BOUND BY CEILING

Sitting at the edge of a bubble
uncooled, trying to light an eternal flame of anonymity;
counter the wrangler, one skull in each hand,
of ancestors, you prepare for the crime of breaking
the umbilical cord.

Ostracized, you forge the ariel in arid zone,
burned, one patch on the eye, rubber thighs,
sniped at, lay still in a pool of blood,
in cauldron of terror, the brilliance of sun cracks
the marble statues.

Avarice of black boots mirrors the borewell;
washes out the color of smiles on blue lips.
Fireflies sink in darkness of punishment.

Satish Verma

STRAY FALL

With gray wolves around,
he put the gun on the chin
and pulled the trigger.

The crowded nest and tainted gemones:
the double helix had the sex crumbling:
consensual hate.

Some beasts and hairy saints
were turning the world black,
sitting on marbled floor and talking of white moon.

Drifting faith in swollen eyes, watching
a burning train;
tomorrow I will travel again in pursuit of walking trees.

Proud legends like scorpions
climbing on your throat. Enamelled stings
ready to spin you blue.

Clams shut on the poor pink,
honeycomb becomes a trap.

Satish Verma

AGAINST DEPORTATION

Ahead of pain, we did not cry;
intimating of dreams, crowded;
stranded on issues, reaching nowhere.

Black, a weired hairdo, unfurls a moon
in half-sleep. You can open the door
without sound. The snake writhes under your feet.

A traveler waits for a hymn, holds a green
urn, full of tiny eyes, looks at sky and returns
the darkness for any possibility of light.

The missile whistles down; hushed, gnarled
fingers start the rescue efforts in a lonely
cosmos; goldilocks starts howling.

Terror strikes again in offering, so far
about nothingness; a vague, masked scapegoat
sits in bold greens, to start the beginning of end.

Satish Verma

ECHOES

It was burning again
like goldenrods in drift valley of ethnic hate.
You start climbing down deeper in fear
holding tight your identity.

The anguish of ruined home
under the shadows of bribed hands,
runs on the bodies of pilgrims
who were protecting the unborn baby.

Along the shores of morality, a prodigal
becomes a martyr, forever a blind rock
in the womb of an infant truth, not yet
reached the gates of heaven.

A father begs for pardon, spawning the
tireless edicts, with its grieving craft
of burdens and weightlessness. The time’s predicament
will not tell the secret of death.

Satish Verma

AIR WAS NAKED

After the putsch, through night he set himself alight
ensnared in flames of societal conflicts, for a
vision of tomorrow, in the birth of a bloody dawn.
The drone of history had failed on a loaded salt.

A solitary murder of truth was sufficient to unsettle
me for a downturn of unborn wounds of drowned
voice, of a requiem. The dead were coming back to life
in dark alleys of black skulls. The pink scarves

were still holding the snow flakes of standing
wheat for the thirsty children, of grieving mothers
who lost the homes to red hands, the white paper,
the hungry guns. The thieves were coming again.

I was never naked in my blood, my howling bones.

Satish Verma

UNRAVELLING

An outcast, stripped and beaten
up, the sickle moon
smears the clouds with blood.

I hate to wait for –
the sun to undo this mess,
an ethnic mutilation will bring a chaos.

Nursing the peripheries,
tribes were in pursuit of bayonets;
will not surrender the arms

to mate.Unceasingly they are
digging up an abysmal grave
to throw in the truths in uniform-

in pursuit of feathers, offering
for temple archways, turning
on the future, for past glory!

Satish Verma

RANDOM SIN

In pinnate physicals, the thing,
moves like a stark terror
savagely. A primal fear

takes over, because dead don’t
speak. The bullet had passed
through chest. Mutiny of dumb

dandelions, lipless voices in the
sea of madness. Search for a missing
truth begins. The mass grave

contains the dried bones of renegades.
You remember the promise? Who said
we will end the war?

Listen, he bows his head, before
the trespassing starts to kidnap the
bed. Jealousy kills the snakes.

Satish Verma

DEATH OF ABSENCE

Gladioli stand in a tantric daze
under siege of prism. The colors fall dangling,
unsettling silent memories.

I thought I was nervous
while playing a smell game of wild guns,
when tanks were rolling out on streets.

A final farewell before exiting
the garden, in my ceremony of death.
A child lies down waiting for the boots.

The wheat grass of beggers,
never to mourn a falling cloud
undesires a dropp of blood on tongue spilling on skin.

A terrified leaf disturbs a mirror,
civilized image of a private crystal, beyond
the virulence of hiding legs.

