THE NATURE

Unmaking the bond
between cause and effect.
You start throwing stones
as a mark of intimacy.

Ipomea:
You wanted to learn the
art of blooming silently
at dawn.

Huddled like solar flares
before colliding with
a drift, you wanted me to live
for eternity.

Watching sperm dance
without tails
in bell jar.

It was barely visible.
Cultivating a digital entry.
This was becoming
a terror-haven.

Satish Verma

NOT HOLDING

Not begging,
for a native dream;
hiding an ocean in the eyes.

The hills were trembling.
I am going to cross the river,
of flames.

I am sitting on the dirt floor,
counting the cowries.

This was my home,
that was my book.

Playing the game of death.

What had you written, O god
with your quivering hand.
I am still following a riderless horse.

Not the least. Any want...
Give back my blank page.

Satish Verma

ASSAYING

Sailing,
triangulating the body.
I will not come for the false blues.

You dig out the bones―
to evaluate the sickle,
that failed to trim the dark.

The murder was clean.
A religion lies beheaded.
Anaerobic, the poem survived.

The animal smell,
stays.Overpowers the limbs.
You run blindfolded.

The crickets emit an omen.
A sulfur burns.
The yellow sun was rising.

Satish Verma

UNJOINTED TIME

Let the untold suffering
settle the incompleteness of truth.
You have to move out―
making space.

The empty chair fills in
at dark. I talk to my father,
daily about the remains of life
and falling debris.

A son does not want to
know the futurity. A dazed poet
will write the history of ruins
which was younger than memory.

A resilience still brings me
face to face with the gods of dead souls.

Satish Verma

ETERNAL NOTHINGNESS

A dirty word
waits for the chilling moon.
Be aware now. I am
going to ask the black mountain.

There was no credible
reason, why did you wait
so long for a chimera?

A chaste excuse for
seven seas. They wanted a close
encounter with aliens.

This was spring of orange
and black monarchs
who have to distribute
the gifts for hunger earth.

I cannot understand myself.
Sometimes I am happy,
sometimes I start grieving.

Satish Verma

HOMEWARD

Suddenly, the full moon
pops up soundlessly. I was stunned
by sheer nakedness.

*

Will you catch a
butterfly for my reluctant wine?
I had invited the black roses.

*

A city does not
sleep any more, after the call
of service, fumbling with the locks.

Satish Verma

A WRONG TURN

Standing on deathway,
choking back tears,
for a stance.

There were few minutes left,
when you took the cover
under pervasive falcon.

Was it not a
molestation of a baby moon,
when you wash your sin in dimlight.

Amazing was the
religion of short legs.
An ailing mother was waiting at door.

You strike a chord
(while I don't stir)
before anointing the dark.

The battle of penultimates,
after a hill down
shackled to river.

Satish Verma

A BRUISED MEMORY

The basics to live
was with the peeling off,
the tangerines. The innovative flight
takes you to surrealism―

of a countdown, which begins
to send a subsonic device
to small jupiters.

You receive the call and
jump into black sea―

eliminating the foes, breaking the bridge.

This moment after sometime splits,
ejects the god particle.
You slip out of backyard
to embrace the apparition.

The ending was never a happy thing.

Satish Verma

No Vilification

Do you think milk?
The medicine,
had already become
a bromide.

One benign question,
opened the potential
of conflict. The fan-
tasy? Golden knife?

Devastating me. Car-
essing the dark, did
you stop by the moon
to say hello?

Unmasking the secret―
of immortality? Ephebic.
You were always lying
to yourself.

Satish Verma

DAY OF ANXIETY

Between the soft glow of
twilight and moon, it was
cold. For a faithful swan.

*

The black smoke billows
from the rooftops of mud houses.
Time to celebrate a dinner.

*

I will not give up,
though nothing was left to do.
Atleast I can write a poem.

Satish Verma

WHAT A SCENARIO

Put me through the
french knots. I am
under the gaze of
a jilted lover.

A freeze melts in
the rainbow. The dew
sits on the eyebrows
of the grass.

The spark splits
between the shadows.
Someone has hanged
himself from the window.

There was no life left
in the stump. Now
bristles will not stand
at ancient sites.

Satish Verma

FOGGY NIGHT

A machine pain,
scripts the name secretly,
intones the verdict.

*

I don't need,
to prove it, like the man
who sells the dreams.

*

Privacy interrupted,
I have come out in open,
to commit the god.

Satish Verma

ARMLESS FIGHT

Who was the dancer of death?
You went for the kill,
and not for the killer.

The frail armistice. You
launch a drive for the drill.
It was more than what―

meets the eye. Looks like an
Armageddon. You begin in earnest
to ward off the paranoia.

Nativity was at stake. A
captive psyche fights the fading
memory. Your face goes blank.

My things and your things.
It should not have happened this way.
It should not have happened that way.

Satish Verma

BRAIDING THE DESTINY

The time will not heal. The
aging looks. Erotica. Each
scream ends in a dry river.
Who had the right to deliver
the needle and a silk thread?

Sometimes I will read you for
the signs of remorse. There
was this rigid wrinkle which
will not move on the face.

It will not matter if the grief
overwhelms. The scare was
real. Regurgitation. The bell
will not ring today. The pod
splits to release the seeds.

Come my mentor. I have tested
the floor, smelled the rope. The
translation should end tonight.

Satish Verma

HEAR MY VOICE

Needing a bit less,
I wanted to discover myself.
Raise the chimney.
The house in on fire.

The door sleeps in the room.
Sun will find no corner
to sit. Can you call a cloud
to make the floor wet?

The knuckles come alive, rap
the window to stay calm. Someone
had knocked out the space
and coming in to meet the hunger.

A shrine has asked the roads
to be washed with tears of pilgrims
who had come from the faraway
hymns of darkness to script the light.

I am carrying the seeds of my
native place to find the roots.

Satish Verma

A LONG NIGHT

Without words, I wanted
to write a poem. Would you
read it from the moist eyes?

*

It was a strange thing.
Finding the darkness of whitemoon
in blue air.

*

The wolf was there
in the house, to
molest the moonlight.

Satish Verma

RECALLING

It was snowing, snowing
very hard. Hold me
tight, when the wolf comes.

*

The wolf comes in red
cloak. Why did you ask me
to pin a white rose on him?

*

There was no quiver,
no tremor. The murder was
clean, without blood. Desert ants.

Satish Verma

THIS AUTUMN

Like water hyacinth of lake
you cannot run away
from your psyche.

*

A separation from the
body was imminent.
Moon was calling.

*

The myth was there,
and summer, the night
opens like a medusa.

Satish Verma

RECALLING

It was snowing, snowing
very hard. Hold me
tight, when the wolf comes.

*

The wolf comes in red
cloak. Why did you ask me
to pin a white rose on him?

*

There was no quiver,
no tremor. The murder was
clean, without blood. Desert ants.

Satish Verma

BLESSING

At dusk, when moon was coming up
fidelity was challenged.
No soul was searched.
It was the body scarred in bright sun.

One pink petal flew over the cloud
and landed on the lake.
Will you gather the name and
send it back home?

It was a sacred gem, in the
navel of organdie, you had
worn on the night of a slaughter.
Opalescence, scolds the light,

dark was beautiful?

Satish Verma

THE SHRIEK

Arising before the dawn,
to meet the earth,
your honeymoon was over with innocent.

