UNZIPPED

Faded years come back with a vengeance
Clutching your sorrows.
And you were walking on the burning coals.

Spirit of journey was more relevant
than destiny.
You lifted the burden of anecdotes, gathered
the dusk from the sky
and moved on towards moon.

Tormented, abused, the motive unknown,
hostilities were always directed at you
Alone you were killing the sickening pain,
strangulating the thought, you opened
the door of brilliance.

So thin was ice on the lake,
evil shadows were falling on the road
It was hard to walk unruffled.
Still unzipped, you took the plunge.

Satish Verma

ARCHAIC HUMOUR

Something was always missing around
one had to die daily.
To find out, what?
Just a slip of time,
life was death and death was life.

Death of a man or death of a city
death had no other name.

Hearing the footfalls of death
dogs were howling around a temple
where god was dying.
The nation now mourns
for the banished priest.

At the burning pyre
there is still no peace.
Anger lives inside the books,
flame hides in the candles.
And a rage surges forward
in the bones of archaic humour.

Satish Verma

MUSE AND SORROW

An uneasy blood cascades
in the slender arteries
when you,
that I wanted to touch
disappear into twilight of memory.

Always a sense of bereavement.
why do I care for you?
Time drops like an old coin
in the hands of a drifter.

Take away my sleep
I want to wake for the whole night
and recite the unwritten poems.

Again life had been very kind to me
I am free to face
muse and sorrow.

Satish Verma

SUN WILL HIDE

Thirsty I endure a wicked desert.
Scorching wind plucks the eyes.
Legs ache. Ankles swell. Drag we must in fever.
To forbidden land.
Tell me how far we have to go?
There is only the defiant spirit
which is burning incessantly.

The secret flight of a river took place
at night,
leaving the banks dry as bone.
On the shores the guns are positioned.
Green parrots have suddenly departed
from the tall branches.
Any time the explosions will start
with deafening row.

This very day the sun will hide
when the ravens will start descending
and eagles swoop for the knocking death.

Satish Verma

FOR A CAUSE

Do not talk of unhealing wounds,
talk of the weapons.
Talk of the hands which used the arms
and talk of the brain which pressed the trigger.

Violence was primitive
but the cruel eyes had a new glint,
At night they ransacked, stamped and burned
the relics.

Is it the retrovirus of a new menace
dreaming the feast of thousands of corpses
choking the drains?

Why are we heading for the slaughter
of earth, pure vengeance
to turn the sun gloomy and black?

This time the river will turn aside and not meet
the ocean.
It will spread out in the parched land of thirst
and die for a cause.

Satish Verma

TRANSITIONAL EDGE

Pathways have no boundaries,
thinker was without a thought.
Hostile mind refuses to believe
truth was missing from life.
From depth to depth measurement had failed.
God does not know his creation now.

Foolish flesh now burns in thudding bangs
of dry butter. I want you to touch the
opaque eyes of eternity. In captivity of
sighs and groans. You ought to understand
who was original. There had been free
invitation to become unfaithful.
There were masks, gene shifts and longevity.

This evening a drama will be enacted in sky
by unburnt bras and a black hole. There will
be thrill. It was easy to bury the skulls among
floating names. The wreath will be placed
on the transitional edge of sweetness.
Which never was.

Satish Verma

AWAY FROM THE HOME

Non-thinking was a tremendous effort,
I scratched the years one by one.
Between you and me was a river,
it has gone now.
Are you beyond the imagination?
My eyelids bleed,
and there is a painful punctuation.

Give me fireflies,
it is too dark here.
The future tense,
is not relevant now.
Present is very tense.
Books fail to open the lyrics.
I am lonely in the prints.
Life makes a big leap
for the sake of splash.

I place the candles in the wind,
away from the home,
which never was.
Going where the memories,
had seedless interior.
Emptiness sings for space
refuses to be filled in.

Satish Verma

THE SHOOTING STAR

This was an obscene observation,
seeing through one’s mind
a terrible happening.
The naked truth was always dangerous.
I close the eyes of a beloved day.
The first lover hovers over
the trees like an invisible ghost.

By transforming the obsession
into the wholeness of a metaphor,
don’t you externalize the center,
of a theme? Integrity was
never your forte.
The light within was fading,
sheer escape.