Satish Verma

LAND’S SMELL

Our mouths go dry
at midnight charter on papyrus leaf.
Are we reverting back to pristine stone reliefs?

How far we will go revolving around eclipse,
stumbling on the phraseology of cosmos?
Man was becoming inferior to beast.

Who will walk on the bones of ancestors
to dig out the truth from scriptures?
The proud cows have become violent –

separating milk from grass in agony.
The perks were increasing the rifles.
Freedom had fled away from the legacies.

The split lips cannot speak coherently.
Terror attacks were reaching there, where
drenched amnesia wants to remember only door bells.

Satish Verma

FLESH AND BONES

Signs versus shadows in city
of reasons burst amnion.
White cranes manipulate black clouds,
smudge the nomenclature.

I want to become deaf
in grazing blasts. Young lovers
dance on machetes; nifty wounds
of red alpines.

Thieves loot the basket of zodiac,
death on tall trees.
Even the grief has enemies,
for another farewell to sky.

You could hear the finger tapping
on the empty belly of little girl
from the broken childhood, not allowed
to scream loudly.

Will the sanity grieve on the charred
remains of a virgin, in the exiled home
of a brave truth? Then two little hands
will thump again in fog?

Satish Verma

DYING SCREAMS

Shall we go like innocents with heavy
breathing in the pool of blood to find
the innerconnectivity of a boldly beautiful
death? In the open pit of an ancient gold mine?

There was a loss of hidden dance, in the
cancer striken human chain, chiseled on the
grey walls of history. The artifacts stolen, even
the ankle-bells of a toddler had gone up for a sale.

A visual oval gives a liable comment. A
flame nauseates a baby doll. The yellow hornbill
puts up a fight for the sake of memories.
There is a huge silence of the rocks, moaning inwardly

None of me was a god. A simple slum’s promised
dream.Hungry roads will lead to a ruined temple.

Satish Verma

THIS DAY

It was inheritance of pain. I should
have known. Incontinent, she was scared
to hug me: the child, after the rape. Shepherding
the lacerations: petrified, a body of lad

floating in a sewage tank; a short circuit in
an incubator, row of infants, life snuffed out in flames;
of being. I want to know ontology, need a
spinal surgery; somebody wants to abort a fetus,

because of mistaken identity, an alien egg
was implanted; racing time, bitter and corrosive,
it happned for the first time; karma, you say.
I don’t agree, you need camel’s milk to clear

your thoughts, like clenched fist against the
darkness; the little child, lad, infants, mortality after
a wrong calculation; the test tubes and petri-dishes,
need despoiling while the soul screams in a

cage; I am ready to jump out of the window,
stories down on the legends, unburdened!

Satish Verma

ONE ANTHOS

Someone connects a bonsai to elemental peat.
Your visual collides a clay bite
of water, deepening the bottom of invisible fence.
My primrose was waiting for you.

Polychromes become volatile. An inventive
missile leaves the trace for a predator to scoop
an angel. I was afraid of wrinkles, the
disjunctive pain. Only an insane can walk
over the fire. The cat’s claw will take hold of freedom,
the bleeding wound of mutual hate.

I sit listening to ceasefire, shirtless soldiers
cleaning their guns, you still seek the empty vessel.

Satish Verma

SANTHARA *

When honeycomb started dripping,
he stopped eating and climbed a sand dune
for the last journey.Pall-bearers were ready
for blunt futurism ceding to a deliberate defeat.

Hunger was his turbulent empire, resting
his hands on the shoulders of rocked time
for the purification of greed and spurting desires.
His only mechanical aid was his pen.

Into the half century of geckoes getting rid
of tails when a monkey was found in the stomach
of a croc.Toons themselves spread out mocking
the winter of hexagonal windows. Grey birds

started melting on the burnt-out grasses.
Lions walked on identical twins of nudes.
A wet kiss of death ensured the beautiful
ceasation. Yellow roses opened the frigid body.



* A soulful ritual of Jainism when a person seeks death voluntarily and stops
eating and drinking.

Satish Verma

UNBELIEVING

Today gives me an ethernal hurting
of the raging night, my moon had crashed
on the wings of flamingoes

While saying farewell to crying winds of the
creek when waves slapping sideways on crazy
shores of silence, another watchman of sweets.

