace. Nothing stirs.

Nothing except for the faint echo of my queen's voice that is at once hateful, sad and triumphant.

"My prince... my prince..."

Krithigai worship

Of what use is it to light lamps at your home and worship?
Look at expanse!

The sky is littered with starry lamps.
In the center the moon is the beacon lamp.

Opening my eyes and drinking the light
I placed the flame in my forehead.

My beginning and end unknown
I too am a Siva.
My form too is a mountain of fire.

Go around me you poor world
My word shall grant you salvation.