You start becoming extinct,
with stained excuses. Naked as a belief.

There was no contradiction.

An imitation will take over,
for the surreal tomb.

A gift of rain will fill the bowl
left for Buddha, who was still sleeping
with eyes half-open.

A sage grouse begins the mating dance.

Can you speak for the scars? They
promised to remain mute.

Satish Verma

INTERACTION

Holding the truth for the
sake of time and space.
I will not ask your name.

*

In fading moonlight
you had abducted my boat.
How will I cross the river?

*

A civil war erupts between
the flowers of morning glory.
It has changed the way you think.

Satish Verma

INSIGHTS

It was less savory.
The tibia breaks and you
enter into unbuttoned dress.

*

The deviance was abusive.
I cannot accept the celebration
of skin, unwrapping small Buddhas.

*

When the fear recedes, I will
move around the words―
to seek the meaning.

Satish Verma

FRAGMENTS

One night, in moon
labyrinth, you will find
the ache of a lone survivor.

*

I think, I should
have read the anthology
of white death.

*

An acid attack, burns
the black roses.
Would you come at dawn?

Satish Verma

One Rendezvous

Sweet grapes? There was
no exit from the question
hour. You left the sky
for an answer, after a soul-search.

An appointment with unknown
scares you. It will not
work.It will not breathe.
They had taken away the gold

and left coal mines.The aliens.
You become outsider in your
own home. The time drips
on your unmooned face.

A middle low pain and a middle
low moan will prescribe a
valley of terracotta to make a
new road where you can walk straight.

Satish Verma

On The Boil

You would not know,
when, a desire,
becomes kismet.

A face shrinks
and glasses become large.

You squeeze your eyes
and look into the sinkhole.
It had devoured the holy spirit.
the thoughts, the poems.

I survive the limbs,
the body, and walk out from
the prison of prayers.

You do not want a deemed liberation.

Only blind spots will do.

Satish Verma

Overreacting

Do the shadows
talk solemnly, when
the light goes out?

*

Walking over the
cobblestones, you return back
to somber childhood.

*

It was a sudden assault
of the wild winds.
The rusty moon
starts bleeding.

Satish Verma

BREATHING AGAIN

You dig in your heels,
when blood spills
under the skin.

Refuses to go, the homeless moon,
I will call the snow to cover the sod.

Scavenging,
through the stray thoughts, you
pick up the threads, to knit―
a scarf for the poem.

Body born, a planet
breaks, in your epic. The ivory
shaving will make a white gold.

The birth pangs start in natal pain.

Satish Verma

NO MORE, NO LESS

Noway, I will ask
the poem, to become stressed out,
like the street,
beaten and used again
and again.

Where do you want to go
for a rendezvous with―
unknown, in dark,
groping for the unsung,
unseen meaning?

Time is worn out. You live
on the fringes, unselling
your ancient home, submerged,
after the earthquake,
triggered by ghosts of comments.

Satish Verma

Time Crossing

When I hold the pen,
it trembles in my hand; the poem.

The catharsis.
Zero minus, to no to everything
against the main stream.
You start kinking.

Gawking?
Every night I carry my glitches
to bed, to fight my demons.
Falteringly, you speak:
it should not have happened.
The genetic aberration?

Nudges the crass exhibition
of alphabets of exorcism.
You invoke the dumb gods, who will
not vacate the accelerandos.

Satish Verma

SOLEMNITY

Give me a lone word.
I will write a poem.

You enter the final hour
of diagnosis. The kill
was imminent.

Back to back two trysts collide
generating a fire.

Who was peeling the moon?

The stab sets in. In
abeyance of the gift. I
will give you a scar.

Daisies will remain awake
at night, for the vigil
of a slain pilgrim.

Satish Verma

A SCARE COMES BACK

I have never been the same,
after watching, the abandoned

moon, rising gracefully,
and becoming secular. There

were no words, no speech;
but a biological war had

started between the shadows,
like gondolas in the air.

You unexpectedly turn blue.
Somebody had left the bloody footprints.

Satish Verma

Fake Arrival

Gliding on the clover
you invoke the sky.

A tiger moth lands on the―
sweet viola to seek liberation.

You die to find a rival―
to cheat the moon.

Everynight a silver bleeds
to write your name on the stone.

What you dream, does not
become your neighbour.

You give a big hearty
laugh to frighten yourself.

Satish Verma

Thousand Moons

On the rim of a beer glass,
stand, white crystals of salt.
I was watching a pale moon.

*

The lone tree always
waits for the dipping moon,
to give a parting kiss.

*

I grieve for the viola.
Why does it extend one―
petal for a landing pad.

Satish Verma

LAST HOPE

When the dialogue stops
there will be a royal bleed.

I had not come to the
terms of slaughter.

Wanted now, to manage
the anguish incontinent.

Can you find some space in
waiting, for the hangman?

Footprints and invisible faces.
Somewhere a hope lives in amber.

Trapped light, in wintery dark,
will stop a seed to play the nocturne.

Satish Verma

SCRUTINIZING

This jungle of words.
Fear, like a badger
comes, and sits at my door.

*
The insects, I
am tired of them. All the
time I sit under a bo tree.

*
This city was
like an ocean, full
of predator sharks.

Satish Verma

The Futurist

Unpunctuating,
fear will slice the time,
and you will be a sitting duck
in the hands of brutal clock.

Drink, Apollo,
with round eyes and
limbless torso. He walks on
the curves, reciting mantras.

There was intrigue and blackmail
in return for not telling
the indiscretion of celibates.

A damp squib. There was lot
of hissing sound, but no
explosion. Procreatiom will
stop without fire.

Wants to return to pines.
The cones, the pricks and
swaying hips of splendid suggestion.

Satish Verma

MARIGOLDS

Wanting to know about
the violence in cuckoo's nest?
Heard the first call to court a mate.
*
You are not lonely
today. Moonlight will be
there at night.

*
The dark melts to
spring a surprise.
Suddenly there are colors around.

Satish Verma

Conceiving

The knife peels off
the silence.
Colours were very shrewd.

*

Tonight I want to sleep
open-eyed, to keep a
vigil on shooting stars.

*

The wood god
had no limbs. Only jewels
were used as prostheses.

Satish Verma

Few Points

Write me a poem,
under the flickering candle.
Moon will not come tonight.

*

I was very sad today.
Could not find the vault
where I had kept your prints.

*

Not far from the lake
where we used to walk,
a blue bird has arrived.

Satish Verma

BENEVOLENCE

Need mercy for a
Freudian slip.
I was sitting on a window.

The light went out
from the eyes of the masterpiece.
Only stones were left.

Give me the figurine.
I wanted to cut open the navel
and find out the blue god.

Will you pull the chariot
of moon? The black horses
will not send the blessings.

The dawn was still hiding
in a bunker. First you feed
a child and then kill the rising sun.

Satish Verma

THE ASSAULTER

You were aging by nights.
Days will not seek
to defend you.

Drawing the landscape
of a snowfall,
you will die in a portrait.

The world meets
you again like a jawless
lamprey with sucker mouth.

Beyond the blues
lies a tower, where
you will not find the stairs.

In battlefield, stands
the army of red ants, ready
to pound upon the moonlight.

Satish Verma

The Drowning

The ancient war is on.
You kill,
or get killed.

Do not jostle.
You were sinking in quicksand
taking on the depth.