Impared longing till it starts burning
under the eyes, so I am the priest and I am the god
of wasteland incisible in drifting dust

Of voicelessness on the doors of schizophrenia
in order to stay dane amist the freedom of violence
of uncaught heydays of drag queens in transgender

Era of dragons and quivering flash of tempers
between breasts of hills in a green sky it would
be sleepless mystry of gullible hounds

Satish Verma

MILKWEED

Mundane indulgence for a prlonged state
of agony in truth of fake lies and synthetic tears,

bloated rendition of angels; the hate crawls
out from the ruins of time. I crave for the musical

instruments left in the room. The song was inside
the winds, became untouchable in obscene

display of naked screams, the freedom of
stones to kill the

black roses for rivals. Somebody stages a
comeback for toppling the victor. A viper

is thrown at you in dark to deliver a message!

Satish Verma

UNLOST EXISTENCE

When an embryo was growing in a petri dish
I said this is it my adieu
for I am now ready for a new journey of self denial
a skull in my lap
after the abdication of ancient fear
the eyes of buttercups poked with hot iron rods
a hoe breaking the neck of a bowed man
to humanize an ugly beast
my fragile hands make a cup to collect the light
of a fading sun to pour on the stillness
of the dream’s dark roaring
that’s how a pinned butterfly becomes
resigned for capitulation

Satish Verma

TENDER FALL

This bonded fear bids for power,
Will I destroy myself in valley of puppets?
War in dreams,
of sins and morals of masked pretentions
wears me off. Time rolls violently
near the periphery, before it flies away.

One chaste run to the shadow of sorrow
burns you alive. Sitting on a heap of sandlewood
you turn into ashes, the sweet aroma
drifting between its rights and wrongs,
evasions and commitments,
hunting for the truth.

Great exodus of principles in green
martyrdom, brings out the blood from the color
of terracotta. The figures on the walls
start talking in falling light, de-icing
the sun, like the dust on this side of dark.
The violence rises again.

Satish Verma

de……..

When hope returns, will you be in
alternative mind?

Like a praying mantis brooding for a prey
in a bowl of momentum while I have a
sense of alienation collecting a cloud of

Memories ripping open the gates of tears
and blood for the human cost of dementia;
the disorientation was not complete in

Orthomolecular state, a suicidal visit will also
not bring the diagnosis of pain and iridium hole
of perception in a concentration camp for
searching a bomber base, whether milk thistle

Drags the fears out of the bodies and heals.
I would not come back to hemiplegic wisdom
of the land that was lost centuries back to
occuping, omnipresent knowledge, the eagle
had burned his wings in holy fire!

Satish Verma

PRIVATE MOORINGS

searching for words in continuum of
incompleteness, it was a trickle at first, then
a free fall, cerebral fury: I am becoming expansive,
so apposed to verbatim of shrieks, only

in whispers I will talk to delphiniums,
I would walk inside the time capsule, come
and sit besides me for a while, I am tired of

this ghost town, and fleeing shadows of
waning luminories on the horizon in

half-naked blooms; on different shores
U-boats are being lowered with torpedos. I am

waiting for the hurricane

Satish Verma

PRIVATE MOORINGS

searching for words in continuum of
incompleteness, it was a trickle at first, then
a free fall, cerebral fury: I am becoming expansive,
so apposed to verbatim of shrieks, only

in whispers I will talk to delphiniums,
I would walk inside the time capsule, come
and sit besides me for a while, I am tired of

this ghost town, and fleeing shadows of
waning luminories on the horizon in

half-naked blooms; on different shores
U-boats are being lowered with torpedos. I am

waiting for the hurricane

Satish Verma

GRAY HANDS

It is neither end nor beginning, I am
still suspended between punishments, primrose
gives one answer, hollyhock another, I
catch the moon in flight to west and
enter a sand grain to probe the universe

for the sexual selection of a terror bomb,

harbinger of mass destruction, give me some
asparagus to uproot the cancer for the sake
of a humane evolution: bougainvilleas are

not blooming and in twilight I wait for the two
eyes of a panther which start blazing in a dark cave,

she was expecting to deliver her first progeny
of gentle cubs

Satish Verma

NEW VERSION

even vultures will not devour the proffered
war time victims, ruined was the impression
of untitled sacrifice, a wild anemone

slips into the river of blood, I tend to forget
the faces of embers –

arson by apostles of peace, it has become a commodity,

oppression releases a promise for optic illusion
through large-prints

a near miss when the truth chokes to death,
suicidal full of nerves-

the hills tremble in anticipation, lambs
were dropping dead on a green patch

such obligation

Satish Verma

BENEATH THE SKIN

It was not a demigod, elephantiasis
of a beast, snakes sitting on head. A catastrophic

tree view.I was proud of being alive during
carpet-bombing. A catnip was needed to clear

the vision. The town was moving out shedding
its landmarks. Nocturnal flares were disturbing

the lovers. A chronic shift in sex starved
season. The birds had stopped going behind

the bushes. Each day seeks permission to bury
the dead, and grass waits for the noble feet.

