LEARNING

Can you freeze the years? 
Untrammeled mind? 
Why lost in consoles, for 
hurting odyssey? 

Why we did not meet 
in unhearing range? 
Like the grassy lips 
of silken stings? 

A moon? 
behind us the war machine 
was walking. 
Sunflowers had gone in a 
beauty contest. 

Tree lighting had begun. 
Who was the night-sentry?

Satish Verma

ABSINTHE

I was a non-believer in exodus 
of nothingness. 
Here you are, 
I am. 

In crimson sky 
talking of nobody, unbuttoning the moon. 
Fill up my glass 
with tears of joy. 

And sleep I must 
in the arms of sorrow. 
There was a shipwreck in absence 
while chasing the eyes.

Satish Verma

HAD BEEN

The most wanted moon 
was writhing 
in black sky, after a star 
fell for a pebble. 

The nymph had become 
a golden nugget in east. 
Sun was rising. 

Guilt of burning the sea 
was writ large on the face 
of purple clouds. 
I am collecting the garments of dew. 

Sitting in a night 
of waves, watching the theater 
going in flames.That day 
a cuckoo did not sing.

Satish Verma

NOTES

The absent moon 
in a tea cup 
without milk. 

Lips reaching moon 
like a reprimand. 
A spider’s kiss. 

Unmothered story, 
contempt untitled: 
Surface-tension. 

The speed of 
space in motion 
like winter smoke. 

The sun 
buried the snow 
in your eyes.

Satish Verma

UNTIL PAIN

Like a snowfox 
it stampedes. 
A mass panic of legs 
after the flame festival. 
Language moves like a landslide, 
without vocabulary. 

A love sperm will not go 
into the test tube. 
Baby was waiting, looking for 
mother. The wetland was boiling. 
The pain was worthy of the lamb 
sacrificed. 

Like a lantern, herpes zoster, burns. 
The ganglia in memory of sick embrace.

Satish Verma

FRIVOLOUS

Motionless within the ambit 
of moon, 
the rain squirms and flickers 
under the street light 
in the vacuous silence 
of a monolith. 

A cricket walks on a cloud 
and starts the lightning. 
The urn was blind, fills up with grief. 
The goddess climbs out of rainbow 
and accepts the message 
of fireworks. 

After the pain, there was 
frigidity. The lips will not move under 
the mortgage of unvenerable words. 
An innocent deal was brokered 
with stings about the truth 
of the wasp. 


Satish Verma

SLICES

Unimpeachable, 
the shrine wants to move on 
with snippets of pain. 
Man has failed the god. 

Teats were becoming omnivorous 
devouring the faces, ears and eyes. 
What would you like to eat 
stings or thorns? 


The curt bruises. Are you ready 
for the horses? The journey is long 
and tough to reach the citadel of truth. 
My hands are already bleeding. 

The betrayals. The foxes. The hyenas, but 
one love tigers. The majesty of kill. 
Why you are hiding the pen? 
Moon is riding on the church.

Satish Verma

BAILOUT

Moon stepped gingerly on clouds. 
Apples were painless. 
Yes, centrifugal goes the truth 
on a ploy, unveiling the sky. 

Pain of the dreaded times, 
was visible through the invisible. 
Tremors in the mountain range were 
palpable passing through the spine of faithful. 

I am not. But I am non-beliver 
in me. A real transcript of a restless 
syndrome. The oranges fly in all directions 
to gallows for humor. 

A false poem. Sexless. The uranium was 
getting rich. Bang, the hypocrisy again 
rules amdist the shaved heads. Exactly 
the truth lives far away.

Satish Verma

UMBRELLA

Like a brazen 
dancer of night. 
A phantom? 

With heart on chest; 
floating in air, 
like a death-scarf. 

You have donated 
the body for an angel- 
petrifying the moon. 

The hairy saint 
was unquiet, 
in a glass house. 

Who had delivered 
the letter to god? 
I pledge to stay alive.

