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.
…..