LOSING AGAIN

If erupts again –
the eternal hate of caucuses.
A pipe bomb detonates in a gulley.

Death glides as a superman
like a mutiny in the bowl.

Night stumbles against the kissing moon
on the shore of waning hope.

I will not mourn for my color
I am still nursing a grief.

Walking alone in the shadow of walls
to unhear the screams of dawn.

Satish Verma

FALLING

Something impossible would happen.
Truth was too much to operate,
life was easy with fakes.

Neither mortal pain, nor needles
would mend the wounds. The chasm
was deepening. And I stitch the orange lights
with the kisses of green tears.

For the punishment of disjointed commitments,
I dream of the killings
standing on the corpse of faith. The
obscene slogans raise the dust,

of hate crimes. The color of the race
was spreading, on bellies, on stones.
The night will bring spiralling comets
in the sky, burning and emptying
the pure.

Satish Verma

JUDGEMENT

In a death-trap of a stadium,
as if I am stoned to death.
Chrysanthemums bloomed in vain.

On your body three beasts climbed
for ravaging a fawn.
The rape was only your fault,
you had to die.

When a crowd of thousand bystanders
came to watch your mutilated body,
you had left for home,
uncrying and bleeding.

A human soul,
undefended.
Now a script will be protected.

Stones leap to praise the ghosts.

Satish Verma

PINK EYES

Pigments on rocks were darkening.
Violence had permeated like skunk.
Enough to go numb. Stream of blood.
Entire limbs were missing. You want to go
insane, deoxygenated.

The bomber was going to face a firing squad.
Were you ready to bring back the body
home? Mother was wailing?
Law was blind and absurd. A victim wants
the terrorist to live, arms severed, genitalia
blown off!

Was it in you, the violence? Guilt in me?
Are we not responsible? As a price of sorrow
I resort to silence. Nonviolence accepts the evil,
the fact, the truth of now.

Fear? The decline? A collective dying? I
cannot cry. It hurts the arguments. I am
red and bruised. Will not survive the sunset.
The subsequent years are bleeding.

Satish Verma

ONLY BEING

Walking the path with otherness;
not achieving anything,
I, condemned, to remain solitary, decline
to join the gods of a crowd. So that
my sun, remains shadowless.

No, it is not the final verdict.
I was always incomplete, unburdening
my cipher, failing against the blood
that demanded uninterrupted flow, blending
right and wrong. My words were too much

to say No. The melting snow remembered
the names of the trees. On the breast of
earth a signature theme plucks the
grass to make way for the rose beds. This
makes no secret of betrayal.

Less prudent, I blunder, try to untie myself
from future, and become little me, playing
with the mask of present, carrying my blankness
to become hungry again, for the knowledge
which was never my fatal being.

Satish Verma

TOO PROUD

The wail fills the genesis;
you are not living in me any more.
Outside a grey mist of absence prevails.

For a while there was stillness
of white death, then roaring of a
hurricane, before it struck the ancient wall

of a levee. I started gathering my
sky, in ruins of a screaming town.
Faith was walking without legs.

Annihilation with a smile of a calender, starts;
trees and bone littered floating.
I start to understand the stalling darkness.

The human bleed now attracts the wolves
to maul, to tear, to drown
the breath of burned out spirit.

Still a cinder smoulders in debris,
to dislodge the burden of life,
for the face lift of a hanging man.

Satish Verma

FAREWELL

They will not allow the assisted suicide.
The beetles; fiery and drunk.

After the betrayal of arithmetic,
the spiral staircase.

Fireflies set foot on the skies
to measure the darkness.

The fire between us, of burning fat,
of thousand years, terrifies me.

Moon bleeds on grass, I prick the
voice of the hugging earth.

The salt of the lips now hurts
it was your parting kiss, O sun!

Satish Verma

THE REVENGE

A mob rapes a moon
under the blue sky.
Then parades her half-naked body
on the streets of clouds.

Arousal of anger
devours the mate
in a nocturnal rendezvous
with a sea horse;

cuts off the head
to shake out the frozen tears
from unweeping eyes.
Life stares face to face

with death, of a star.
A slow hesistant voice
opens the layers of silence
for seeking justice.

Truth weeps making no pretention.

Satish Verma

ADAM’S MEND

The bald mannequin, stands
undraped, without genitalia
moving the lips.

The choreographer walks in
caressing the knobs
to open the invisible door.

There would be knife between the teeth
and dance in the flames
to lift up the veil,

to kill the sorrow and pain.
A spill from the eyes becomes
red. The whispers

will decide the prices.
Glass case will never be empty.
Sweet show will continue.

Satish Verma

ONE HUNDRED LAMENTS

Trading the sweetness, a rainbow
on icefalls, you will come back on rocks
and drink the elixir of death.
A fantastic dream of soap bubbles in a tumbler,
ejecting the inky grief on the transparent glass.
The pink goddess of wealth
will descend again in your bowls. Brassica
will decide the future of grass.