In exile, you
wanted the remains of
a brilliant moon, after it was possessed.

The poet will find
the jungle, standing quietly
after the execution, was stayed.

Between the witness
and accused, the judge will not
reverse, the slant of the truth.

Satish Verma

SEMINAL

An early bloomer:
you jumped on the otherside,
of Milky Way, at night.

Hearing the voices,
from inside,
becoming a Buddha.

The semen, without light―
sprouts, into a mad tree.
Not normal.

Starts walking at acute
angle, randomly,
for a cosmic, rare encounter.

A severed hand
writes the destiny of man
who went wild.

Satish Verma

MYTH OF SUICIDE

Be laid:
with your private wounds
beside me.
For otherness.

Can you come out from―
your flesh, and watch
the ribs, becoming
infrasonic?

The desiccated dreams,
inhaling the fire,
drinking pain. You have
come full circle.

Can you describe the
journey of dead souls?
Without tears? Are you
going to reject the end?

The ruins are always a beauty.

Satish Verma

Walking In The Woods

Like war of words.
A fierce battle of winds
erupted between
mountain and woods.

There was no
rain, after the clouds
gathered. It was time
to say goodbye―

to moon. The sky
was playing host
to fireballs and coming
meteorites like man's fall.

Satish Verma

Cutting Edge

The rocks in water
like words, between
the tears.
Quasi-pain, reverberating
like a river.

It flows―
intermittently. The lava
of an active volcano.
You want to cover
the smashed skull.

The mirror
breaks, under the shock.
It had never happened before.
A nude streaking
on the screen.

The moon had nothing
to offer. Over and spent.
It moves on its axis
ungoverning―
the stars.

Satish Verma

FLYING GLASS SHARDS

The mess you made, was
apocalyptic.
How the debris streaks
like a fireball.

The blood becomes
a sheer truth.
Moist, sticky on
your hands.

Up in your sleeves
the past hed planted
many wrecks,
You will not be able to retrieve.

The burnt-out roses
emit a beautiful odour.
The phoenix rises again
from the colored ash.

Satish Verma

THE CLAN

As I come, for molarity
without molars.
No grinding was left
in the millstones.

The family
accumulates. My distorted shape
will not accept
the broken ankle.

Paraplegic, you run
faster than meteriorite.
The boom was heard
beyond cacophony.

It had come from
the blue. The burning anchor
of desire, without
the damp eyes.

Satish Verma

OBSTINACY

Be tender, with me―
in midstream.
I will not arrive.

Perversity was not
my virtue. I am still
burning on coals.

It was a disappearing act.
I become a brown rose
in your eyes.

The impacted glitch.
I was not deft
at the art of weaving a ritual.

I carry the dried skull,
of my unknown ancestor,
who would not come back to home.

Satish Verma

LIKE AN ASTEROID

Burning rocks had
a near miss. The
questions splatter
the blood-

to inspire and break
you inside and out.
Unbecoming, to end the
relationship. The story―

begins of an introvert.
The ungreen grass waits
for your wet toes,
to breathe again.

The blood-money was
very high, after the―
violent end of a
blade run.

My pillow is soaked of
a moonfall. The anguish
of a bodyless grave
was haunting.

Satish Verma

SENT ANONYMOUSLY

It returns to haunt,
the dilemma, of disowning
the old version of truth;
when I was searching the parallelism
for the sake of otherness.

The unreturning melancholia,
brings the surreal intruder,
I did not want to entertain.

The insane activity of heart
wants a sin uncommitted.

The flirt eyes like a tulip
between your fingers,
unrolling the tender petals.

Night throws the salt on the moon.

There were no tears.

Satish Verma

UNEXISTING

A fugitive moon
appeared, after the blaze of the sun,
in a frozen standoff,
died.

My room was dappled
with pale moonbeams shadows,
nestled on the―
blue walls.

There was a constant drumbeat
coming nearer. He wanted
to quit. You cannot change
the legacy of dark rooms.

A manhunt must start
for the thief who stole away
all the voices of
a departed soul.

Satish Verma

Secret

Calling back, the snatcher.
After the outrage,
Eros was on run.

*

The lyrics melt
on lips. Moon will
not tell the wind.

*

A sparrow sits at window sill
when I am thinking
and looks straight into my eyes.

Satish Verma

Implacable

The moon titled her head
and went inarticulate
in black and white.

Seeding the earth with
stupor, undoing my―
poem in water.

An asteroid crashed in
my blue lake. Sit beside me,
I would say to a songbird.

The cardinal sin was
to abandon the throne
and climb down at night.

What was the designer's
love, I will ask, when I
was preparing myself for a self-denial.

Satish Verma

TABOOS

This was a shock treatment.

Becoming friends
with aperitifs.

We drink the eyes
in remorse.

Unabridged. I clean the words
on the whiteboard. The
tongues were black.

Dilemma of stings.
No flesh was left
on the bones.

The body,
becomes a river.
You are drowned
in pink folds.

Satish Verma

DYING ART

The wind was in your hair,
I will bring the
valley, for you.

A major shake up. People
bend the moon
on the lake, against hanging.

The snow-capped peaks
would collect all the green fires
for the running tribe.

The centuries weep
for the unknown warriors;
who were born to look like chaff―

becoming fodder. I will
ask the god to write a requiem
for a person, who dies
thinking too much.

Satish Verma

Unsucceeding

After the
elective execution,
you reach at the
end of nowhere.

A wayward
cloud stands alone
under the plump moon.

It is absolutely―
white, like the
wings of a swan.

Beneath the earth
you want to dig out
the remains of dark hoods.

Gale-force winds
promise to make you
snow-blind.

Satish Verma

DISORIENTED

I was worried.
A deviant had lost the shape,
and had thrown a word at your face.

The black name was crawling
on the white paper. It was not
a rape, but the abduction―
of a mystic.

The snake time. Politics.
The crowd was celebrating the death.
What would you say, death
had many names?

I want to sleep with you tonight,
O moon. The slave
had become the master.

Satish Verma

The Secret Path

Often,
I will return to myself,
to meet a lost ancestor;
exploring the statics―
of the room, from where the journey
had started.

I will read your face in dark. The
wrinkles, the broken teeth,
and the foggy vision.

The fire escape now lies bereft
of trappings. There is a blank space
there, sucking the sky.

The pragmatism had taken over
and I was left over with
the figures in stones.

I am trying to walk again
deep into the woods. The time stands
still. I am ready for an
uncounter with unknown.

Satish Verma

THE NECTARINE BLISS

The nectar,
coming from nowhere,
settles on your lips.

*

A peacock
will show all the eyes,
wide open.

*

What will it mean
if a nuke is fired,
noiselessly, as a depth charge?

Satish Verma

A Labyrinthine Passage

It was oneness,
which brought my poetry
in the folds of autumn.

From words apart
you want to talk in space
for transparent signs.

The city sleeps
in morning mist, without
opening the windows―
of consciousness.

I come out in open
to watch the lone ficus tree
waiting to become a deity
of the walking shadows.

Satish Verma

Incinerated

I don't find words.
Words will find me crying,
when a drone hits the coral reef.

Between guilty and
innocent, the sleep will
level the night and
let go the dreams in sea.

The school of fish dies
in my story. The ship sails
for a new port. I cleave
a pattern of withdrawl.

Roses will come again, to
sign a pact with the unshaven
god, sitting on the pavement,
waiting to be beheaded.