Satish Verma

IRREPARABLE

It was lack of contusion. 
The relief had not come. Hours 
were on after the nobility moved 
on faulted track. 
Methane was rising. 

It was white death: 
people were coming, people were going. 
Pure and muddy, the treachery was 
like trace gases in a mine. 
Anytime the explosion will take place. 

The children were shrinking 
I do not speak. Watch the flowerpots flying. 
All the celestial deities have entered the lake. 
Take a quick dip in the nude serenity. 
Time was slipping out from the aquarium.

Satish Verma

HOMONYM

Don’t you agree with my ability 
to loosen up on our times in no night? 
A river thing was flowing 
through foliaged silence. 

In deranged hour of the 
neck tie, you throw up obscenity 
on road. What? Chicken hearted? 
Sickle cell anemia? 

Goat rioting before sacrifice: - 
the tiny feet will dropp from heaven 
to walk in blood and bless you 
for dispatching the head of unlove. 

The night hawk butchers the hope, 
if the baby owl cries again. Afraid, 
I am going to take a flight 
to yellowing moon.

Satish Verma

SUNFLOWERS

A preacher was shedding 
dirty tears 
for burning hills. 

Pinned up on tongue 
was a slogan. 
Death for all sunflowers. 

Draped in blood 
who was trespassing 
the sickle moon? 

I cannot raise the mist 
where you stand naked 
in sunlight. 

Somebody has killed 
the pathological god. 
I am starting a new kitchen.

Satish Verma

BEWILDERING

The restless legs take you, 
weightless, to marshes 
to find the stilts. 
The sea was rising. 

What was inside our tongues; 
such unclosing stink, 
we were afraid to spit it out? 
The wronged angels were waiting. 

A topless soul wanders in the 
rainforest.Amazing, the tigers were 
dead without wounds.You sit on 
the window for marrying a moon. 

The quick grafting of the roses was 
useless.All night it had rained. The hail- 
stones were as big as skulls. Eyes were 
gouged out and time was blind.

Satish Verma

GIFTING

O viola, 
go over the grapes 
and find an ageless green. 

It is difficult 
to be born 
again, undoing death. 

You swoon 
at the continuity 
of crossroads – 

with blue flags 
in your bowl. 
A rosette, 

without a winner. 
A birthday gift 
for all the failures. 

At seventy five 
you walk over a prairie 
to find a shade.

Satish Verma

UNMADE FUTURE

A golden cave was afraid 
Of a blue thrust. 
Hands were not able to console 
the mirror. 

Let us step back for a 
last laugh. You were talking 
to yourself when the canary was 
set free from the house arrest. 

Ah, the paradise, after all, was 
a myth. You had to beg for a violin 
for democracy and stoop to pick 
up a horsehair bow for playing the anthem. 

You had cut your fingers in a fake war 
with the moon.It was a miracle 
knocking out the stars. A self-made 
wound will never need the sutures.

Satish Verma

MOOD SWINGS

Must I give you 
the chilled truth of dry winds 
till the fire 
reaches the backyard? 

The half-thumb 
was held by the wheels. 
Why you were pushing 
the hearse 
of a dead lie? 

Anonymus 
was the letter written by moon 
to the damp cloud. 
The rain drops will never 
agree for the trysts.

Satish Verma

I KNOW ME

It was a freak accident of epithelium 
under anaesthesia. 
You place a window 
on to a hollow brain. 

The money makes the monkey out of you. 
A green light 
blocks the fish, your memory, 
to swim in black thoughts. 

The yellow rose burns 
in your hand. It was beginning of 
a domestic race. The nightmares will 
take care of the sleep.

Satish Verma

VANITIES

Was that a robot 
claiming friendship 
with the relics of past? 

Or a quirk of a raw nerve 
conversing with history: 
and we will wait for centuries 

to build a new scream 
under the pale moon 
in wingless night. 

Whispering sex to flowers, 
bees scrambled on the skin 
of wooly leaves.

