NOTHINGNESS AND BEING

Sometimes lurking in corner.
Sometimes tumbling down
endlessly,
and sometimes with frozen smile
immolating oneself
before an idol to be.

He danced imprisoned in a glass case
whole life.
Overcoming the pretentious inhibition
to stand naked in dimlights
of arguments.

He started a dialogue
about the disquietening habits
of killing each other with sharp tongues.
I said death and life are two suggestions
worth consideration. A clump disdain in between.

The birds are circling again in sky.
Someone is going to die.
Avians knew the travesty of existence.
Question of self praise
ultimately drowns
in melody of being.

Satish Verma

EMPATHY

Word by word I was drinking
your fathomless pain,
not asking to shine
any prehistoric sin.

You are still flying straight as the crow flies
into timeless grief.

Why we have to suffer in the hands
of tiny barbs?
Who will outlive the wits of ancient insects?
The jungle is spreading far and wide.

With infinite patience
I have been watching the world go by
carrying the pulp of intelligence.

This knocks me down,
the betrayal of blue sky.
A black hole is widening
in the sniffling cosmos,
flooding the desires of flesh.

On dust I sit frightened.
Where are we heading?

Satish Verma

BELONGING

Let me navigate the resentment
in non-verbal manner, I go in myself,
dislocating the whole experience
of goodness for vulnerability

I was stung a hundred times
into playing a role not of mine
deceiving the life,
which was on the other side of self.

This encounter with hypocrisy in meditation
was very gratifying.
I begin trying a repetitive motion
of my hand to ward off evil,
and find a parallel home for a second thought.

At night I travel to galaxy of waste,
the perfect paradox of failure
where time clones a beautiful mistake
which will hop from man to man.

Satish Verma

IN PURGATORIO?

Sometimes I imagine, I am free:
free to come out from a diagram,
to bring inside out.
Ultimately rescued from the ancestors,
and ready to face my unborn children.

An apparition sneaks in.
Transgender? Half human, half god?
There is no shadow, no existence,
but presence.

Life sometimes take a strange turn,
panic moves between the walls of home.
Black silk, red cloud, fish in the bowl.
I walk without feet, making dents in air.
wrapped up so long.

Satish Verma

THE HYPHENATING

Awareness becomes a burden,
with opposite thoughts in conflict,
Crawling like roaches on your skin.
Sage or beast it was same.

They run on the bricks in sun
or drift at night on unwrapped voices.
Every thread of a dialague
rakes up an old sickness.

The stammering tongue will never tell
the name of the priest,
who led you to the pond
and drowned your ethics and morals.
Who was the culprit?
your hood or your arrested silence?

The same thought comes again and again
in single file.
The past presents a missing link
Between no and yes.

Satish Verma

TOPICAL NOW...

Integrity of door was challenged,
walls will not take the blame.
Tension increased between believing
and non-believing.

Did we listen to moaning of night?
There was a murder in broad day-light.
Eyes will not betray the whisking of corpse,
pallbearers were moving very fast.

I thought nothing will ever move now
not even the possessed mind.
The final page of book has been torn
and the story will never reach the end.

To become anything or something
is difficult these days.
Do we need to drink our own blood
to become great on paths of anonymity.

Satish Verma

ANSWERED...

I will ask you no more.
An answer settles the question.
Let myriad questions remain in air.
Thirst is larger than the river.

Silence! Ghosts are walking.
You can hear footfalls of time,
past is peeping from the windows.

Dyslexic kids are not able to decipher,
the code of gifts, the sweet tongue.
Powerless hands are tied behind the back
and neck is broken with precision.

The rape of fragrance,
petals are curling up to storm,
flying homeless in sky without speech,
ceaselessly searching instead–ness.

Half-burnt bodies for feast, roasted dreams
for taste.
But for fire, a single tear drop
frozen on the cheeks of mercy.

Satish Verma

‘...ROOTS THAT CLUTCH...’