Satish Verma

Underbelly

Unlocking,
the silver knife.
The poetry matters,
when it is dark.

*

Night,
has its own secrets, when,
dew spreads out
the beadings on grass.

*

Blackbuck was ready
to shed the antlers.
Moon was hornless.

Satish Verma

A LONE JOURNEY

Invasion was thin
like a feather's fall
on the mirror.

Only bride will know,
the rose petals were
meant for unthinking.

Scattering rice
to dig out the tools
of prehistonic man.

The previous night
I taught myself
how not to peel the oranges―

with bare hands,
in terror, when there was
endless path to unknown.

Satish Verma

Gods Were Changing

After carbon dating
you will find―
that pain does not shimmer.

The terror of words
and words of terror, testify
against the predator
for twisting a confession.

The world will never be the same!

The savage cool
of the landscape, turns me on.
I decide to burn the
god books.

A charcoal portrait on the wall
tells the truth. The blackbird
will come stealthily. Radar
was aimed at the temple of love.

The world will never be the same!

Satish Verma

PARALYSED

When,
the scream ends, you start
digging the shadows of
red berries.

The sky,
scoops the children of rape,
waiting for
the rains.

The tiger beetle,
will run after the winged prey
of first love.

Would you like to taste
the moon in the dark bowl
of malicious night?

Reading about the spell
of the roses, I went to a
Sufi, for an epitaph.

Satish Verma

WORDS PLAY

Blending with the light,
as ancients did―
on the leafy path.

You turn your gun―
on an old skull,
with broken teeth,

to rewrite the murder,
without qualms. A sniper
would take an aim.

Untouchable, the years
roll by, sending echos
in the valley of tears.

A final stroke.
The blood stops in the veins
while the angel sleeps.

Satish Verma

ABSURD MYTHS

Crossing the divine,
I ask the marigolds
to return to the dust.

The gods were angry,
and dead would not speak
and the living were dead.

I am now heading towards?
the mute bells, disbelieving?
the great enlightment.

Rebuilding what was not true.
A dream will start telling
the price of the inflicted wounds.

I am not sure:
who were at fault.
The letters?
or the words?

Satish Verma

THE STERILITY

Becoming scattered,
the winged visitors
in my chest.

Is there a home―
for sane thoughts in the jungle―
of unthruths?

How long I will
continue my journey
in search of grass?

Satish Verma

SCARRING

The pungent smoke.
Someone was burning
the wet rhymes.

*

A wilted rose
on the red lips of dawn,
facing the moon.

*

The malicious
darkness, you drink,
to welcome the sun.

Satish Verma

WALKING SHADOWS

A cherry legacy
and the orange pick.
Let me go wild.

*

Embellishing
the rock, with flowers,
for a golden fruit.

*

A journey, for
the comfort of slopes,
on the clear lake.

Satish Verma

INTRIGUING

The wind was black
and I wanted to make an eye contact
with the unknown.
Following the stars
in midnight―

there was something called
desire, in clean moon,
untying the knots―
in breast. The truth
was not in kernel,

it was in the flowing veins
of the leaves; sun, trapped
in green carbon. The―
wordless poem dousing
the fire between the cinders.

The cosmic door opens, shuts.
The bird song covers your tracks.

Satish Verma

WRITING FURTIVELY

Becoming musical
at the end time,
like a whooper's swan.

*

The poet sings
for carnations, when
the snow melts.

*

The secret,
you do not want to share
with death.

Satish Verma

THE GIFT OF ABANDONMENT

The fantasy:
of moving in a circle,
taking a flower bath. A metaphysical
misquote. You were losing
your identity.

There was no abstract folly.
I will protect all the concrete truths.

To find a lover in the woods.

Fighting my demons
I start a circuitry of unborn vows.

The onslaughts continue.
Night comes with all its glory
to torment me, in absence of moon.

Satish Verma

Imploring

The ledge, jutting out
in quivering water.
Moon was sitting underneath, on floor.

*

I will look out―
for a songbird.
Something secret, I wanted to share.

*

I do not abuse anybody,
like a mockingbird―
I make a fool of myself.

Satish Verma

PARENTHESES

It was not easy,
to rewrite a dream poem
when you are bound and hurt.

*

A twiner
looms out, at my window.
Like a face, peeps in.

*

Do not want to tell,
about my sorrow,
before the dried up river.

Satish Verma

Renouncing

Move the steps,
to accept the dark.
Moon has abdicated the throne.

I am still trying to become.
Not becoming something.
A lot has remained―

unsaid in my small poems.
I am still trying, still trying
to decipher the life, to decipher.

The roots will know my pain.
My pain, why did I remained
mute amidst the clamouring words?

Tell me, why should it happen?
Why should? That someone jumps
in the boiling cauldron to find the truth.

Satish Verma

STILL ALIVE

It was difficult to revisit,
the birth therapy.

Arms had no emotions,
the violence will not go.

Let us take a back road for
the sake of anatomy.

And find out a man and the woman
to bend the gender.

The rock salt and the bruises
will melt, if you were warm blooded.

Satish Verma

A WHIRLWIND ROMANCE

I have accepted myself, now.

In incompleteness,
and all flaws.

The bunker was intent,
on self-destruction. Why
did you want to
stop that?

The prodigy will not
walk with me, I know.
Yet my shadow falls in love.

A tear-washed poem
was a good beginning.

Satish Verma

NOT A FATE

Stalking a poem
the art─
becomes a script.

*

At night it comes
to sleep in my bed.
A new verse.

*

I will reach you
in my ode,
one day.

Satish Verma

Sans Passions

After reaching, near─
the crumbling wall, you
enter the moment, for
want of an apology.

The surge walks with
the moon for a─
beheading. I was unaware
of the kindness.

The fierce revenge of the
night. Somewhere there was
an aberration. Two stark naked
kin went down fighting for a fish.

It was homage to the
pain after summary execution.
There was no resistance left
after the merciful end.

Satish Verma

Impersonation

You should have asked me.
Why was it not important─
to take a life, for saving
one other life?

I say, what did you give
me after the coronation?
Some sinuous questions?
Or splayed my heart open?

The crowd was always absurd.
You were latched onto the─
bronzed face of a naïve hero,
who wants the ants to drag an elephant.

The bone ossification proves
that you were still a juvenile.
St. Anthony's Fire? You want to
embrace the death now?

Satish Verma

The Hostage

Under siege,
tied to a bomb─
you were talking to yourself.

The violence inside you
had beaten you mercilessly.

The text has dried up.
Steal a glance─

and find out the blood spots
on the Mars, the god of war.

The sound in the vase, was becoming louder
of coins.

Now you will walk─
on my dead body.

Satish Verma

Depending On me

Disconnecting tragedy
you live again,
in myths
and illusions.

The grit. You lack the spine.
Rocks.
A slide.
The chicken.

The cow-pathway
leads to a barn of a mud hut,
where you stand every evening
to welcome the hoofs dust.

That tells the history,
the pain of unknowing,
revealing the name
of a killer.

There was silence
interrupted by a shriek.
Someone was rising
from the grave.

The inert things start moving.

Satish Verma

ETERNALITY

All day it rained.
There was no destination.
The futurist will incite
the blue light in the itinerary.

You can convert the eye
into moon. The sky follows
the assassin under─
the cover.

O Brother, I wanted to
scream. Lines were not clear
but the blood was same,
in syntax and on knife.

