CHESSBOARD

dark matters are floating
like bowls made of leaves
spilling hunger, make me upset, figures moving
like ghosts wrenching out the fish plates
from rails, nothing will move now except
the eyebrows of stone faces, bodhisattvas
sitting in scorching sun, unshaven, crosslegged
waiting for realization to come, not to
them but tormentors, a milky way in ever
night, the dry wind slaps on the faces
to remind them not to sleep, the shade
of the Cacti and Acacia seldom stubborn
to give you the shadow of the blades, the
sun ultimately compresses you in the
waist- high grass of death trap.

Satish Verma