English Poems of Kamala Das

A Losing Battle


How can my love hold him when the other
Flaunts a gaudy lust and is lioness
To his beast? Men are worthless, to trap them
Use the cheapest bait of all, but never
Love, which in a woman must mean tears
And a silence in the blood.

Annette

Annette,

At the dresser.

Pale fingers over mirror-fields

Reaping

That wheat brown hair.

Beauty

Falling as chaff in old mirrors,

While calenders

In all

The cities turn….

[From Only The Soul Knows How To Sing] 

Kamala Das

In Love

O what does the burning mouth

Of sun, burning in today's,

Sky, remind me….oh, yes, his

Mouth, and….his limbs like pale and

Carnivorous plants reaching

out for me, and the sad lie

of my unending lust.

Where is room, excuse or even

Need for love, for, isn't each

Embrace a complete thing a finished

Jigsaw, when mouth on mouth, i lie,

Ignoring my poor moody mind

While pleasure, with deliberate gaeity

Trumpets harshly into the silence of

the room… At noon

I watch the sleek crows flying

Like poison on wings-and at

Night, from behind the Burdwan

Road, the corpse-bearers cry ‘Bol,

Hari Bol' , a strange lacing

For moonless nights, while I walk

The verandah sleepless, a

Million questions awake in

Me, and all about him, and

This skin-communicated

Thing that I dare not yet in

His presence call our love.

[From Summer in Calcutta] 

Kamala Das

Love

Until I found you,

I wrote verse, drew pictures,

And, went out with friends

For walks…

Now that I love you,

Curled like an old mongrel

My life lies, content,

In you….

[From Summer in Calcutta] 

Kamala Das

The Freaks

He talks, turning a sun-stained

Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark

Cavern, where stalactites of

Uneven teeth gleam, his right

Hand on my knee, while our minds

Are willed to race towards love;

But, they only wander, tripping

Idly over puddles of

Desire. .... .Can this man with

Nimble finger-tips unleash

Nothing more alive than the

Skin's lazy hungers? Who can

Help us who have lived so long

And have failed in love? The heart,

An empty cistern, waiting

Through long hours, fills itself

With coiling snakes of silence. .....

I am a freak. It's only

To save my face, I flaunt, at

Times, a grand, flamboyant lust. 

Kamala Das

An Introduction

I don't know politics but I know the names

Of those in power, and can repeat them like

Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.

I amIndian, very brown, born inMalabar,

I speak three languages, write in

Two, dream in one.

Don't write in English, they said, English is

Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,

Every one of you? Why not let me speak in

Any language I like? The language I speak,

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses

All mine, mine alone.

It is half English, halfIndian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,

It is as human as I am human, don't

You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my

Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing

Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it

Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is

Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and

Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech

Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the

Incoherent mutterings of the blazing

Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.

WhenI asked for love, not knowing what else to ask

For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the

Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me

But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.

The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.

I shrank Pitifully.

Then … I wore a shirt and my

Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored

My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,

Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better

Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to

Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.

Don't play at schizophrenia or be a

Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when

Jilted in love … I met a man, loved him. Call

Him not by any name, he is every man

Who wants. a woman, just as I am every

Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste

Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans' tireless

Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,

The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,

Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I

In this world, he is tightly packed like the

Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely

Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,

It is I who laugh, it is I who make love

And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying

With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,

I am saint. I am the beloved and the

Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no

Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I. 

Kamala Das

Forest Fire

Of late I have begun to feel a hunger

To take in with greed, like a forest fire that

Consumes and with each killing gains a wilder,

Brighter charm, all that comes my way. Bald child in

Open pram, you think I only look, and you

Too, slim lovers behind the tree and you, old

Man with paper in your hand and sunlight in

Your hair... My eyes lick at you like flames, my nerves

Consume ; and, when I finish with you, in the

Pram, near the tree and, on the park bench, I spit

Out small heaps of ash, nothing else. But in me

The sights and smells and sounds shall thrive and go on

And on and on. In me shall sleep the baby

That sat in prams and sleep and wake and smile its

Toothless smile. In me shall walk the lovers hand

In hand and in me, where else, the old shall sit

And feel the touch of sun. In me, the street-lamps

Shall glimmer, the cabaret girls cavort, the

Wedding drums resound, the eunuchs swirl coloured

Skirts and sing sad songs of love, the wounded moan,

And in me the dying mother with hopeful

Eyes shall gaze around, seeking her child, now grown

And gone away to other towns, other arms." 

Kamala Das

Krishna

Your body is my prison, Krishna,

I cannot see beyond it.

Your darkness blinds me,

Your love words shut out the wise world's din.

[From Only The Soul Knows How To Sing] 

Kamala Das

Relationship

This love older than I by myriad

Saddened centuries was once a prayer

In his bones that made them grow in years of

Adolescence to this favored height; yes,

It was my desire that made him male

And beautiful, so that when at last we

Met, to believe that once I knew not his

Form, his quiet touch, or the blind kindness

Of his lips was hard indeed. Betray me?

Yes, he can, but never physically

Only with words that curl their limbs at

Touch of air and die with metallic sighs.

Why care I for their quick sterile sting, while

My body's wisdom tells and tells again

That I shall find my rest, my sleep, my peace

And even death nowhere else but here in

My betrayer's arms... 

Kamala Das

The Looking Glass

Getting a man to love you is easy

Only be honest about your wants as

Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him

So that he sees himself the stronger one

And believes it so, and you so much more

Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your

Admiration. Notice the perfection

Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under

The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,

Dropping towels, and the jerky way he

Urinates. All the fond details that make

Him male and your only man. Gift him all,

Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of

Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,

The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your

Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting

A man to love is easy, but living

Without him afterwards may have to be

Faced. A living without life when you move

Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that

Gave up their search, with ears that hear only

His last voice calling out your name and your

Body which once under his touch had gleamed

Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute. 

Kamala Das