FROM LIDS

a facsimile of torture
candlelit in moony dark
i want to unread the anointed death
on this tip of an arrow,

here it comes
the hissed phrase
wrenching the gut –
for conceptual withdrawl,

dawn of dark secrets
without footprints of echo
extracting a price,

do not stop fighting,
smear me with blood
hot spurts of thrills to defend the pink

in valley of counterfeits blades,
the green was fake,
the red was fake,
pure white poison

Satish Verma

DEATH OF A PROTEST

to celebrate a beautiful sin
on the green lake
a sequelae starts a covetous lust
of white skulls,

discovering oneself was as exciting
as the fondling of breast
for the first time –

innocent graveside, road burning
stretching to throbbing millions
harvesting endless tears;

inattention of grief
was the punishment of unknown
shredding the veil into bit pieces

the ferocious clawing
tears off the sunset of age.
your jealousy?
bitter screams?

Satish Verm

UNLOOSING

Maligned, the
space between us
lets go the mammary

a flame scoops up the void,
we speak no names,
I carry you in my skinned arms
to the weeds
for seminal mutability;

shipwrecked, i fear of depth
turbulence, I will honor the drop
on the cheeks of sea, green shores

in the night I will walk out of the snare
the gulls will come in a flock

Satish Verma

GREEN PASTURES

in lunatic scape of
fringed labellum
the creeping malignancy was advancing.
i missed a rendezvous with moon
when you had brought a blue kiss
from abducted lips;
again I become a sisypus
lifting the rock off your comets
of round tangerines.

something was missing from our parched
lilies, this teaching was hurting, in our maniac depression
tampering with our melting,
the body had left the golden leash,
the first liberation from nagging pain of verbs
the noun moved farther than silent classics
shadows in between
the fatalities

Satish Verma

RETOLD JOURNEY

Insane
I turn around
an amputee

to live, for not living
fighting the inner war
speared,
lacerated,
like neanderthal in cave

my weapon
the serrated moon
cried in fluted dark

a glimpse of bare bones
the ash of a bleeding dawn
my shuttered courage
in urn
there was only one evening

Satish Verma

AGE OF THE STRAW

Silently you went to disappear in blue -
alone or unalone -
I was watching a moth
on the burning lamp in night way
scrawled flat as death’s signature
on the heap of broken wings,
between space and time
an extra dimension,

the position of a point from void to
center of chaos,
life extracts the measurement,

a smile lost the lips
a vision, eyes –
outside body, the soul scribbles
mist and crumbs of age.

Satish Verma

A HUM

Take me, share me if you can
my heart goes to my sun,
my feet will go to my moon.

O, little home
my dream was bigger than you
in the melody of sorrow.

Will I walk again on the
wrinkled sands? what can you
visualize, which I have never seen?

Praying in the scoop
of fingers I feel, gold nuggets
in the throes of doubts –

neatly dug out from the frozen
past, birds, smelling sex, souls
suspended in air.

Was it beginning of hate,
on the yellow mountains
where I am climbing with wooden legs?

Satish Verma

THE BRUTAL LIFE

The unspoken words
had the unborn quality.
That homliness sitting around the fire pits
writhed in predatory hopelessness.
Insensitive to flesh
we were shooting the ducks in midair.

Rapture for the dirt,
deceit does not need a consonant,
the intensity confronts the meaning.

The impermanence of joy
restores the crypt;
the body was still to be brought.

On the winds
a crumpled name floats
recalling the orgies.

Satish Verma

THE GLASS HOUSE

Not yet, the courage will wait
for the curtain to fall,
will then disappear in awakening;

the crucial thing
was the love of absence
the scythe of eclipsed moon.

Suspense hangs from the tall image
in slow turn of thighs
lips reach the galaxies:

the first cry of new born
pleads guilty,
whispers will never be the same.

My fault, the animal’s feet
carry the burden of the straw,
words brought the grief.

In a triangular fight
my son, my god, my father:
I stand in the center!

Satish Verma

FACSIMILE

One fringe of image
disconnected, a knife within,

in a trench
battle still continues between you
and yourself

for ending of animal. Did it bleed?