I believe in a spring faithful to sun,
where the searching ends.
The body melts into melodies,
and the shooting star of midnight,
leaves a trail of fire.
It opens the sky,
the blade, the freckles.

Satish Verma

THE ANODYNE

Unmasked inside,
we play the games of a torch
the living legend,
great beauty of dirty thoughts.
A twin drama unfolds.
the icon burns and a wealth
of praise drowns the priest.
Now death dance begins.
Neither immersion nor
the float ends the relationship.

The hunger leaps
to death from top floor.
Life is ripped apart.
The swarm of vultures descends,
mating of news begins.
The anodyne is spread on the wounds.
Room to room,
the liquidation begins; of faces, of spots.

A cruel joke is repeated
every day relentlessly,
I wait for the transformation of beginning,
of the ending.
The light to fade and
god to taste like a hot bun.
The dangling doors must close,
for a while to motivate the dreams.

Satish Verma

A HOT PATCH

All the wayward words
mock me for inadequacy.
I remain detached from meaning,
emigrating to eloquence of wordless solitude.
The hymen breaks.
Dumb poems cry. I don’t want to be buried
in ruins of daydreams.

Sandstorms have a strange melancholy, holocaust.
A legitimate uprooting of faith.
Sometimes I feel a hot patch
of sun on my face.
One moon away was my cool,
abode in a green painting,
but the frost never melted.


This darkness is only companion,
I will talk to winds.
The comments on riddles will continue.
A selection of memories,
will make my meditation.
The friction in history was shame.
May be love will win.

Satish Verma

CROSSING TIME ZONES

I became uniquely quiescent
like a depthless indulgence,
in shadows of conception.
The waves after waves,
of a restless continuity,
swept the floors of mind.
Anonymity of self started expanding.

Sun burns mercilessly,
on prayers of parched lips.
The breadwinner beats the chest
and the dirt of long legs
falls on the souvenirs.
With traditional pouring, we wash the sins.
It was too late for mourning.

Tears to tears, eyes
lie in wait for a miracle
which will not happen.
A longing always remains,
a dying whisper of a storm.
The desert will return with
vengeance and clouds will never come.

Satish Verma

FLAME

What shall I write
from the empty, desolate heart,
when every word is being scraped?

You want to clean the mess
of a lifetime,
yet labour brings loneliness
and you inherit
the depth of a problem.

A thought which has no ending.
A constant battle with yourself
in the bleak winter of age.

One by one they have died,
Your invisible gods.
The vast landscape
of knowing the truth
still remains unconquered.

Pursue you must for the sake of moment
a flame which has no heat!

Satish Verma

THE SHELTER

Your own shelter of erected pretentions is beautiful
but you don’t want to come out from the cage.
Fear of falling from the cliff, cloud and sky
on the claws and pincers is terrific
which could maul, lacerate and dismember you,

You want to hide behind the arguments.
Somebody starts knocking at your head like a woodpecker
Why don’t you stick to a legend like others?


Downhill you have to come to primordial
touch of soil and smell the odor of naked bodies
toiling for seeds. Gnarled hands open the jammed
windows.

Will you know the secret of a bright lamp post
where on some night, migratory birds
were falling dead? Black fog is floating
and you are still standing on the spot from where
you started.

Satish Verma

KILL

Some truth disempowers you. You wanted
to be yourself as if not to become extinct.
A negative stress
starts churning your entrails.

Zero inertia. Your body begins
rummaging the soul for a prayer
which can arouse your thoughts.

All drunk now. Flashback events.
Hallucinations.
The virtue of tongue lets go the integrity.
Bewildered, spirited flesh ultimately cracks.

The violence tumbles out. My heart
squeezes melancholy.
Soon there will be a crowd
to seek a philosophical kill.

Satish Verma

GALLOWS

When you were talking about purity of
Platelets
I was thinking to let the blood flow.
How easy it has become to kill now?
Is it not homecoming of the violence?

You were looking for a method to execute
yourself
and I was searching for an answer to
become free from bondage of self-contradiction.
The veins are bulging on my hands. Death
will not be happy to see me. The blood
has already frozen.

From your side and from world’s view
the ending of conscience is the right thing
But I squirm and I scream,
gallows are forever.

Satish Verma

SIGNATURES

Planet earth,
they have stopped moving with me like clouds,
like trees.
Sap frozen, inertia overtaking
tongues clipped
mouth after mouth black shut.
Toads are croaking.