Satish Verma

CURVATURE

The visible was most 
invisible. 

Watching the moon 
through veil. 

A bomb explodes 
in your hands. 
The poem wavers- 

and then falls on dew. 

This was not bone-green; 
original, 
not a fake cloud – 

to kiss the feet 
of a burning god. 

It was natural conjugation 
between enemies.

Satish Verma

DRIFT ICE

Absurdity was waylaid 
like a black swan on the 
grass shaking a leg. 

A child walks through me 
antithetical to scorched life 
of parallel egos. 

Austerity was neither present 
nor absent.Volcanic ash 
was spewing on recti. 

It was drifting, the snow bound 
killer, spilling the blood in sea. 
Home was still for away.

Satish Verma

RESPONSE

The myopic tongues 
of tall trees, going downhill 
to find the roots of four-letter words of dead, 
unspoken, but sung in dark. 

They had come out of the skin. 
River was flowing on emotional track, 
with heavy eyelids. Father said, 
he would never die. 

Your unborn children were tasting 
the salt of the road still untaken. The pain 
in the neck was grizzlier, 
when the sun was retreating in virgin hole. 

Moreover, the wrinkles will tell the tale 
of truant hands who would not 
play with the silken adolescence 
of a delirious moon.

Satish Verma

SHARED HEAVEN

For the dream slaves 
the incense has become a moon 
for the alchemic effect of tear’s stain 
in erotic war. 

Ask a mooner, 
will he bring her to bed 
for a song to measure the cantus 
between flight of strings in midnight? 

The small bruises of stars 
were playing under the lemon tree 
in sinking clouds. You must know 
the richness of poverty at night. 

This was the theme to play, 
it was enough to have walked on golden 
leaves of November, while I was collecting 
the false truths of life.

Satish Verma

LESS ASYLUM

This fake city 
encounters 

a thundering 
moment; I go down 

coveting a mating 
call from an explosion 

of hallowed 
questions, with no answers. 

Stones were after all 
stones, not gems of knowledge. 

How can you make a 
universal elixir figuratively 

out of garbage of 
human tongues?

Satish Verma

ANEMIA

A sage plant scrambles for the 
mob, walking out of bed 
and begs for a death. 

The adolescence had become 
graphic. Do you agree with the 
splurge of moonlight under the street light? 

The unborn stink was hovering 
after the shipwreck. The seagulls 
were bewildered. 

There was only one slogan 
for the black booth. 
Priest was sitting cross-legged in a liplock.

Satish Verma

PARADISE

So my absentism will prevail 
over presence; 
I will talk to you in space 
between the moments 
of autumn red 
when nothing else was moving. 


In classical pursuit, I straignten 
the equation and we understand 
the complexities of life, and agree to depart 
unlooking at the moon, crossing 
the river of silence, with no blueprints 
on hands. 

The random pain will eat the words 
like a vanGogh painting.

Satish Verma

OLDIE

One day I will meet you 
on a dirt track 
and ask about back yard 
where moon lives. 

Will you give me a kiss of the clock? 
I have forgotten the back years. 
Autumn now takes care of my assets 
and I keep on erasing the names. 

O, harvest moon, don’t go away. 
I was playing with the black thoughts 
eating the yellow grass, 
learning the alphabet of white pain. 

It was a crystal midmoon, dark animal, 
who has taken away all the tears.

Satish Verma

MIRAGE

A futurist virginity in black rose 
was seeking posthumous award 
for immoral kisses of thorns. 

Unaware of lethal thighs 
skipping the lunar landscape 
at night.

Were you going to leap over 
the mountains curling across the glaciers 
of white pain? 

I will extend the shadow 
of infinite truth, 
when we talk about the half-death 
of unborn hunger.

Satish Verma

FREAKING OUT

Before the spill there was 
soaring. And then anti-g. 
I readied myself 
for the ultimate fall. 