The potential, the genius,
the capital. They were clubbed
to win the game. The earth
will go searching the fakir.

Satish Verma

THE MYTHS OF LIES

Deflecting the light,
you stand in dark,
to find the truth.

To find the truth,
you stand in dark,
deflecting the light.

The numbers had failed.
The numbers. A prayer
for my zero.

For my zero, I walked
whole life.
Whole life. Zero.

Pardon my dust,
I was collecting
for my black hole.

From dust to dust.

Satish Verma

Transmutation

The single purple moon
was cruising non-chalantly.
You come out at the window─
and hit the headlines.

Put on hold, my existential
being. I am becoming
non-existent. The abundant
mental ills, become a cause.

Do you agree on this verdict?
It comes back to haunt you,
Your past. The black hope dis-
membering you. You come─

out finally to declare the murder.
I am waiting in the wings.

Satish Verma

Gliding

Was it altruistic, donating
the light to the
data-catchers?

Sexing at the crack of
dawn, when you
were still a primate?

Let a requiem begin
for the repose of undead
souls, writhing in life.

Draped in skin, the
hungered crowd, comes
for a dip in confluence.

The frail sky now falls
in the river. there will─
be no prayer today.

Satish Verma

One More Anniversary

The dust blends with
the humid specks.
Smoke twirls. Hangs for a
while, and then departs.

Something was burning far away.
Inside me also. To ashes.
I release the crematory.
It was over.

I will scatter the years,
spent with you. On a sand bar.
Where we stood when tide was
low. Now it is overwhelmed,

the bank. The seagulls don't
leave ther engraved, gender signs.

Satish Verma

For A Desirable World

An extreme smog descends
on your eyes. A heavy haze envelops
the landscape. You watch the
world crumbling around you.
The death was very beautiful
thing, a moment before dying.

Becoming activist had contributed
towards the end; like
targeting yourself to be hanged.
The particulates pollution of
depression had seeped, and
Milky Way was asking, are you breathing?

The fish now swims outside
the body. Death has many colours to celebrate.

Satish Verma

UNDER THE CLOUD

The depression,
in purple moon,
scattering black magic.

The eatery, I ask, why were
you hungry?
The singsong tea pot smiles.

The theme of mist
valley, incites the palazzo;
and the riots begin.

A dark silhouette, looms─
against the falling star,
I start picking up the debris.

On the fringe of
economic boom, I put my
hands in the wronged shirt.

Satish Verma

Thinking Aloud

The flames had
not reached the sun. Moon
was asked to take a leave.

*

In candle march,
someone starts crying.
Moon was found in lake.

*

An anger jumps
like a monkey. A Buddha
does not agree.

Satish Verma

Negotiation

Like runaway water
you run to meet your lover,
the death.

The hidden story,
spurts many questions.

You want the
severed head of the pen
back, to write the destiny.

The savage resurgence
of abducting─
the aurorean light,

will demand a
heavy price, since the
cease-fire had melted down.

The lotus-eaters
will decide to open
the scars.

Satish Verma

TIME WILL TAKE REVENGE

Knife for knife.
Shadows were chasing,
the slain.
Flawed, you were
at wrong place at the
wrong time.
You need to learn, how
to die anonymously.

It was always extreme.
The temper, the love,
the hate.
You could offer yourself
for idiopathic study.

A trail of broken limbs
partially leads to truth.
Adrenaline can cause
you to shut the mouth.

The organized violence, ultimately
triumphs.

Satish Verma

EXPRESSIONS

It was a turf war.
The moon was booby-trapped
by clouds.

*

An electronic
claws holds you to the
chest of night.

*

From flesh
to flesh, I surrender
my nomadic spirit.

Satish Verma

PONDERING

A decapitated
thought, writes a new scribble
on the sands.

*

There were dark
footprints of a seagull
on the white beach.

*

I am sitting
on the bank, counting
the beating waves.

Satish Verma

Fury

While I limp,
a schizo runs parallel with the moon.

Climbs the hill

to sort out the night. Terror.
The shadows were fighting. The lost innocence.

Delta was forked, dividing the pain. Sensuous

bliss rising, falling.

Where will you go now? Billions of planets wait for your arrival. Einstein

was calling you again.
The shards of moon were waterborn

reflecting in your eyes.

Satish Verma

Poetic

In fending off, the questions,
after mutilation,
a maverick was asking,
would you go beyond the species?

Escape was not an
abstract. It was a concrete evidence
against the bleed and hurt.
Invocation was becoming absolute necessity.

The poetry of death has
many stanzas. The tribe wants
it share, but I will write
about the beauty of dying sun.

Silence was a true poem.
You speak some inaudible words.

Satish Verma

ASHAMED

Afraid to ask, the white
fingers, to write a name on black paper.

The milky way.*Janus will
trap the light and open the doors.

War of words was not
going to stop. The alphabets do─

not pronounce well. The─
rape, the brutality, the mutilated death?

The mother tongue weeps.
The masks will write a history, in exile.

Throwing the coins? The
real face becomes a poem, lifting the wrists.

Satish Verma

Relentlessy

Living the moment
without participation.
Not accepting the liberation.
I will call you when
earth starts weeping.

Someone lights a match
in dark, to see the rim
of black hole. A
suspension bridge hangs
between the tunnel of lies.

The uncertain tomorrow
and truncated present.
The life breaks the relationship
between fire and rain. Now
you invoke the black cloud.

The mania. You are shoved
on the tracks before incoming
electric wheels. This was
democracy on move pushing
the entrails out.

Satish Verma

Words And Passages

Defining the borders
with guilds,

a body hangs on a rope
mauled and fabled.

I am making a fool of myself
to find your hand.

Watching the world upside down,
the ailing Buddha─

was dying. I don't own the day.
Tomorrow will not remain yours.

Satish Verma

Taking Cognisance

Only by accident you
will find life in
the dead elephant.

We start soul-searching
to uncover,
the hidden path to─
landlocked sea of poachers
of ivory truth.

Infant cries, sleeping
in grass, wait for the
blossoms of spring.
Like a panther
a red cloud descends
to kill the moving, play
without pain.

The nightfall,
when you will discover
yourself in grief
and wait for the sun.

Satish Verma

EXTOLLING

With timeless words,
you glorify the puppet,
slapping the moon.

*

How strange!
The master was stealing
the wheat of hungry.

*

The man versus
beast. A chaste rivalry.
Who was vulgar?

Satish Verma

Anatomy Of Violence

The insider,
of a windowless room
outreaches a gun.

A signature assault
nips at your heels
in revenge.

Mind in a rubber sac,
in search of─
a real country.

A balloon thought,
soars high, towards infinity,
to snoop at the god.

You should have
myriad tears, for the
fallen, *Black Beauty from unknown.

Satish Verma

Misdemeanor

A war was on,
(psychological)
to transgress the unwritten line.
Me, stranded on the
sands of time.

Day after day
shaven heads in protest
erupt in fury.
Firebrands join like
ducks to water.

In camera, you
open the folds of mystery.
As we start reading script,
the wounds were mine,
and you were the sounds.

On the table, I put my
eyes, ears and my
father's shoes. I come
out in open, to take
a shower of abuses.

Satish Verma

NEW PATHWAYS

Despite the anger,
the truth will
not speak.

*

It was a concussion,
after the fall.
A prophet had fainted─

*

in midsentence.
A blue vase was broken
in the smell of roses.