The moon ride has become cheaper in cans
like sardines, unethical but sleeping with god.
Thongs were visible on steps of bathing ghats
for the benefit of bullfighters. Gibbons
indulging in aerial bombing. Comfortable
in groves jacarandas were smiling.

Unlike you I smelt the dried flowers
between the pages of history
to meet the shadows on the walls of time.

Satish Verma

MUD ON MY HANDS

Green eyes in the crevices of rocks
will not let the fossil weep
for innocent sun.
A mayfly floats like
a dry leaf on water, in the circuit
of sharks.

I offer not my robotic arm, insulting
the jaws in the crumpled solitude
of night. I will walk
with new moon to understand
the wetting of a bleeder,
heart and soul.

The umbilical pain again catches. I cry
in my own silence. This was not the
end I wished. Hearing aid
to feel the sting of a scream,
which rises from the depth of a blue
lake wounded by pride.

Satish Verma

SULKING

The promised apple I did not eat.

The red skin started bleeding
in my palm. Butterfly flesh
was unable to glide.

Two round, intense eyes were chasing me.

A namesake volcano
bursts open in my chest,
then I notice the flowing lava
from hungry eggs.

The earth will not conceive again.

In the backyard a blue jay
was waiting for the golden seed.
I suck a fatal tweak
in the sundrunk green.

Thirsting for the logic will never the unmade.

Satish Verma

SONG OF BLUE

That fake encounter
takes place everyday amidst peels of darkness
and terror strikes you when you were
looking for the healing torch.

Clutching the old rags of history
I sit on the pyramid of bones:
somewhere the sanity puts up a metaphore
in the abyss of ashes.

I travel with untouchables to unburden
the past; between us we throw the questions
to escape from the sizzling heat of truth,
lifting the lids of time.

Cause will suffer, the answers linger
pure as glittering lies. The purple
guilt smells of a dying flute.

Satish Verma

SCENIC BEAUTY

What do you think
a redemption of a clone will work
in the galaxy of stars?

The hope was drying and violence
refuses to decline in the valley of flowers.
Orphaned moon climbs up the hill
to preside over the murmuring truths.

Nothing seems to work
for the liberation of long night
and the winds put off the lantern’s light
which was standing on the shore.

A black widow crawls on my chest
for a certain drenching by a sucked heart.
Still I stare at the black eyes
for a washed up death.

Satish Verma

CALENDAR

Writing on my sleeves,
I visualize an invisible coupling
of grassroots with starless sky,
when I walk on the wailing earth.

Hails big as sparrow eggs
smash the bougainvillea blossoms.
The wrestling clouds
begin a storm.

Witchcraft of the moon begins.
The pubic curve of a rock
holds a centipede
wriggling, gnawing.

A spider climbs the weatherbeaten
cheekbone
and indulges in navel-gazing.

Satish Verma

WHAT HAS TO STAY

Like I want to erase the fear
before I light a remote fire
in the blue veins.

Actually this was the crisis of self pride
in manic depression
seeking the anonymity of toes
tracing the footpath.

Becoming a paper-boat
in the winds of flesh and fancies
on the choppy sea of death.

No spinal pain for candles
to burn in courtyard
of sunken faith.

Red grapes in a tiny bowl
leap to lips of sun
for sons and daughters. Ajmer, INDIA


Satish Verma

BY THE WORDS

Always he was picking up and counting the pins
to distill the essence of rainbows
and find the symmetries of elementary
laws and eating leftover words from the table.

The terrorists had wired his house and he was
not aware of it. The wrinkles on the face
for the bridge destroyed, would not bring
peace within. Times were different, icy and slippery.
He hated only himself for the failure of ships
to sail through the scope of explosions
rage and tears. The madness of unchaste
happenings submerging the cognition.

His tongue was heavy, hands writing the epitaph
on air. The bald eagle scoops a bride,
slices the breasts for the green stigmata
of liberation. Ajmer, INDIA


Satish Verma

MELTDOWN

Unveiled,
the moon will find you
after morose beginning
of becoming – me

Homophobia creeps in,
beyond the condemnation,
the incompleteness.

You walk straight in the arms
of contradiction, confusion
smearing the wall
with your crimson, nihilistic words.

Every other person
a demi – god
stands on your fears, sends whispers
down your ears.

To abdicate the colleagues
of dawn.


Satish Verma

IT DOES NOT MATTER

After a face – off
you toss the coin
resenting the liquid fame.

Frame extracts the price
of picture.
Compassion for the artist was missing.

I suffer in mid moon
between darkness and light
clarity of rags was improving.

Homage is now going to hurt
after the fall of ego, in
ending of alchemy.

In spite or sorrow
a face drills holes
in my wheels.

Satish Verma

LISTENING TO FORGIVE

A distended deceipt takes over,
when you,
you become the fear –
under a distorted moon, tangled,
unscripted. The damp nails
scratching,
on the skin of light
after hurricane.
Ruins stand on broken skulls
praising the icy death
bringing the race on brink.

Killer smile shatters the wholeness
of imagination. Letters dropp from memory.
Words uneven, meanings disappear.
you search
the needle to stich the history.