This was the poetry of submission 
sharing the pain of disillusionment. 
Who was pretending of liberation 
in a see-through heart? 

This was the time when 
you run amok 
under pheromones of dead clones: 
the drowned dreams. 

Pelting stones at moon 
we were made for each other.

Satish Verma

IT COMES

Waiting under the opaque moon 
a primeval instinct takes over you 
and you start arriving. 

A black bone 
renders the ash on your forehead 
and you complete the circle – 

reaching childhood; you start 
climbing the ladder, 
for instantaneous release. 

The insects don’t forget the trail; 
you were bleeding from inside. 
You were never alone in a crowd.

Satish Verma

BLOOD DIARY

Writing on sleeves 
to remember your departure 
and becoming a stray cloud. 

The maternal touch 
of the sky, you can sleep whole life 
on dense logics. 

White sheets were burning 
unannounced in the home. 
I lost the key, to open the door. 

All I wanted to tell you 
about, selling the roses. 
Thorns must not go free. 

The snake was shedding the skin, 
time to hone on whetstone. 
The tender loaf was ready.

Satish Verma

THE CANDLE BURNS

Not a single word added today 
to my tinsel book. The brown eyes 
were searching my smile. 

You want to close the happening 
of first moon and the fig. 
My roses start a new dialect, 

waiting on the clouds, almost 
in rains, spreading the wetting 
agent between the eyes. 

The distance was the most crucial 
thing, that does not end; 
endlessly stretching.

Satish Verma

I AM NOT

Time capsule in gangrene 
foot. It was madness of the legs. 
There were no sins in the ghetto. Only 
illicit distillation and girls changing 
the beds. 

It stinks when he says he was god. 
What was the ism of the sex 
in the language of violence? Trash, you 
throw the half-eaten apple on the road, 
and sun rises nonchalantly in penthouse. 

Not the full moon tonight. I will filter 
the moonlight in my cup stealing the 
autumn from the lavender, despair 
of the tormenter.

Satish Verma

HUSHED SPEECH

Was worried about the assault 
from inside, 
holding the shoes of his sons, 
he was trailing the sectarian kill. 
Utopia had its own weapons. 

I was trying to understand schizophrenia 
knifing for peace. Do you think mental 
fragmentation would find me on 
the door bell of sleep? I was walking 
through the hard kisses of death – 

on mouth so that I would not speak 
about the valley of tears.

Satish Verma

IN SELFISH VEIN

What was the idea of charity, 
when you were hiding 
yourself from you? 


Was it a non-existence? 
Or you were writing an 
unseen anthology? 

Was that your kin choice 
for a reciprocal pain, 
inflicted in dark? 

Between right and wrong 
I am laying my wreath 
on my grave.

Satish Verma

PLASMA FLOATS

Like a bikini top 
two hills were rising 
in a spiral optics. Has 


an altruistic vision. 
A wildfire erupts between 
the thongs of dead. 

You have a mobile message 
not to praise the sunrise 
in the woods. 

I am watching the flames 
with a fury 
of a wounded tiger.

Satish Verma

GHOST TOWN

Watching the descent 
without god 
in an intelligent design. 

Come have a look at 
our adversary. 
The template offers an open hand. 

The culture of hunger 
in this urbane obscenity 
sitting on the payment making a motif. 

The giant strode into 
the hut to blame the poor 
who would not eat his words.

Satish Verma

ADDING TO WOES

Again I would hear the night sounds 
through the hours of civilities 
when there was a pause in the body 
untouchable. 

You were sleeping with counterfeits, 
running down the golden dome 
sailing over the silken clouds. 
My rough palm was still holding the pen. 

That mirage, that fire on the road 
had cheated us. You had pushed me in an 
aging portrait. Alive, I am looking at you 
from an empty glass.

Satish Verma

GIVING AWAY

A study of soul continues; 
hold back the animal, 
discovering yourself in blind light. 