Satish Verma

SOARING HIGH

Ethics
takes a nap,
in a blink,
without qualms.

*

A jilted lover, like
a broken moon, takes
a jump from the hill.

*

In this twilight
who am I,
in this crowd of sinners?

Satish Verma

MAKING OVERTURES

Night.
A scantily clad sky,
with unkempt clouds.
Moon was climbing.

Caved in.
I had nothing left
to say, except
soundless poems.

No regrets;
in this climactic
struggle of life. The
pain eases, when

memory fails.
The flesh engages the
spirit. End would wait
till the grass banks.

Satish Verma

Oversighting

With shaking hands
you give a fatal push
to the old year.

*

Inner turmoil
falls through the cracks
of your persona.

*

A troubled past
wants you to end the slavery
of sleeping, between birth and death.

Satish Verma

New Year

The dream death;
while birthing a─
poem, weeping
between the lines.

Why do you grieve
for the old year?
The moon will again─
rise and you can

pick up the black
roses for the baby dawn.
Waging your war till
eternity, you can kiss

the red lips of morning
sun. I welcome you,
new year, in my tattered
clothes and golden heart.

Satish Verma

Scraping The Dimness

Like a prune, it was
an old year, standing
before me. You start
counting the wrinkles.

In shift, you become
the problem, cannot read
the jigsaw. It had
uprooted the faith.

I was terribley upset, the
birds had not returned
to the lake this winter; what
do I do, I was talking to moon.

A new misty morning. I take a
small foot, set myself in the
god's hour and start
planting the bulbs of tulips.

Satish Verma

THE COMMITMENT

The lesion was
spreading. From
inside, I hear the wails.

Past and present
of time, plows
the furrows, in future.

Seeds remain
unplanted. I seek
justice from the earth.

Turn off the lights
I want to see─
the moon in its full glory.

Someone has left
the message for us.
Go out to face the wolves.

Satish Verma

EJECTION FRACTION

Step down from your
ego. The brain dead has─
left a lesson.

Left a lesson, the brain dead.
Will you measure the
EF before the cardiac arrest?

Sexing an issue
of dented verbs, why
do you need a defence?

The numbers are climbing.
You have entered─
a high risk zone,

of killing yourself.
Give me a ghost writer, I
need an art, not a duplicate.

Satish Verma

It Was Pindrop Silence

Into the nightscape,
an earthen lamp ushers in
the new year.

*

I will look
back at the bright moon
hung on a tree.

*

In misty dawn
the suspense grows deeper.
There was a huge explosion.

Satish Verma

PREDATION

There was no clear move.
Flamethrowers were on the way-

and I was looking,
backward.

A fragile truce with the
clouds. They had abandoned-

the sky and were wringing-
the neck of mountains.

Compromising with the painted lips
of winter, my secret was out.

I was shivering in the crowd
of moon-gazers.

Satish Verma

POISED

Deceived several
times, you err again, and
put up your debut kill.

*

A graphic escape,
of moon from the dark
clutches of clouds.

*

The blackbucks
get ready to leapfrog on the
first sound of shots.

Satish Verma

ABUSING SELF

Starting a blaze
in rape crime.

Schizophrenic scroll,
outwatching you.

Forgo the sun,
your friend, death─

was ambling again─
nearby. A troubled─

bee cannot find
her hive. They were

hanged in a row.
All the nudes.

I will declare war
on the vulgar exhibits.

Satish Verma

STOKING A FLAME

In raw blackness
you want to find fireflies
in the hedges.

Green on green
I ambush the chill
of a dying moon.

Silently you meditate,
as the fog descends
settling discreetly─

on your thoughts.
A cat jumps the wall
in pursuit of a game.

Why to recall the father's
death. In autumn night
I will break the vow.

Satish Verma

CROSSING THE ROAD

You flock to a set trap.
A bubble.
Midnight: with pain
and anger, when a real and virtual drama
unfolds.
Mercy waits.

Meditating: still
like a Buddha, a moon was
watching you.

Watching you,
a moon, like a Buddha:
still, meditating.

Innocence versus
ignorance. A mob impaled
on the doorstep of future,
unsure, but agitated.

Life demands a full beheading.

Satish Verma

A SMILE WAS RAPED

A pinch of moon
in the glass of my wine.

I was looking at xerophytes
in timeless zone.

Like vampire bats hanging
down from a branch, till eternity.

What a tenacity, I would say.
The world was not going to end.

I would also not like the continuity
of any drift or agitation.

You make the water silted.
Truth of baby innocense─

takes birth again and again
even the dark energy or

dark matter overwhelms.

Satish Verma

SNEAKING DESIRES

The pursuit of a rainbow
in the tiger sanctuary.
Mathematics fails.

*

Sundew
invites you to taste the flesh.
You fall like a guilt.

*

The pink moon
melts down in your dream. You
will not touch the flame.

Satish Verma

WINTER SCRIPT

The lust overtakes
the content.
Winter solstice gives the answer.

*

The winter moon.
How much a bunker will
provide you the shelter?


*

A countryside.
The huddled mushrooms
protecting their kids.

Satish Verma

SNARING

While delaying gratification,
you stripped-down
to bones.

It was winter solstice,
when day and night confronted
each other─

in negativity. Tracking
the frozen footprints, my absence
was generic.

I dread the barrenness─
of looks, the unwritten wounds
seeking the healer.

The avalanche falling
rapidly on the streets, with placards
demanding the gallows─

for the tainted. The
victim lies still. Ashes fly
back at the purebreds.


Satish Verma

AFTER THE ASSAULT

The hurt of a game.
Myth has played with the─
life of a song bird.

A dream becomes opaque.
You cannot find any─
image of blood.

A window shuts─
the moon. The rainbow will
grope for a sky.

And I must find
some excuse to live. The nascent
hope outleaps the black─

rain falling on eyes. Panic
grips poppies. They throw up the
color, the fresh dawn.

Satish Verma

MAN AND THE BEAST

After knowing so much
of unknown,
you were afraid, but I
lunge for the relic.

How far you will sink
in the depth of cries?
The moon will not─
offer her lips.

Light will not give you
the vision. A sin unrolls.
The city burns in its─
own garbage.

As soon as the water
dries, eyes will blink─
to nail down the constellation
in fog. The tongues retreat.

Satish Verma

A Crouching Stance

It was an outrage.
The weaver on the
loom was brutalized.

A design was raped.
The color screams,
I want to live.

Septicaemia spreads.
Time to be ashamed,
when your gut was removed.

The salt hurts on
the bitten lips. A
genome falters.

Let me try to define─
who we are; and
where we are going.

Satish Verma

Interactive

Unknowing the known
was politics
of unsold thoughts.

*

This was─
cyberstalking. I do not want
to talk.

*

The game
has backfired. It has
become a land mine.

Satish Verma

Unmourned

You were not present.
Far from the pallid sky─
in the graveyard,
the marbled tears
had become the eyes.

The meanness of the grill.
It will not fix the sun.
I stand by a river,
which was very thirsty─
very deep.

The silent flight of a
white falcon takes a dive─
for the darkned moon.
The wingless poem soars high
to catch the words.

The jacarandas were trumpeting
in blue flowers, of the return
of demigods.

Satish Verma

After The Carnage

Prepare the beds
for the nocturnal read of book.
The wodden angels-
have arrived, carrying
the golden caskets.

