Poetry — Madhu Singh

A tryst with a much married woman:

I crawl under

the seductive gaze

of her heavy lidded eyes

to spend my living days

in their sullied garden of Eden

an unwelcome serpent

enticing her to bite

into the apple of my words

I become a willing captive

In the auburn chains of her tresses

and rise heavenward

in the peachy scent

of a perimeter of cumulus clouds

under an argent fourteenth moon

I flow in a brook

of the juice of our love making

in which amber pebbles

of her freckles

run down from her cheeks

deep into the valley of her breasts

heaving in restful stillness

I worship in her temple

with hot quivering lips

probing phalanges

scissored limbs

molded mounds and torsos

until primal urges surge

to surmount and subdue

the rising tide of thrusts

choking on forbidden names.

Clandestine:

Down by the Lodhi Garden for a stolen lover's meet

We stroll amid carmine roses on feather light feet

His breath so crisp ‘n breezy, the wind rustling a tree

I so drunk ‘n smitten, with his every word agree

By the gurgle of a fountain, my love and I do tread

Upon his leaning shoulder, I lay my weary head

His smile so bright ‘n glinting, dew on morning’s grass

And, I so young ‘n foolish, full of tears, alas!

The great night of that which isn't:

My beloved, He came in spring. When a nip still makes its bite felt in the mountain air. 

He sits on a rock by the Kanti Sarovar for months on end. Eyes closed, not moving. 

The crowds gather and disperse, come and go, but he is unperturbed, absolutely still. 

The only sign of life, the endless streams of tears flowing down his cheeks.

As the days turn, summer waltzes in with its kaleidoscope of flowers, fruits and berries. 

Then, torrential rains that only the Himalayan peaks can extract from the monsoon clouds. 

Autumn, of ageless grace, the resplendent, capricious colours of her leaves. 

And finally, the deep white death of a Kedarnath winter.

And yet, he sits still.

Then, in the month of Maagh, on the midnight before the new moon night,  

the spot between his eyebrows opens to another dimension of existence. 

He perceives the imperceptible, touches the intangible, knows the unknowable.

He has now become Shiva, that which isn't.

divine feminine

Her every quark

pushed forth by Him