Awaken the hungry child 
of autumn 
and give him the dreams of strawberries 
to eat, time would drink his tears 

sans lips. A second death of the 
pain of separation from the footprints 
of hurricane who bartered the home 
for psalms; 

counting your failures. Take the bowl 
and go to the hills of soaring flames 
and bring back the burning song.

Satish Verma

SINGING WOODS

Walking out of the body 
I was drowned, 
accepted and condoned by depth of sorrow. 
A wide circle of testosterone 
giving pardon to a sin 
becomes sexless. 

You were overwhelmed by the missed beats. 
Your prosaic crime of not fathering 
the words becomes a belly dance 
for wrinkled verses. There was no meaning left 
for the artifacts, the national shame. 

The autumn was praying for the 
well-being of pine needles in fog. The repetition 
of the outbursts was cold and I 
was smiling.

Satish Verma

BLOOD DRAPED

It was coming up, the politics 
like dirty sex 
in tall Parthenium grass. 

The panther was hiding on a steppingstone 
watching the hot, field hockey 
played with skulls of peers. 

Mauled, the peach skin was 
entertaining sunlight in 
the metaphoric village. 

Prisoners of false ceilings, 
we sing the anthem with 
the crowd of wolves.

Satish Verma

ROAD WAR

Hoisting the bisexuality 
on a figurine, 
I crawl back to anxiety. 

The primitive instinct 
was taking over the stitches 
on a snake. 

What do you want from 
a moon for the drooling 
mouth of a seashell? 

Braiding the breasts 
against gravity, 
earth wants to defy the duality.

Satish Verma

STRANGE MORROW

On your face the shadow of a transparent wound 
bungles the capricious climate 
of the death of a thought which you could not 
carry very far. 

And that was all when I asked you some questions 
about life. You started opening a beehive 
of kills and subcutaneous pains. 

How do you spell the happiness in beliefs and 
starvation to achieve the resolution or incredible? 
The mistrust between the cause and effect was 
surfacing, though there was plenty 

of solitude between the trees and cuckoo’s 
calls.A crazy spell of silence in prayers 
when we were very upset about our gods.

Satish Verma

MOVING OFF

After a long time, I heard them again: 
peacocks. 
Bequeathing the pilgrim sun to palm trees; 
poised to open sexuality. 

Ah, the purple lips of a downing 
cloud sets the sky on a chase 
for a lost love of the blazing 
moon in the starless night. 

A recent pluck of a sharp grace folds 
the lingerie, you open the fist to let 
the explosion fly away. 
This was the start of a crimson romance.

Satish Verma

NINTH MONTH

Goose-stepping on a soul song 
you set the sky ablaze, 
and I was not ready to welcome you. 

I was hungry and I was thirsty 
but could not find the road. 
Back and forth, back and forth 

walking with the toad. You can guess 
my predicament when I said 
that, I am, not I would 

assult on the chaste fruit 
of the moon, growing on the 
tall tree of September.

Satish Verma

REMINISCENCES

The sludge overtakes the sane 
euphoria.A barefoot caravan 
of cloud becomes edgy. 

The hills have gone green. 
The cascading falls 
tend to mount on the scattered stones. 

Suddenly I go berserk and start 
hitting the stars moon by moon, 
when night had betrayed the lover. 

The collected grief of the lyrics 
will answer for the blood 
which hunger spread on the lips.

Satish Verma

THE PRESENCE

The hawk was landing. 
Squinting at the urgent need 
of slaughter and hope – 

among the frightened hunger 
of truth, of running feet 
in the tall grass. 

A world apart in 
seeking the reality of 
dying for earthly love. 

I was not sure of 
the manifesto of bricks and 
stones falling on evergreen kisses.

Satish Verma

BURNING

After the puppet show, 
the nest was calling. 
Indeed, the leaves held the slanted light 
expanding the shade snared on branches, 

of dancing ash, of almond eyes. 
Why the hangman was waiting 
for the echo? The river was calling. 