O zero town,
your children are coming home.
There will be no interrogation
in this fusion of grief
and anger!

I refuse to take
a hoax call of death. The
moon becons for an eternal bliss.
Let the red eyes─
speak not of any pain.

The agony of crying sky
will not be said by any mourning
mother, when you throw the dust
unto dust. A new journey
had just begun.

Satish Verma

The Bloody Hand

You must be precise.
I am in search of me.

No clue, yet to find the hand,
which was baked in the klin─
and that did not feel the pain.

It was all over. No need to nurse
anybody. The wounds, the multiple
bullet marks. Did you see it coming?
The fusillade, which lit up the room?

You become the question to find the
answer. Come out of the body.
There was no spring in sight.
It was a long winter of sealed lips

You must be color-blind.
The roses look black. The
avalanche was red!

Satish Verma

Loving Our World

We heard the screams.
Water to water,
fire to fire.
It was not marginal pain.
A meaningful dialogue
had started in unhinged doors.

The house is empty.
You come out from nothingness
to share the slogans.

The country wakes in the eye of guns.

Someone was fishing in troubled
waters. The bread becomes crazy.

Under the black moon
the white, hungry mouths.
A sacrifice!

Satish Verma

Loss Of Identity

It was chillingly true.
You walked out─
of the soot, without
leaving any footprints.

There were some very
hard questions. Why─
did you snap,
while sparrows were mating?

Carnage. The roses
were burning inside. The
red cherries shriek and
run for the amnesty.

On the terrace, the yellow
moon descends for a─
word. Why the nukes were
pointed towards the spiders?

Satish Verma

THE SACRED REVENGE

Infamous in death.
You stop fighting─
with me. I will ask the dynasty,
Where was your enemy?

It was within you, he
said. Crawling in the dark─
poems. Will you invite
the monk for the atonement?

Spiritual? Between the
sentences, you fall asleep.
Green-crockery turn to a
naked statue, for comfort.

The black lips start
kissing the red hooks.

Satish Verma

MYSTERIOUS

Grip loosening;
the lesser evil─

will liberate you─
from the nights terror.

The moon bleeds,
in your bed.

A raw wound─
unblinks in pain.

No words will speak
for the fallen icon.

The death has extracted
its price.

Black milk exudes
from the round breasts.

Sun was rising.

Satish Verma

ZEITGEIST

The auspicious death
in moonless night.
Anxiety meets the ultimate.

What was left now
to cultivate the kiss
of unknown. Everything

has been spread on the bed.
The knife, the heart and
the parting lips.

The purity was at stake.
Spiteful and maligned, you
tear off the tender drape.

The black silence
descends in the gash of the
memory. A white marble bleeds.

Satish Verma

STUBBORNNESS

It was spirit of the time.
The lethal trade of─
missiles, someone was sending free.

You collect the cachet
of bleak weather. The
roses were in bloom.

Trying to conceive the
buttercups in the blue─
frame of melancholia.

I err, and find myself
in sleep after the contact.
A genetic gratitude overwhelms.

You catch the stings
blindly. The other sin will
take care of itself in blood.

Satish Verma

DESCENDING PEACE

After a hard day
a game-changing starts,
igniting the night.

You are buried
in stitches. The wounds
are devoid of blood.

Will you split the─
silence along the words?
There was no awareness now.

A persona
becomes a revolution. The streets
are painted red.

The monument
drifts. You wash the landscape
with moonlight.

Satish Verma

Getting Nowhere

That was a pioneer,
lunatic moon,
and me an unwilling partner.

The panther leaps again.
I suffer from
stab to stab.

The giver, sucks,
in genocide.Adoration
becomes a scourge.

One malingerer
leads to another.
The healer was very sick.

My master was a fake
The book was empty
and the print was gone.

Satish Verma

LIPREADING

Overdriving
the silence in zero light,
flickers of sickle moon were
fading.

There was a conflict between
reason and
conscience. My father was
smiling.

Where was the gold, he asked
walking with his wooden─
stick in jungle of tears?
I kept the door ajar.

A smoke engulfs my eyes.
Before he died, he took
a promise from me.
I would not be visible.

Satish Verma

Blackened Seeds

A hot body
was a hymn to the night.

I will drink
the moonlight.

In December─
a poem? Words freeze

in full bloom. The
corona becomes blue.

A rose bud breached.
Beast was out.

Satish Verma

HUMBLING

I love you in poverty of
words;
when you are not seeking
anything.

A dusky strength, self-
deprecating,
holding forth the virtues of
self-denial.

What was the awareness of
a blind?
Of shadows of migrating birds
in moonlight?

Hold my extended arm. May
be you can fall,
looking without eyes in the depth
of the sea.

Satish Verma

Graphics

Drunk at
midnight, playing with
moon squibs.
*
Hearing─
a nocturne, the spirit soars,
when you are drowned.
*
A galaxy
invites me for a night vigil.
Some elixir will rain.

Satish Verma

LAMENTING

For unspoken answers,
there was always the─
question, why hawks
were needing the peace?

Tied to innate fringes,
I want an explicit display.
The prologue was very
misleading.

War was inside and
outside. Were you a hobbes-
ian? I am not afraid
of death.

Reacted so violently.
The colored shirts should be
taken off. Let us see
the scars!

Satish Verma

A LOVE SONG

When the intellect was
defiling the unwritten book;
half-read, you reach for epiphancy.

Why you had to kill yourself
on the swing, before reaching─
the peak? Searching for escape?

I cannot know you, O flame.
Do not go beyond the sky.
My wings twist like nasturtiums.

Last night a city wept in─
my arms. There were no roses─
left and, no cut glass nudes.

They bleed, when you dig
out the roots. The croci were
planted by me when snow had melted.

Satish Verma

UNFINISHED SCRIPT

Your hands were chopped off.
How will you write
the poem now?

*

Truth was─
an alloy. Need to mix some
lie in pure gold.

*

Why did the
roses cry? The saint was
not in the tomb.

Satish Verma

Climacteric

Tonight when you deploy
the pillow to block the doors
and the skin fails; a moon
will enter by sealth from
the window in virgin black night.

I will bring forest flames from
where, adoration never stops.
There may be a disconnect─
when you kill the time; yet
turmoil rises with sensuality.

A fluid design appears
in blue dark. There was balka-
nization in the limbs. I grab
the waterfalls, climb the strings
and reach the bliss of a poem.

Satish Verma

Recollection

After the prank
call, the death returns to room q
for her friend.
*
You were drinking
moon in dark. A door opens
for the guest.
*
There would be
no elegy. A poet will die
today, anonymously.

Satish Verma

YELLOW ROSES

Have not written a single
word today, for you.
As if I was fishing
without a line.

Mixing the precursors
on the hills to invite the
mustard moon, for a─
dance with kingfishers.

There was no grief, no
scars. My hands becoming
empty. Parrots are gone.
There was no speech, no goodbyes.

The book is blank. Un─
printed pages. Nothing more
to be said. Only a smoke
tracing a face inside a face.

Satish Verma

Grains Of Wood

Read me a poem.
The lightening has touched again─
my raw nerves.

*

I say, don’t
climb the terrace. Bougaivillea
has made it a home.

*

I have come,
a longway to meet my lover,
the solitary moon.

Satish Verma

WAITING TO BLINK

Eating circles in the sky
I ask you to step outside
the space. It was time!

