…… Distant Shores

Twilight song of a cuckoo
taps the window softly.
Gothic tree and drooping sky
humble my thoughts.
Past was me.
I will know then
why your hills turned away my clouds
by shifting sands.

Was it a colossal guilt of tomorrow?
Which never wanted to become present
and enter my house.
But my memory was sharp
and days were numbered.

I wanted to invite the death discreetly
while praising the life and listening to birds
without dropping the history
from my crooked fingers.

Between yourself and myself
a sea was surreptitiously raging.
The waves were dividing the shores.

Satish Verma

…… MUST UNBELIEVE

No more the sun was hot.
October shadows were clinging to hills.
I was ready
to speak, to negate and to kindle the dust.

The issues were floating in the wind
like bleached skin of the dying man.
You could look through it and beyond.

Do you think the ageless will die?
The impotent rage will speak for the street?

I wanted to negate the remains of pedagogy,
the shoddy make-up of the lies,
and the men, in ugly immorality-
cutting the truth to the bone
with roars of laughter,
bidding for the flesh of carved saints.

The faithful must unbelieve
in the history of the star,
who could not reach the earth.
Time was creating fear.

Satish Verma

WHAT ENDING?

Could not hold it, put it down.
TIME.
The words forget you, pass by.
You remain standing on the brink.
Now, now, where to go?

Time avenges, walks on you
and you cannot catch the breath,
to fill the space between life and death
life will not move, death will not stop.
If not ready to live, death will not look like you
you will not look like death.

World changes every thing,
when seeing stops, listening begins
losing threads of me, between you and me
between me and you.
Something grows out of the mud
a new star.

Begins from end, the ending
of beginning. No ending, no beginning.
Timeless, faceless, nameless
groping in void, to catch the alphabets
Peaks are very frightening
Then where is the end? No end.
This is the end.

Satish Verma

QUESTION, ANSWER

You have nibbled and eaten raw
scratching by nails
talking of a pink rose syndrome
under the corona of soft spikes.

Someone talks to you in your brain
guiding you to guillitone.
Life was not worth any meaning,
when questions were none.

No one to resume, isolate green
from the grains of empty desires.
Your hand travels from thorn to thorn
to reach the unrelenting fires.

Made of eccentric obsessions
your house is far away. I smell
the yellow leaves falling, one by one.
It is still dark, with no moon.

Question will become one day, the answer.
The answer will never be the answer
We will remain confused, unclear
about the question and the answer.

Satish Verma

INNOCENCE

Night will feed the sleep
sleep will feed the night.
I will remain awake the whole journey.

Remove the mask and look straight
in eyes of evil dark and black
across the street.

Violence was lurking in corner
dogs were barking non-stop
somebody had shot the moon.

Give me hand I watch the blood
tricking from mountains:
beyond the border lies the corpse.

Which god was yours, which mine?
Let us divide not truth as divine.
Earth is tormented, suffering is same.

Unbearable was void, when father was away
stung by wasp of innocence
child starts crying.

Satish Verma

GO AWAY

Unlived death, that was me
waking in exile from the bones.
He said I remember your verse
a split open bloom!

Given away your gems to sea
ready to become ash, green blood,
you have killed a white cloud
now go for a floral burial.

He said I remained unpacked
like an open wound.
How far space will hang on the shoulders,
how far the sky will remain blue?

Snow will not melt I presume
I will burn my shirt with stain.
Life will not stop but conceive
the proud burning pain.

I stand today without complaints
grieve for my silence, ignorance.
There was a home I could not save
miles from water like bright dome.

Satish Verma

YOU

From eyes I will read.
Don’t say, what you say
but remain you.

Dismantle the tower,
go for a walk,
when the moon climbs on dew.

Seed by seed
we went mad
leaf by leaf I held you.

Sit on the bank
wash your feet,
rock by rock pain were you.

Stars will go
sun will rise.
At the dawn, I want you.

Sins were many
birds were few.
In twilight zone
a cuckoo flew.