Home was still faraway
a secured period.
Bouncing euphoria.

blunted and bailed out
paper thin memory
of broken mirror.

O Unseen,
take a bow,
lightning for a requiem
in sky, was embossed!

Satish Verma

VERBATIM

Can you come outside of you?

The dream inside a dream
of the show. It must go on.
For prudence of plucking
from singularity of indifference,
of mooning.

Once upon a moon in timeless moon
a green snake entered the moon
existing in a personal poison.

The pink, the yellow, the mauve
lilies, in a circle
going anti-clockwise
to dig out a black panther
in grass.

Of conjugal loyalty
in a fresco, when
color will not penetrate
the wall;
that wall –
remained dirty!

Satish Verma

WREATHS ON DOOR (for Suu Kyi)

fingers printed on face
they offered apologies for the mudslide
after the typhoon
standing on the mound
of twisted bones;

the state had the right
to trample and extinguish
a bright flame,
a meteor, streak of dissent

only the sect, the clan
will surround the holy tree
to save the doomed species in the jungle
of laughing hyenas

i see my limbs separated
a piano remains untuned

Satish Verma

COLOR CHANGE

from known to known
fear moves
in a circle, like a cheetah;

a jounery starts
from shivers to shivers –
when it was pouring

the taste of sting
ascending
loosening beside

between the lips
a word strieks,
terror spills from a naked eye,

you move inward
peel off the face
the eternal shame

of mankind, a hunger will miss
the date with a chameleon

Satish Verma

INWARD ODYSSEY

Eating fire, but entangled
in the cobwebs,
of becoming or not becoming
a child again;
in the hollow of a maimed body
looking beyond the opaque
hirsutism
of lies.

Path leads to inward lake
where I will meet you
on the white beach.
And snap the waves.

Let the winds blow now
in reeds,
between cracked heels.

Satish Verma

EMPTINESS

I identify myself with death which

will not stop coming.

There is no need to call for souls.

Winds are flowing in opposite direction

and clouds are scattering away.

Sun will soon be hiding behind the woods.

Softly, purring, death is lying in wait,

In stupor I touch its wings.

Disillusionment with painted foreheads,

more like the broken toys

brings a vast emptiness.

Still I am faithful to a commitment

keeping the door open

to lit up the dark room.

SATISH VERMA

ESSENCE

Secret death of questioning ghost,

isolation:

I was trying to hide behind sentiments.

For wholeness?

Walking backward

learning the art

to leave at right time.

Escape defoliation.

My inner green.

A half-moon entangles in your hair,

a faraway look in blank eyes

speaks for eloquent silence.

Who are you?

getting arrested by darkness again.

Flame, only blue flame burns alone.

Despair of essence.

SATISH VERMA

ETERNAL ITCH

When you sing no more

my little bird,

there would be left a voice imprint on the frozen tree,

like a black rose on a white paper.

An anguished truth will search for me

and I will write for you

a lone poem.

 

This is how I talk to my innerself

when I leave my body.

When I am sad and moth-eaten

and I go back to my empty nest

to fight with life and death

after collecting all my debacles.

 

A seed sprouts from the dark cave of

mind; against the will of summer.

The river shrinks from the banks.

I rehearse for the final journey,

fully dressed.

 

There is no cloud in the sky

slowly the eyes are flooded with human share,

my eternal itch comes back.

 

 

SATISH VERMA

DON?T GIVE ME ANY HAND

From scorn to scorn

from uproar to commotion

a macabre drama is being played.

I am the stage, I am the audience.

 

Lines are not straight, words burn

like fever on the choppy sea of mediterranian

the tongue bites like wasp,

I squirm between the leaves of poems.

 

Had not bargained the endeavour

for small deathly pricks.

My lamp is giving smoke,

but heat is intense.

 

Don’t give me any hand.

I am lame, I am hurt.

I want to watch my wound go deep

search for the questions, search for the answer.

 

Why did it happen ?

The animals are licking the ash.

My river may now break the bank,

I am going to overflow.

 

 

SATISH VERMA

STRIATIONS

Seeking mdutgence

like belly masks of words

in half-moon

I go crazy.

like studdering stars.

 

Humming sounds of poems

a swarm of bees in a box

like small buds opening with a musical explosion,

breezing scent of an absutraction.

