29 January, 2011

IN CLOUDS

You walk on burning embers 
like a black stone 
to meet the end before beginning 
on empty landscape. 

What was the need 
to cross a saviour? 
Death had the wedding anniversary 
in a garden - 

full of blessings for the sky 
to enter the round seed of thought. 
After the explosion, there were 
severed heads of two smiling teens.

Satish Verma

26 January, 2011

WAITING

Under the gaze of bald beliefs 
a warped dialect 
becomes a squeezer. 
Helplessly I watch 
the slashing of my wrists. 

Darkness burns, without light 
only intense heat. 
The expected miracle digs in 
around, in trenches of my knees. 
I become a walking ghost. 

An immaculate landscape 
with not a single blade of grass. 
Only a blazing sun, threatening 
to make you thingless and godless, 
a proximity to aloneness.

Satish Verma

23 January, 2011

THOUGHT ON THOUGHT

Do you object to 
sexual encounters in the clan 
to save a semi-god 
from extinction? 

A political consideration? 
For you becoming an otherself 
for future generation? 

I will not return to the cave 
for a bell jar of bones in 
the dominion of nature. 

The creamy layer of bats 
in dark, pursing the lips 
to give a truth curdling lie. 

I think, I should not think 
of sun, water and clouds 
and of mundane predictions.

Satish Verma

22 January, 2011

QUEST

Slicing the red velvet 
not drawing blood with your nails 
you walk 
on the body of compromise 
kissing the fleece of death. 

Untitled, 
larger than life 
unpresent, missed moments would take 
the revenge from no thing. 
The violence will end in a lake of tears. 

The golden stick. 
It was the hard bone which engaged 
the furious beast in drowning boat. 
Learning from dimension of pain 
you draw a circle around you.

Satish Verma

17 January, 2011

SOFTNESS

From hereness to thereness 
a heat flows- 
in the height of fears. A timeless need to map 
out the pain of earth, floating on clouds. 

Lemon grass 
cuts the swan lake. There was a devil in water, 
hiding under the rock. You must learn to walk 
on waves. Death knows the way of gliding. 

The foot under the door, unlocks 
the light. You had undone, what I canned 
whole life. The threads were weak. The 
frost turns off the peaks.

Satish Verma

15 January, 2011

WHY

For a messenger of lies 
I lay down the script. 
A kick starts the game. 

I am the only visitor to the 
gallery. Kamasutra suicide displayed 
was a way of expression 

of a revolt against honour 
killing of your own daughters 
whose bodies were found in the canal. 

The tall sacred walls of home 
made kilns, where you empty your sixpence 
traditions on the name of native justice. 

A sightless vista opens before the 
inward eye. I take hold of a brush 
and wipe out the faces.

Satish Verma

12 January, 2011

PERHAPS

A thought starts a fire 
loosening the lips. 
I want to scream. 

Between dreams and stars 
a sky hung with 
inverted moon. 

The desire springs a scythe 
but cannot cut a 
jellyfish of eye. 

A sunstroke was speechless 
without a sun. 
The gift of a night. 

The sweet tooth of a lie 
scoops a truth, 
king of bitters.

Satish Verma

08 January, 2011

INDIVIDUALLY

That roasting night 
when honeyed moon hung high 
weaving a humming sound 
I spoke to clouds. 

It happens every night, 
when smoke rises to discover the pain 
of a falling star. 
I start making a god from earth and water. 

The colors will come from golden tears 
and eaten heart. 
From wooden legs and black widows, 
from an embattled dream. 

The day rises with the mute songs 
of unread thoughts. 
You reach your otherself 
by a back door of hunger.

Satish Verma

04 January, 2011

PAGES

Still listening from lips, 
a mute hearing with hands, 
an improper metaphor. 

…………………………………… 

In the frozen lake of eyes 
a fish dies 
in unread tears. 

…………………………………. 

An upended 
home of laments 
in moon. 

…………………………………. 

Imperfect proximity 
of pillows. 
sleep was distance apart. 

…………………………….. 

Like poison ivy 
a gnawing to itch 
and an itch to gnaw.

Satish Verma

01 January, 2011

UNEATEN FRUIT

From the unread book 
I look back at three generations, with 
whom I was fighting 
for a staircase, which did not 
take me anywhere. 

It was an edge over the wisdom 
for footfalls in space 
for an apology for an unknown warrior 
waiting of a midnight sun 
for a foretaste of time. 

I do not want you to come 
as a pawnbroker, 
I have nothing to offer for exchange. 
From my grandfather I got his shoes, 
my father gave me his eyes. 

Still I am groping in dark 
to justify the everlasting sky 
full of needles.

Satish Vermaa