Satish Verma

MISSING PORTRAIT

I climb up the stairs to know
How much you need
between nothing and a thing?
Grasshoppers are storming the sky
in inverted outwardness.

They will breed in millions
and then die to become the delicacy
on the platter of man.
From basic instinct to martyrdom
Insects don’t eat.

Violence was middle name of lust
Homo sapiens was walking again on all fours
hurling the abuse, grabbing the flame
becoming the god of oppressed and approved
words are crawling everywhere.

My fingers are burnt, my poem bleeds
give me some water, some real cool.
Lake is on fire, god is on run.
Clouds are empty and sun is an abstract.
Frame is broken, portrait missing.

Satish Verma

WHEN NIGHT WEEPS

Neither in sleep nor wake
I hear, a wingless fall, out of the clouds
with a thud and splash on the lake.
An injured word flutters to the beach
wanting to fly back to its flock, syntax.

Sick of my circling thoughts
I choke on sounds of ducking gravel.
My sea was green under the sun
though I never cared for the craft.
My gift had been gift of pain.

Land opens like a mouth, in awe.
So much cruelty was never seen before.
Anger and greed, lust and beast
blooming in veins of man.
One perfect excuse to kill a day.

Goodness was death, foresight for
crusted ambition You in dark and
dark in you. Tomorrow a blue moon will
come, when night weeps and stars
move away in fright.

Satish Verma

FALLING CRUMBS

The things which did not brother you,
like crossing the crowd unspoken.
Long pauses between the questions,
halting silences between frenzied wails.

Flesh stayed untouched by hand,
center of controversies.
I still speak noiselessly, for urgent whispers,
time for exit has come.

The fog now deepens in eyes
and then a cloud bursts.
Trickling, when you bend backward
to wet the floor of grass,
which stiches the earth.

Winds will not expose the naked skeleton
consciousness now hiccupps
crumbs fall from the table.
It was not me
It was not me.

Satish Verma

…… OF HUMANITY

Do not knock out the water from the eyes,
each dropp is temple
each dropp is death.

Veins were becoming darker
friends disappeared overnight.
A family comes to squat on grass
to scrape the souls of forefathers.

I become puzzled of failed truths,
of guilty nasturtiums fashioned on graves
gathering the human failures.

The deeds and the theatrical prisons
of homes. Anguish and sorrow.
Learning - sucks the beautiful
scarves of splashed deceits.

Into the future you move,
glory or doom? No certain payments.
You have not forgotten the false commitments.

Satish Verma

WHERE HE WAS

Meditation was futile.
He turned his back
from the green prayers.
The state had made a mockery of his love.

The words were not clear
written on the periphery of pain.
He fathered
dust to dust, his light
folded his trembling hands,
lying on jaundiced bed.
Syntax was rising.

He stood alone amidst landmines
malice for none, beast and history.
The stones were falling from sky.
The punished was partaking the blows,
where he was
others were absent.

Satish Verma

FAULT LINE

The template had the fault,
I was buried alive.
Brick by brick they erected the cell
around me.
I could see only the reflection
of a moon at night
in my glass of water.

During the day sun peeped through the cracks,
was hurting and very disturbing,
forming a skull and crossed bones
on the walls.

I watched a piece of sky
as a hub of pallisades.
I planted a word in that hole.

After one seed, there were many
echoes. Starting in the distant hills.
I was rising in red fog.

Satish Verma

BLEEDING HEART

And everyday we talk about the sinister designs
of semilunar nights to rob us of our days
when the sleep was far away chasing the sleep
and the crumbeled continuity of a tale lay unpeeled.

How to highlight the dates on our calenders?
You keep forgetting even the years
when your forefathers left.
And deep in the green grass the names were wiped out.

Winged days were shot down after returning homes,
late evening, when listening to commentaries on death
and reviving myths of blissful healing
from reincarnated saints.

The pseudo-dementia, scented jasmines,
flickering flames, leaking petroleum,
human torch,
and your non-stop crying.

All night the onion breath blows on my sweaty face.
Tomorrow morning I will walk with
my shirt ripened with stains
where my heart had bled.