You know I do not hope
any intermission,
between life and death.
My path goes nowhere.

A hiatus between the mirrors has questions.
From childhood I was always
floating between the meanings
of lessons unknown.
I longed for straight humilities.

Present redeems the past.
Each sound leaves an echo
and has-been becomes the shrine of peace.

ad infinitum I will wait
for the primitive blood
to reappear, the truth of
midnight sin.

Satish Verma

HYPNOSIS

That intense pleasure at the height of negation
haunts me
from the sense of weightlessness.
In praise of complaints I sacrifice my anger.

Sanity demands an explanation
for the grieved flowers
who assembled for a wreath.

The window will not betray the sun.
Prodigal sunshine will come back
to face the arrest.

The prism breaks the charm
flings off the clouds of flirting winds
and removes the veils from the eyes.

Satish Verma

INTERPOLATIONS

It was the hiatus
that underlying silence
of which I was hearing the voices.

There was nothing left to be said.
I wanted to levitate in void
to unlearn what I understood.

Why the distance interpolates
between the guilt and acceptance?
Leaves are falling in different colors.

Time avenges, burns the grass,
the lips, the retina,
the black walls and white numbers.

Inner peace will return
on the ashes of fallen trees.
Life will resume another journey.

Satish Verma

Isful ah-ness!

Winter has stopped indulging.
Brown body of summer
longs for the full lips of moon.
I become saddened
tracking time.

Desire is now a temple
outraged by sun
starts a dialogue with winds.

Grey hills kill the songs
and empty life again fills in
the cargo of memories.

Silence is cool, ticks like a clock
breaks a stone
and melts into night.

I prepare to die again
amidst the disguises of fidelities.


* A Phrase from Les Murray.

Satish Verma

OMAR-2

Give me something to chew,
a savage numbness
is engulfing my brain.
Water level was rising
and the time of rented happiness
was over.

Pheromones were showing true likeness
in hate,
violence was brilliantly portrayed
and death was hideous.

Attachedment assumes a blast,
stares me in empty eyes,
hurling silence with invisible force.

Give me something to drink
like moonlight. It is very hot here.
I am walking downhill
to roll back the rock.

Satish Verma

THE DIFFERENCE

I was watching a flight of swans
in a neat row over the horizon.

You were counting the pebbles on the beach.
Sun will shortly crease the clouds,
but first let us decide for our starving existence
how far is our home?

I cannot assemble the broken mirror,
the splinters have twisted images.
Somebody knocks out a tomb in sand,
and I wait for a giant wave to wash
out the traces.

The death offers the final peace.

Satish Verma

THE WHEEL

He was very thin, half naked, one arm
broken, glasses cracked.
Early morning an owlet will land over its head
And give a long hoot.

The bleary eyes will look down non-chalantly
on browsing goats at its feet. I will see a twinkle
in the eyes.

A cave man, or Buddha! I loved your brazenness
cat walking alone on the spiky path of truth,
drinking goat’s milk and raising cotyledons
of guiltless faith.

Post-traumatic, I squeeze your feet.
Any reincarnation in future? Any divine intervention?

Satish Verma

DYING TO LIVE

Eight kisses of death and I am alive
My chest is still bleeding
Come brother, come,
stitch my wounds.

Whom shall we believe, rebirth
or life after death?
Both are study of wasteland.
To speak through angels is difficult these
days and prayer has run
out its charm.
I want to swim with octopus
again,
to test its suckered tentacles.
The envy of ocean cannot stop me.
Tonight the burning candle is going to live.

Satish Verma

TALE-BEARER

They were counting the bullets and bodies.
The severed limbs were twitching. Sometimes to go back
to their owners,
but the faceless torso selects a bush to hide the remains.
The leaves are falling on the make shift home of death.

It is time to know
who will judge the color of oozing blood?
Red, brown or black? ?