Incence of hate wafting
from scrolling suicides.
The terrorist is on move
from valley to valley
shrine to shrine
river to river.
Bulls in veils bellowing in dark.

Self-seeking or sensing the history?
Intentness of kill or empathy of pain?
Who were the masters hiding behind hills?
Let me choose my scratchings from unknown pen.
My paper should remain unwritten,
nobody will draw the line
nobody will put the signatures.

Satish Verma

SOME QUESTION MARKS

Don’t go brutal in the veins
blood is diluted
life has become complex.
Barefoot truth walks,
in the sun without shadows.
We are beaten by lies.
The caste aside had a carnal thrust,
and the stars were weeping.

I will die of a primordial death one day.
What is the central theme, of present life?
It has no nuances, only the numerical strength of passions.
Question marks are leaving,
an omnipresent stink everywhere.

An awakening without,
a flame does not inspire
a hidden defeat of haloed touchstone.
I will go for a swim,
in the dead sea to taste,
the salt of all the white moons.
How would our forefathers
know the masks?

Satish Verma

ULTIMATE DEATH

The character of the myth exploded,
naked aggression on the souls started with,
meditation on death.
What was real?
The dignity of life or,
suicide of seed truth?
The classical colors were,
going to live only half-life.

Guilt was writ large, on the face of morality
and essence was always forgotton.
The kingdom had swallowed the strangers,
And king had killed the songs.
Adulterous games had become popular
every one was becoming a rengade.

Death will ultimately,
wipe out the signatures,
from the blackboard.
It would be a clean sweep.
Some body will go in trance,
start reciting a mantra,
for the sake of vanity,
and clarity of the moments of dawn.

Satish Verma

ABSURDITY

We always searched for the center,
the dark hole of a naked mind.
World moved in concentric rings,
like onion peels.
I scream at myself,
on the absurdity of finding,
A truth which had expired.

If the trees could talk in end,
and bail out
the saint of fallen apes
I will start measuring,
the deafness of a storm,
its eyes squinting
and whose deep genitalia,
had delivered a still birth.

Why should we mourn
for the unfolding disaster?
The loneliness and despair,
are not the big themes.
And no body cares to listen,
to the ripped confessions.
A purple patch appears on the green heart.

Satish Verma

MOTHER’S DAY

A heap of voices hails you, when you stop
in the tract.
The silence migrates to new depths
where silhouettes are created,
on the veil of solitude.
It was the flame of pride.
Only there was being,
Of non – being.

A load is lifted. a tender death smiles
I walk in the deep woods,
to collect my mother’s ashes.
She had a scented presence in the sunset.
I will weave a pattern,
of shooting stars in the black sky.

I may not go back
to the epitaph, for a goddess of first
and last war with my conscience.
The full text of infinite pain,
will remain a secret.
I never wanted to remain blameless.
The sneaking time will tell the truth.

Satish Verma

SUSPENDED EXECUTION

Self-searching was most difficult for me
one by one the years had gone by.
Remaining taciturn I move inwardly,
try to read the verdict on the wall,
a suspended execution.
I slowly become blind.

A terrible blankness,
infiltrates into mind,
my hands tremble.
Cannot write the unwritten code,
civilized way of accepting the retreat.
The flawless life was a dream,
I wake up in anger, counting the failures.

How painful it is to realize
your revered one are becoming smaller than you.
Death does not swallow the pride
what is to forego and what not?
From moment to moment,
I squeeze the frightening truth.

Satish Verma

WAYWARD SON

Silent go the dead
on the moon,
to know the secret of its smile.

Did we know the ending of leads?
The dream within the thoughts?
Silent moves the trembling hand
to print its signature on the heart.

what is so tragic about life?
The memory of bruises or attachment?
We always talked about cleanliness
of language, of lending beauty to words,
when hate and anger brought on the
ugly nuances.

Somebody revises the text,
Tongue tastes the skin,
I start counting my failures
and my books.

Silent stands the mother
for the wayward son.

Satish Verma

FEAR

It was fear and anguish.
You were talking about evil. Returning
evil to evildoer. I touch your psyche.
I am not happy. Some thing is burning inside.
Dehumanizing the death? Betraying the muse of god?

