Love Poems of a Kind by Ashwin Kumar

The Lesser Hevajra Tantra

The Doppler effect

of your memory:

                               afar

and coming

                               nearby

and going.

In the alleys

of your body

I search for your name.

To petrify it

in the interstices

of my thought:

     The memory of

     a fragrance

     in a perfumery.

You are the fruit

in my head:

brittle pomegranate

two halves of a whole:

                               Taste of mineral

                               Taste of blue water

not on the plate

not on the tongue

but in my head

the fruit

becoming real.

The hypothesis of desire:

                               To begin with

                               there is desire:

in the end

the body comes

to be.

The vicious cycle:

                              Your body

                               made of my desire

                               my body

                               the cage

                               of your body.

I recoiled

and went in search of me. 

On Your Nudity

A piece of moon

Uncut, glitters and waits

The winds blow over it for eons

And smoothen the edges

The living waters caress it with a million liquid fingers

For another eon

Perplexed wild beasts

Ponder over this gleaming piece of unearthly rock

And breathe on it their wild scents

A journeyer, the first of his ilk,

sees this little piece of rocky ivory

In his paths across the forests

He divines the first tool in it

His progeny after him,

Forges the fire and the wheel

Using this piece of moon rock

Years go by

The sun sets a million times

And the moon rises between the branches of trees

I find the moon rock, glittering

And awaiting for nothing, or for me.

A perfection of the labours of

Wind, rain, beast, and man

An heirloom of unknown ancestors

From a million years ago

I kiss it with my lips

And it becomes you.

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About the Poet

Ashwin Kumar teaches at Chanakya University, Bangalore. His research is in the field of philosophy of culture, and his book "Nationalism, Language and Identity in India: Measures of Community" has been published by Routledge. He also writes in Kannada and translates into it.

More By Ashwin Kumar: The Poet's Crime and other Poems