In rapt attention I can see a carnivore
without carnality there is a beauty of kill
a splurge of energy and game.
No hate, no envy, no greed.
It is not violence! It is nature! !
What you are doing with a charred face?
Changing the features of earth?
A little bit here, a little bit there
My tears will tell the tale.

Satish Verma

EVENING: A SELF EXPERIENCE

When the sun dips on the horizon,
I will invite the yellow moon.

Time raises the mist,
profiles become grey,
vibrating in trance,
limbs colliding in way.
When the love’s violence escorts you to death
red eyes will melt and an avalanche
will drown the landmark.

We were kith and kin,
now strangers in motion of earth,
meet only speeding towards dark.
When the life will miss the sorrow
I will invite the yellow moon.

Satish Verma

UBIQUITOUS BEING

I look at a slice of sky and weather
from the window of my sick room
tethered to the bed by depression.

Time has come. Somebody will lay me open.
Must I suffer with deep holes in buried mind
where tears have drenched the folds?
Everyday I burned my fingers in a
blast solely to test the truth, and for
reading the verse, rubbed my eyes with a
dream.

An imperfect wave struck at the legs,
wavered me for a minute and then washed away.
Sitting within tragedy rise a song, I
understand its fugitive moans, watch
the face, I am not a martyr but
an ubiquitous being.

Satish Verma

PROMETHEUS? MON FRERE? ?

Why you think of reversing the wheels
when life has stopped moving?
The time has fled from your hands
and settled on the body of death.
You are not intact and whole inside.

Where the path betrayed us?
Broken windows let in the dirt, smut and
heat.
The winter will be harsh, barren and cold
One by one swallows have departed.

The pain in neck does not go
an astringent blast overpowers
you become giddy, stagger for a while
and then become blind.

Your tragedy is mine, we suffer
for the sake of light.

Satish Verma

DESPERADO

They slaughtered the icon in captivity
as an act of mercy.
To know the secret of madness
why people were falling on knees?

Outside a small narrative will give
creased excuses. The spilled blood
always instigates to drink from the fountain head
of sweet revenge.

A promise has to be fulfilled.
Death has seen the door,
it will come again.

On this day the maniacs, bipolars and schizophreniacs
will celebrate the independence day
and show their trophies of dried skulls.

Now the time has come.
Everybody wants to commit suicide
to become a saint.

Satish Verma

HYPENS

Hired time felt that terminal import
was cloaked, and we were not ready
for the consolation.
Our conscience was giving a terrible blow
because world was not interested in knowing
why the man went outside of truth.

Who is deceiving whom? Closing the eye
while answering some question, you find
that shadows are not exiled.

Transparency of skull does not
betray the thoughts.
Clumsily you cover the swollen wounds
with a cap of innocence.
Eyes are searching for the snakes
I hold my rope and trap
It is flooding my ripe age!

Satish Verma

THE SWAN - SONG

Inadequately the clouds covered the moon
the wind was soft and silky.
The death of shadow was not complete.
Stars had fled from groans of night.

In the still room poor sentences could not compete
with the innocence of emptiness
which was in throes of giving
birth to a new meaning.

Weeping flowers were weaving a song.
Memory, my pain, returns again and again
I would never go ever to my old house
just one for me, it gave me choking
sadness.

The wanderer me, moves again, to switch
the lights on. You are not watching me.
I don’t put claim on my words. They
came to me from dangerous mistakes.

Satish Verma

POINT OF VIEW

You said it was a sin to trade for the hunger.
I was looking into your eyes,
something was amiss,
tears had become stones.
How long your breast was carrying
this despair?
You said it was a crime to hold the grief.

I was looking at the sky,
vultures have gone.
But pugmarks of hyenas are very distinct
around the house.
I am saving the chocolates for winter
kidnapping the heart.
You said it was an irony to sing
a heart-breaking song!

Satish Verma

MUM IS THE WORD...

When I started seeing you, needs were
accumulating. A great paradox.
The price is high for stoicism.
My inner life gets battering
Give me something to think of escape.