The ending fo hidden mist and sick bedrooms,
I am counting the parameters. There is a moral pride
in humane slaughter and annexing the smile.

Sun is again coming under eclipse. Light is
growing fainter. I am again afraid of darkness.
Night of shadows and running midgets. They
prolong the agony. I turn towards the earth
for the impromptu music of life.

Satish Verma

MOON RISE

Like burning coals on the tongue
the words smoulder the ardour.
I cannot pursue a thought of untruth
for sake of remainin alive.

The water hole is dry, we turn back
from poetry and greens,
heading towards onother cul-de-sac.
A fear mocks at the face.
About being a human failure preparing
to admit the defeat.
Despair will decide the path!

I always adored a struggle for reality
calmly choosing the self-denial.
Secretly I weave a memory of moon rise
in pitch darkness.

Satish Verma

THE ENDING

No ending of the story. The loose thread hangs.
Journey again starts at the termination.
The smell is something of enigma.
I am again dissecting the body of a stale corpse.

Fever is rising with jokes Thin sheet covers
the ugly face with blisters.
A disconcerned person burns the phosphorus.

The darkness creates the ghosts of history,
two thousand years of knowledge.
Still the niceties of culture are to e observed
and firework started
to celebrate the end of an era.

Satish Verma

NAMASTE

Back and forth
back and forth
culture whores
were removing the skin tags
from armpits.
The private plateaus spurting
lemon grass juice.

Between kind questions
and cruel answers
I watch the heat rlsing.

Scanning the leukemic beach
the sex drenched hour
squirms with pubic pain.

Two round hills -
firm breasts tucked under white clouds
were weary of lip slaves.

Namaste sunset
I was waiting for you.

Satish Verma

GENESIS

The sludge rattles as you tilt on one side
heat and dust swirl around you.
The sun baked age drifts.
The book of life with greasy stains,
preserves a part of your history.
The earth moves on.

Suffering to filthy chatter,
this city was not your choice.
What were you doing,
with your innocent thoughts,
under naked aggression?
Confessions were not sufficient.
Seeking you were not,
then why you were counting the coins?

The last person defeats the death.
Deaf and dumb go in a tizzy.
The bipolars are puzzled.
Is that the answer to a revenge?
No body knows the genesis.
The fog deepens.
Clouds climb up the sky.

Satish Verma

SPASTIC LEGS

We did not concede,
textured life was absurd
tried to struggle against misfortune; were thrown out.
To find a new definition,
of the restless syndrome,
without cause and ending,
the untouchable of the underworld,
were screaming terribly.

Conflict widens in the face of existence
the fall was inevitable.
Incessant goading on the spastic legs,
brought out the god of sorrows,
endurance was not the answer.
Danger was always lurking in the corner.

Strange sounds and frigthening,
sights are discernible
the tremors are felt in deep crevices.
You want to touch all the poles.
run away from giants,
smash the hypocrite;
and see your face in a dark mirror.

Satish Verma

ON THE JAGGED STONES

Leaving the faint traces,
of some diluted thoughts
You empty yourself completely.
Poverty and shame without an arithmetic,
is the poetry of life.
Using the body instead of words.
Always needing currency,
to open the doors of clarity.

Naked without skin,
we survive on crumbs of charity.
Lending our organs to develop,
an order of mortality.
I refuse to taste the bitterness,
preserve my sanctity,
go for another version of god,
thinking, how to think.

For the inward freedom,
I forsake safety pins,
walking, bleeding on the jagged stones.
Pain of realization is deeper,
than the hurt.
Cry silently in the veins
pure resistance will not work now.
I will try the fiction path.

Satish Verma

PSYCHOLOGICAL DYING

It comes suddenly like a flash,
in some intimate moment,
conception of fear.
Like budgerigars, petrified on the wall,
the cat below, scratching, jumping.
I am done.
Questions of life and death, right & wrong,
the continuous chatter of psychological dying.

The dust goes into the eyes.
we start playing the game.
Melancholic clouds. Cannot look straight.
Disillusions drips. Depersonification starts,
On the parched skin.
Wrinkles dig deep to collect the tears.
The ending, before it starts.

Arguments are dragging the conscience.
Hunger and knowledge staring at each other,
Unabashedly, and dying shadows making a kill.
Some one stakes a claim,
on heritage of purity, pulling the strings.
Freedom to act bleeds the heart.

Satish Verma