Was this the inheritance of less 
talent of pugmarks, which strayed 
into the city of abused words? 
The book was calling? 


After birth there was no death of my 
rhyme. The flesh has gone, only 
the burning bones are lying 
on bed of roses.

Satish Verma

INTEGRITY AT LARGE

Was that a non-devil effort 
to hide the language 
from cultural onslaughts? 

The anger splits the opinion 
about hurting goodness. 
An isolated insult will spur 

the words against the flight over 
the answer, before the brush 
with picketing fear, showing heroism. 

I speak for unknown enemies 
who wanted to alter the season 
by planting horror on the street.

Satish Verma

HEALED LANDSCAPE

An unusual melody, 
a reticent antiquarian 
I will wear my galloping age 
with your dark eyes. 

The lines were drawn 
in the crocus fields. 
We were fighting for the wild 
immitative geckoes. 

A toad stumbles out from the eyelids 
of a zero hour. You will not 
touch the counterfeit of questions 
thrown at the meadows. 

Evening of life celebrates 
the failures. In the beginning 
there were no lights. 
End came with a red moon.

Satish Verma

SPOTTED IN GLASS

Perfect bridges for a fading light 
taking you to dark caves 
like fireclay in fake sorrows. 

The superstition of a race pool 
and unearthing the sacred temple 
under a mount of lies. 

In vitro a baby god sleeps 
waiting for a butcher knife 
impaling the hymn on thorns. 

A silver lining for a black moon 
who refused to walk away. 
The stars were frightened and bewildered. 

A corporal punishment was waiting 
for the sun who neglected 
his duty during sundown.

Satish Verma

REVVED UP

It was getting dark. 
The insane curve of greed was rising. 
I would not draw the boundaries 
between the words. 

The finch was immersed 
in soliloquies and light was waiting 
inside the seeds. 

I open my eyes 
and yell at the clouds in hyperboles 
becoming stranger to myself. 

Who belongs here 
in slit eyes? Each flower was leaving 
a blemish, for the winter. 

Tell me, 
who you are in the twist of reality. 
A proverb is going to be taken away.

Satish Verma

DANCING ON LEASH

It was a failed attempt 
to employ the eternity 
for breathing. 

Iris, I cannot find the moon 
behind the rainbow, when 
I was throwing petals at your feet. 

O, white truce of anemone, 
why phosphrous was given up 
at the fall of an oak? 

In heaps of praises, 
a monologue of the lamb 
in the den of lions.

Satish Verma

FOR ANYTHING

A fake sanity with its wisdom 
enlarges the space between the coarse 
land of craft and sea of emotions 
for stress to walk with soul 
in sleep. 

A dope for the last hurt in hurricane 
at burning lake where I was collecting 
the black seeds from the fallen tree 
of love near the deck of house we built 
on waves. 

Do not corrupt the innocence of sky 
enveloping the rage of sun. The call was 
imminent from the dead leaves of autumn. 
One day the anginous waste will become 
seed vessels.

Satish Verma

SPLENDOR

While writing a poem 
I make a blood hole 
in my hand. 

A walnut face 
opens the wrinkles 
to find a jade green nephrite 
for colicky times. 

A prelude to 
a death sentence 
for profane thoughts. 

You think, you can postpone 
insomnia of the longest night. 
The insects were waiting in wings 
to crawl on your beloved body.

Satish Verma

ALWAYS

How will you carry the mount of tears 
in the vally of temples? Kites flowing 
in sky of beings-egos-denials and 
repeals. 

Smiling at pain I unspeak to a keeper 
of cage, under the shadow of golden 
roses, walking with blue eyes of private 
hymns. 

I craved and dispossessed myself in the 
rainy convulsions. The stupidity of 
invoking rainbows. In tall grasses 
the eyes were looking for the brazen 
clouds. 

And I am arrived today at the quirky 
revealation to exist or not to 
exist amids the crouching facts, trees 
down shedding the arms and legs 
always.

Satish Verma