It was not a deliverance. I was learning
daily from the elixirs, a prudent toxin.
The other story is simple. It was the game of
enchanting annihilation.

Miracles sometimes suffer in the hands of
ordinary. The scales start tilting. No body
stops for you. Grief becomes your partner,
Silence in your bed.

The silence is ultimately the moment of
truth. Truth erases the lie and seals a
kiss of death.

Satish Verma

SHAMBHOOK...*

Reeling in faith, dread of truth overpowers
I loved the reason.
My legs were shaky when I was treading
on the barbs
getting ready for a leap in the unknown.

Somebody said myth was a whore.
It turns the men into sheep.
Tomorrow a person will become a chair
and belief will start a religion.

Superhuman entity is needed
to define the grief
It is not loss of tongue.

The woman takes to hauling
the virgin coal.
A green fire is to be kindled
to show the moon,
the pond is ready for the sacred bath.



* An important character in the Ramayana who was poisoned by Lord Rama only because he was reading the Vedas.

Satish Verma

AN AGONISED PRAYER

Death was prowling
from funeral to funeral.
No shadow will be spared today.

I am not ready yet for the final curtain.
Bullets have left some clocks
ticking in the pockets of time.

I shall call the leader
who is hiding behind the scriptures.

Don’t choose the destiny.
Don’t commit the date.
Anguish itself will find the path.

What was wrong with the earth?
It has stopped moving,
the stars are drifting away.
Another explosion in the sun?

I don’t know.
This world is heavy with pain.
Rivers are flooded with blood and tears
and I am roaming in the jungle of lies.

Are you listening?

Satish Verma

INFERNO

Speaking of our troubled times,
Incenced, enraged,
the crowd seeks revenge.
Reason drowned,
Unthruths pitted against individual.

My heart bleeds, beneath this monstrosity,
point-blank you ask the question.
Give me a chance to recover
I am deeply perturbed today.

Mist is settling on hills.
Cannot see the world through the vision of sunless god,
and I am going to walk under a cloud.

Ruthlessly the dust moves on
covers the faces.
Normalcy is out of town.
People float like corpses.

Toothache hurts. Caries are very deep.
Pray that it stops. I cannot chew the words.

Satish Verma

MOON STRUCK...

I have put the darkness
behind the burning flesh.
This world was not very open.

Stoically I lift the nameless grief
and take a leap in the blind shaft.

Morality had always been in contrast
with enormous guilt.
The adventure of turbulent life
was in quest of scraped moments.

Tender roots come out
from fallen seeds.
Of untouched desires.
Moonstruck I will gather dust.

Was it not sufficient to live on,
when past and future were not my part?
And how forsaken
was the moon.

Probability was always certain
and worship of a new messiah
a distinct possibility.

Satish Verma

THE BULLY

How it is that –
at shrine while saying prayers
sex was on your mind?
You hated the betrayal and emptiness of life.
but still tuned to sweet indulgence.

And then a sudden flash back
slaps in your face,
and you want to commit suicide.

Afraid of hurting your pride
I did’t fulfil my promise of wiping your tears
in a sprint of flinching ache.

It is night now
The words have a peculiar burnt-out smell
of the road,
as if they were smouldering
in hot ashes of peace.

Satish Verma

THE LOST ONES

On your dark face
smile does not spread like a butterfly.
Most reticent I had been,
It was very difficult to give,
and very painful to take.
You wanted to be noticed,
and I had a tryst with uncharted path.

It was coming.
The separation!
Like an anal pain of cancer.
The essence was, usurped by a deathly kiss of cobra.
Your thoughts, body language were wrapped
in a tarnished blanket.
Let us start a parallel monologue
on different selves.

Do not count the wounds.
An anthropologist has become a messenger.
The history, the fossils, the caves are shouting,
we were cannibals.

No sound will trudge now,
on our empty streets.
No knocks will come on our doors.

Satish Verma