Satish Verma

RAINS ARE COMING

Sleep me, conceive me like sphagnum;
propel me to essence of death.
Seeing has put me behind the truth,
objectively.
Like centipede, fear crawls in deep blind cave
throwing the feelers.
The gene has faltered. No red lights.
A paw, a blackboard, white lines
message is not clear.
My absent candles are freaking in wormy
darkness, noiselessly. The solitude
trying to gather the words.
Listen to time clock. Past and future.
Present has held the lantern to see
the hands moving. Sound comes out
clearly from the prophets of galaxies.
I want to catch the winds
in my legs to blast the horror of life,
underside of the gnarled credibility.
The rains are coming.

Satish Verma

THE STINGS

He was not ready
for a stash of negligees
put up by moon, on the trees.

A hanging valley drops the pretense
meets the river on the way
for a rendezvous.

Nymphs are flying randomly
against crystals of stars
blank night asks for nothing.

Sometimes hallucinations are welcome
when it is too hot inside
and the life sucks madly.

It was all very puzzling
the nudes in mirrors,
the stings in prayers.

Leaning against the wall
gives a scope for existence
remember, the desires are many.

the separateness was the idea
to put the damper on shouts
we are not, what we willed.

Satish Verma

FUTURE

Ugliness in pink flakes
elopes with a terrorist.
Sun bleaches the black scorn
muscles ache with cramps.

Full moon peeps through the veil
of branches. Eucalyptus sways
in majestic conception.
Time to exude honey.

A perfect discrimination against
the trees. A painful ulcer on tongue
bleeds, pure as the malignant pain.
I will not talk about existence.

The shadow of god crops up.
Foolish dolls play the game.
Subjectivity has frills to counter
the drive of madness.

Anguish becoming responsible
to deliver the particles of imagination,
which move faster than death.
Future of man was in peril.

Satish Verma

ANCIENT ADDRESS

Black emptiness.
Death opens like a flower,
somebody is walking in.

You think of a soft punishment
for becoming faithless.
It was becoming a way of life.

Unlimited agony of wait
something to happen.
Nothing is heard in the field.

No shots. No kill.
Your day was over.
Night descends like a puzzle.

Grey cornea on the white lens:
clouds are playing a game,
mist has a smoky smell.

A city sleeps at last.
A poem I will not read.
It was my ancient address.

Satish Verma

CRANIUM

They entered the genome of enemy
to hide agoraphobia
I will be tortured now
by hanging man.

A loaded belief;
being with crocodiles was safe.
How far we swim in reverse currents?
The moon will annihilate us.

There was fear for dwelling in hateful ripples.
It was the gift of rivals,
a phenomenon of sacrfice for the lamb.

Not being with the times, you walk heavily,
waking stones in blood.
It was too late to ask for the pain – killers.

The language does not help.
The words trot clumsily.
You search the solace in coarseness
protecting cranium.

Satish Verma

PILL

Stay away from the main road
Subhumans are coming.
Face of black spiders, long arms
creeping, hopping.

The green blood and burning sticks;
gateway to moon
sun decides to vanish.

Confronting the flesh makes you clenched snake,
lymphocytes start crowding
death was drawing near.

A fawn wanders without mother
pink eyes, trotting on grass,
syndicated trackers are circling.

End or means? What you choose,
will decide the future of man.
Let the flame become nameless.

A cupped beak and hairy thighs
climb on the rock
to squander the seeds.

Clouds are gathering at distance
I may not wait for the rain.
I am going to swallow the pill.

Satish Verma

ASHES OF HATE

Melting in the cauldron to feed,
until later, I will seek you
in parallel interpretations.
Presently, thoughts are very disturbing.

Human rights for animals
caged in peals
of god realization.
I was thinking to quit the stage.

Symptoms are horrific.
Neoplasm was spreading.
I am scared of the plague.

Sweet corns of sex:
million pieces smile,
drained out healing?

Who will save the river?
Discharges are crippling
the soft limbs,
the truth.

Man walks, shudders, falls
wants to rise again,
from the ashes of hate.

Satish Verma