Satish Verma

THE DEBRIS

Give me the whole
of a fragment,
I am standing on a frozen lake
of inadequate compassion.

The totality of implications frightens.
Look deep in my eyes
you may find the plumage
of the green peacocks. They are gone.

Walk on the burning coals
to perceive actuality. Life slaps the illusion.
Debris falls from a shooting star,
overwhelming the clouds.
Rains will not come now for a while.

History heaps few glares
on the spinning darkness.

The theater runs for an empty house.

Satish Verma

WHAT CONCLUSION WAS LEFT?

The seizure,
volatile it was,
the way to tell, for the things
he did not want to say.

You suffer silently.
Coming to boiling point,
for the starkness of the torture.
The abridged wholeness was empty.
Only howling remained.

Can you measure the pain?
The depth of the wound?
Start the dialogue with the unseen?

The flame protected in the folds
of a primeval skill,
now singes the clarity.

Between you and I no space was left.

Satish Verma

THE CALLER

After breach in tolerance
one peeled truth becomes incendiary.
Afraid of the known:
pitched against
unknown.

Dying young with stiff upper lip,
the grief,
was not curtained enough.
The malignant spread,
refused to retract a name from the epitaph.

Greed overtook
by calculation,
powerful thrust to run the winds,

the virgin grass will not surrender.
Lethal on the move, a humble shout
was nearer to god.

Satish Verma

THE WHOLENESS

Days are crisp,
nights chilled.
A lake of fluid fire, under the clouds,
prepares for a virgin assault.
I do not thaw the frozen hurts,
respect the disguise of the old lover.

Hearing my own voice from a distance? I
stand by the shore,
discover my lost home,
become a valley of sphinxes.

And the wetland kicks the pain
of earth to break into insanity of scars.

Satish Verma

IDOLATORY

I say to myself, why did not you learn
the ways of life?
The chariot blew up in your face.

Blueberry, blueberry –
they bloom in dark.
How difficult it was to stay normal
human being and speak your lines
carefully.

I will pull my hearse one day
unspoken, unseen.

This mirror has no more trappings.
It is reverted into original glare.
Hang your boots, it says.

I say I am a lobster
in a water tank,
listening to waves;
ready to be boiled,
when idol wants to eat.

Satish Verma

PAIN KILLER

A city dies in me
anacephalic.
A white sheet spreads/
blinding.

You don’t feel the epidural.
Untitled, death walks/
like a whore/
contamination of inbreeding.

Recycled pain
hurts again. You want
to give a stillbirth
over the dense-packed nettle.

First birthday of a dream.

Satish Verma

CLAWING NIGHT

The waves crash at your threshold.
You had given me lot of tears:
I was dying in me-

in veiled existence. I want to hear me
loudly; my secret coming,
across the book in black box.
The androgynous deity
limping back to shore.

The claws, gnawing, stretching, giving
arterial push to the dead thighs
of ailing planet. First purple, then black
gangrene appears on the toes.

Chase of wealthy robes, spilling of sperms
for sake of virility. The slicing of time
gives dividend to survivors.

Satish Verma

INVISIBLE PARTICLES

I care less,
walking on plateau.
Now,
mind rejects the peaks.

A small patch of green,
I knead on ice
of firm orbs.
This sterile landscape starts a fire.

My hands knit a taciturn probe
to enter the inconceivable.

The particles sleep in metaphors
of a baked sky,
where the stars bleed every night.

The fear looms large.
I sit in the crevices of hurts
to reduce the dimensions of time.

Satish Verma

STONES IN CRYPT

It was midnight moon
cruising in the bedroom.
I step aside in the depressed window,
watch the overwhelming spillover.

I listen, then do not listen to alien voices
of bipolar beings, speaking Aryan,
artfully in cryptic signs
crunching the bones.

Black crucibles throw up bright stars,
in cruciferous crow bars. Pungent
smell of armpits. Dizzing heights
of memorials, becoming digital targets.

Deathless deluge of totems, claim the
corpse of earth. The screams start
coming from buried caskets.
Divining rods disappear.

Blue spirits trying to fly away.

Satish Verma

A NAME OF CLEMENCY

Belief will lynch all the vistas,
one by one,
for art of living,
to break the silence of innocence.

I will scream, when hurts bruise
in temporal sleep,
for man’s hymns of wheeled corpses
wafting in eternal cliffs of truth –

being proud strings of a forgotten song
in the valley of death
chastening the majesty of scars.

I will pray for the brief funeral
of old age,
I shall not beg for mercy.

Satish Verma

AN UNBORN PRAYER

A twisted journey starts on wings
after the end of the road. Ambition
sits in corner,
nonchalantly and a tempest
hollers around the spires.

Broken down from parched ceiling
a mural turns into a mundane knife.
Lifts the rage,
of the fallen shirts
and starts a war with bleeding arms.

Light weeps on the shoulders of night,
I am not yet conceived in the womb.
Suns and stars
beyond the innocent years
have not crossed the boundaries of guilt.

Naked mankind sits on the banks of grief
after the futility of mourning
for death. A child rises from the shadows
of flame.
The eternal burns become green.

Satish Verma