Ultra hemo cover was not there. Drained out
we were becoming pale to account for the loss

of blood in cross-firing. Ultimate pain in chest
will unburden the task of a funeral prayer.

Satish Verma

TIME’S BURDEN

I am not too well, he felt.
The flames chased him in charred landscape.

Fighting over, he pondered about the
crime within, the surge to find a nest hole.

A wounded pride where the salmonella hits.
You enter a slot for more enticements.

Any patch of vague tragedy among the barren
desirability, shares the accident with sacrifice.

Unhappy, you reverse the mode of retrieving
against the terms of swimming alone.

Where was the death’s arc to capture
the mistakes of life? Was an archaism

sufficient to kill the untruth? No implant
will enhance the height of achievement.

Satish Verma

CHRONIC WAIT

When a full moon was taking a bath
by the serene lake, you moved about in
abandoned identity, your sides flaring up.

A slate gray nubion cloud was tossed
around by a tall tree. Hotstepping you despaired
to prevent a stillbirth of a genre

in genocide of anonymous flora viberating
in cyberscape of ominus sentences. The
exhibitionist was taking over the podium. Petit mal

brings the heels down of worshippers anointing
a pair of sandals. Someone goes a non-linear
fashion, denies the holocaust and howling.

Hospice was needed for non-believers in any
case. A continuum of exurbs intercedes in the
slaughter of bovine names.

Satish Verma

UNBECOMING

A gunny sack was full of bleached skulls.
What now? Do I attend the auction
of mortal wounds in hidden valley of dust?
The arsenal of seductive weapons was a snub
to your culture when the fall of extremes
was overlapping the sunset of empire.

I am going to take my walk in the hell of fire
raging in petunias. The emotions are becoming
volatile after the rape of a child. Is there any
medicine for rape? Nowhere on earth, the violence
stops moving shirtless. The dead century hangs
from the eyelashes, traces the dried up tears.

Some people think, bricks are weightier than
truth. They burn the buses under a weeping
willow. A high caste god will not glaze beyond
the frozen lake of crutches. Belongings on a
striped road vanish in books. A hate gift
drops on tulips.

Satish Verma

SLEEPLESSNESS

Through the elements of fear in faith
you become vulnerable to conversing legends.
The reclining god was stolen from the temple
for a weeping skull.

Red clover will interrogate the blurred sky
for domestic violence of dark themes. Ashes
in a terracotta urn were not involved
of a body disrobed. A prosaic

flight of birds was circling around a humpback
sleeping on a lone bench.There were no qualms
in valley of ebbing coat of arms.

You want to coax the nuts and screws
to shut the thousand windows.
A pinhole camera may not be able to capture the light.

Satish Verma

NATIVE OF DEATH

He had started his own manhunt
for an autistic seal for a personal vision
in deep waters. They had left him to die at bottom of pain.
The silent screams against inhuman brutality

started coming from underground. A photo
montage was emerging on the walls. I
dip my fingers in blood to write my name.
Just the untitled truth will speak now.

New species of frogs are making headlines.
Men were becoming amphibians, sailing beyond
the shores of kisses to bite.

They were starving for the sun in caves,
to watch the murals for a resume of flames.
The snow was covering the peaks of shame.

Satish Verma

TWILIGHT

On periphery of gestures and casts
I speak for fading integrity while a fossil
of a scream was stolen from the womb
of language.

On becoming silent, an untitled truth
shakes sensibility. Small vignettes track
the battleships of calligraphy. The sermons
wage a war.

The saints praised the puffed up sheep,
suffered the asylum of Atlantic for astral
hopes to cross the folds of virginity. Splashed
motherhood refused the onslaught of tears.

You make inadequate love, exiled in
intimacy. Blood-drowned statements
will not make to the surface of time. Century
moves not for you, not for me, not for him.

Satish Verma

DIARY

He went under pile of words
to tie the thread of understanding
but was stoned to death.

They put the piglets in liquid nitrogen
for future generations to study.
The point of departure had come.

Navel-gazing was the best pastime
for the commander whose sepoys
were fighting the battle for freedom.

I have to say something which I need not
say. The fight is gone from the bleeders.
World was moving towards the poles.

We should talk about looking, not only
owning up our blunders. The import of
saying No has been cooked under the small Yes.

Satish Verma