Hymns for Longing and Loving
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poetry: ‘What impossible simile / will suffice, my love, / to sing of my real, utter ruin?’
Hymn On Lust
Deep from the seas
of guilt and shame,
my love,
draw up my manhood.
Hoist it then in the open skies.
Light it with your lightning banners
and proclaim in thunderous voice
my wanton desperate ache.
Loom over me in
rolling clouds
of ominous love.
Then in
sudden burst
rain, rain, rain
over me breathless.
When I swoon
float and fall,
draw me back
to the rolling waves
of the rayless skies.
*
Hymn for Purpose
Great things are afoot, my love.
This grass under our feet
is holding hands with another
across the world stopping it from falling apart.
Slender rays of the sun are
diligently drinking up entire oceans.
The invisible wind is
deliberately herding clouds
to bluer pastures.
Birds smaller than a palm
are ushering in
distant momentous springs
Event ants, my love, are lifting
universes many times their weight.
How are you, my love,
still asleep in your
just human sleep?
*
Hymn for Hunting
Unwavering, my heart,
like a shikra circling distant skies
with fiery eye fixed on obscure prey
pursues you,
only you, my love.
Your waist, my love,
like a serpent that in itself
brews venom from birth and
spends it all in a single strike,
brews nectar for my moment’s yen.
Like spears that fly
drawn to their foes,
like milk that flows
drawn to calves,
like seas in tumult
drawn to clouds,
my deeds, your dreams
entwined are drawn,
to death, to desire,
to us,
my love.
*
Hymn for Ruin
The bards, my love,
they sing of
cows that rain down milk
when they think of their hungry calves,
of
men whose skins turned dark
for their love of seas and clouds,
of
men who crossed seas and clouds
to win their love back
and such impossible things.
Me, I think of you, my love, and
my heart is ablaze,
my limbs tremble,
my writing pen bleeds.
I pine. I burn. I perish.
What impossible simile
will suffice, my love,
to sing of my real, utter ruin?
*
Hymn for Cleansing
How do I dust
our home, my love?
In one swift moment,
how do I sweep away the
grime and soot
which for ages have been mutely waiting
on the
spectacles, the pen, the notebook, and the
skeletons of my cupboard
unable to communicate or
even comprehend
the hasty passing of time?
How do I sweep
this empty canvas of dust
which with bated breath,
my love,
awaits the pitter-patter of
your tiny dancing feet?
How do I explain, my love,
to this dust of our home
the wondrous tediums
you’ve hidden in the
next moment?
***
Agni Barathi is a soon-to-be-published Red River poet, aspiring novelist, reviewer at Atta Galatta, successfully failing at bird watching, gardening, and management. Mostly Harmless. His work has been published on The Hindu, Ethos Literary Magazine, Madras Courier, and Atta Galatta. You can find him on Instagram: @agnibarathi and X: @ABHaiku.