 

I will wait for the tribulation

midnight tryst in dark

with spooky dreams.

The tune of hallucination has bee set

I am moving from door to door

to search my lost home.

 

Whom do I belong ?

I or me ? He or anonymom ?

Something has to be done for identity

of rhyme in transimages.

 

I may go hungry tonight

to invoke the rhythm of bluelight

striations of thoughts and current

through the mind.

 

 

SATISH VERMA

MY FAMILY

Hibiscus large, as big as your face,

lots of them,

like a moon broken on a lake.

A bush,

I carry it on my lips.

 

I look at the world through this red lantern

in nightness of shooting stars

Had always faith in smiles, broad, spreading

showing pearls in a row.

 

Sometimes lunacy takes over

without a moon

to stay alive without you.

And I remember the greens,

green pain, elemental and behind the rage.

I did not want to go

to the razor sharp, heaven.

 

My privilege to glow in dark helps me

I did everything differently.

 

I am grieving for my last poems

my flares, my family.

 

 

 

SATISH VERMA

DAMP THIGHS

I am arranging the pages of life.

In or out

yes or no

lies the broken self,

embittered memories.

Age has blackened the faces of mannequins

at the edge of salt lake.

 

I had taken in all, the purple heart,

with its pulsating agony

excuse was never my thing.

 

Somewhere a bell rings

keeps on ringing

clear and faithful

untouched by echo,

chained to a soundless sea.

 

Poem was not a possibility

in the anniversary of damp thighs

and goodness,

frightened prologue

gives a simile.

 

 

 

SATISH VERMA

CORONATION

The honed voice spreads the blanket, opens

demonic door to belly of ship sprawled on sea,

outraged by waves

froathing hysteria of darkness gives an escape.

 

Withering moon stands on horizon

in deep thoughts

to move or not to move.

 

A thorn in the bush

gives we a lethal prick

I open the blind gates of fame and unhappening.

 

I am becoming taller than the pain

I was your name.

come to say goodby today.

 

Barefoot I walk on water

forgetting the rags of clouds.

Today is my coronation.

 

Charisma of moth will exhibit

an outside self.

my desire will sleep for centuries.

 

 

SATISH VERMA

GREEN POND

Caked blood

on striated muscles,

you worshipped the seeds.

 

The lion roars

stirs the sleeping peacocks.

Pale skin becomes red.

 

Green and yellow mess of a matrix :

searching for an answer,

you scramble on the bed.

 

Take my sin, you said –

the penile god was not with me,

capricious as he was.

 

Community service for a condemned man,

let me take a plunge.

not for the body.

 

The glass house, mirrors on the ponds,

every wall has a door

leading nowhere.

 

Remaining a virgin for life

you are learning to swim

in a green pond.

 

 

SATISH VERMA

SYNTAX

I used to sit beside him

when he was dying inch by inch.

How earnestly I wanted to siphon off

my saved years, to his crackling bones.

 

Silently, without a word, yawning, then

looking into vacant space

soundlessly, we talked about the shadeless life.

 

 

He wanted me to release him.

I watched helplessly, his unmeasurable stance.

My father’s proud, erect past, glistened with alacrity.

 

How much my son will know my heartache?

my ruined shape? An ordinary man climbing

the ladder slowly. I walked straight

and walked drinking water only.

 

Go, my father go, rest in peace.

Looking down the lane, in time and distance

I will correct the syntax of life

and icy affairs.

 

 

SATISH VERMA

MANIFOLD

My arm aches while holding the book,

thing poetry.

Press me hard, doing your best.

Squeeze tightly my heart,

until it bleeds, untied.

 

Philosophy,

sometimes takes you to desert of grief,

in the moonlit night,

to talk to ghosts of yesterdays.

I stop at the dunes,

waiting for the music of gentle winds

to caress my body.

 

Peace at last,

away from swoops and bites.

The time holds the hands

and walks with you leisurely.

 

 

Being, of which being we should talk,

of naked greed?

or virulent desires?

nexus of game with hunters?

 

The scars will seldom heal.

Pain was necessary for nemesis, manifold.

 

 

SATISH VERMA