I will alter the succession
of flesh to spirit.
Sky was overcast, when
mercury was falling.

The thread breaks. Your
theory falls without wings.
Chandeliers chase the─
shadows on the walls.

You start collecting the
tomorrow and the morrows.
There were no more yester-
days. Ashes will stay in urns.

The grass remains wet with dew!

Satish Verma

Colloquy

Will you wait for me
till the moon parts the clouds
and the lake looks serene?

A reticent encounter;
I want to speak through-
silence. A shadow play will do.

Mystic nights weave-
a conspiracy. The insects
hover like words.

A lamp? No I will
burn my bridges to illuminate
the river.

Between the math-
and a story lies
the bloody corpse.

Satish Verma

ALONG THE DOTS

What would you seek
from the collection-
of lyrics?
It is getting dark.

Dismantling the notes,
I heard, when tears
were sitting dead in-
the crying eyes.

Life reeks with the violence,
from inside. You wanted
one more religion to
atone for the stink.

But the signs will not
convey. I become the war,
the missile to destroy
my own kingdom.

Satish Verma

ONE COLD MORNING

After a─
good shower, moon was
braiding the clouds.

*

Dawn, December.
Recently washed trees getting ready
to drink the sun.

*

The dew drips.
I collect the elixir
to die again.

Satish Verma

Boudaries

By genetic accident─
I fall in your way.
A city sleeps between the arms.

Will you give me
a nickel of memory?
I have lost my home.

What do I do
with the moon? The night
has called for the sun.

Making a nest for
the sparrows. Want to
hear the domestic voices.

Here, the dreams
go. I am selling the
family silver.

Satish Verma

The Closed Window

When─
you were taking lovers,
a tunnel collapsed.


*

The vision
rolls back. The moon
releases the dark secrets.

*

A collaborator
gives in. The street spreads
the names.

Satish Verma

THE BIRTH PANGS

It is now.
The call of unknown.
A doting mother─
writes a child.

I am, collecting─
the words. To speak for the
death, which was hestitant
to come,
against the will of grass.

The grassroots diplomacy,
catches the wind.
Abandons the footpath,
goes to the marbled floor.

What do I do─
at dusk? Become wordless
like a deep sea─
waiting for the moon
to bring the tides?

Satish Verma

THE STINGING WITHDRAWL

Barefoot you reach
for candidacy to
get partitioned.
The hatred had divided
the grass.

The suspense
was intense when
earth failed to
accept the─
defeat.

A drinking─
cloud will settle
the score with
the flames.

Consequently the─
sky falls on
all the roses, making
your vision blurred.

Satish Verma

SOOTHING CANDOR

The absolute
had become contentious.
You hit the road.

*

To find peace
and unwholeness, which
gives you, yearning.

*

The grand design
fell short of easthen lamps.
The warehouse was empty.

Satish Verma

Something Dressy

A kingfisher
would like to have no borders,
no moongates.

*

Sleep not, when
the moon rises. I will call
the moonflower.

*

The dusk
has a short vision of
a crescent moon.

Satish Verma

CRISIS MOMENT

Stakeholders,
are coming.
There was conflict between
logos and mythos.

One black thorn
was in the flesh.
You come out of the body
to find the window.

One long eel─
surreptitiously enters,
in the guts─
to pluck your eyes out.

But you were
already dead─
after the search of slant light
coming from the liberation.

Crossing the
time zone,
you enter the black hole
traveling at zero hour.

Satish Verma

Sharp Murals

Nevermore you will talk
of the forked tongue.
The genie was out─
in the jungle of legs.

Hunger was in plain sight.
You were wary of the wild─
dogs hounding at your gate.
An augury of some spilled blood?

Lachrymal, the soot trickles
down from the black eyes on─
the marbled breast of a lone
survivor in the city of tombs.

Exhume you must the naked
truth? I will not ask the name
of the ravisher, in this crowd
of fast disappearing shoes.

Satish Verma

Cupidity

Aggravated
injury, after a man tries
to fall for goldilocks.
*
The yellow
metal, had lost the shine,
in full moon of November.
*
Suddenly
the life opens the door
to an autumn sunrise.

Satish Verma

Forebidding

Standing knee deep in water
invoking the sun god
going upward phenomenally.

I was learning to forget
the edicts of a fake lord.
Would not recognize─

the dirty tricks of a godman
in the garb of a hermaphrodite.
One day he was...

One day he was not. The wild
czar was pounding his chest.
A snow-capped moon was─

going down unseen in the
blue lake of words. There
was three dimensional appearance

but no deliverance for
the poor speech in distress.

Satish Verma

Holy bath

The smiling god,
sitting on the throne
wants the invisible sacrifice.

The sounds of executions
which should not have happened,
to please the sovereignty.

The night vision was perfect.
You can see the roof caved in.
An old man was collecting the spent shells.

The anguish was writ large
on the walls of kitchen.
Smoke still rising from an oven.

What are you going to do today?
Stargazing? Going after the lust?
Or feeding the pigeons?

Satish Verma

Withering

One hazel moon
of November. I was thinking
of an iceberg.

*

The seared
shoots of grass. The path
covered by autumn leaves.

*

A weeping willow
lays down the branches
to embrace the river.

Satish Verma

Speaking one's thought

Not able to sing─
you have become the song.

You will make me very poor
by giving charity.

It was a black dahlia, ready
to beset the moon in lunar eclipse.

And the word implant was not
appropriate. It has become toxic.

Downward you search the seeds
in dark. The spirits waiting in wings.

Death was the most beautiful thing
to happen on the stage before-

the play starts. I will invite
my paramour to light the lamp.

Satish Verma

Pathless

Mob tries to set
ablaze a Taj Mahal
I was flying a kite.

*

Tears swell in
the eyes of moon. Paper
lamp has come for a sail.

*

The long night─
I was ready to handover my
family silver to moon.

Satish Verma

Dawning Blue

The trust was intact
but you would not carry
it far, the stillness.

Propolis, that is
what you needed to plug
the echo of insult.

The polarized crowd
was throwing the rocks
at the moon.

May not fracture
the curve, you wanted
the release from unknown.

Where were you, when
the flame was extinguished?
How will I read the writing on wall.

Satish Verma

Understanding Death

In death probe,
what you intend to find?
A living fossil?

*

Open the tomb,
you will discover─
dried rose leaves, some salt.

*

During the spell
of ache, I stole the
kiss of moon in dark.

Satish Verma

One Reality Show

Between the night and day
I will go─
for an icarian fall.

A commitment to resistance
was over. I am
melting under the moon.

Hold my hand. A
dramatic front was ready─
to destroy me.

Celebrating the death
was an intense mistake. It
was becoming a practice run─

for the hangman─
to sharpen his skill. There
was a long row of sinners.

Satish Verma

Deeply Scarred

There was no sky over your
head. You sidestep the lake
and drown in a stream.

After carpet bombing of
scars, you missed the moon
and skimmed by
virtue of birth.

Lifting the stony vices
for thanksgiving. A puppet─
dies on a string. Nobody
claims the body.

Mistrust runs deep. You
will not ride the tiger─
again. The urn contains the
ashes of blue eyes.

Satish Verma

Standing Still

The full moon was
rising. November nght.
I throw away my walking stick.

*

A shiver runs
through my thoughts.
I had lost you in the thick fog.

*

The large fig tree.
Had not tied the black thread
round the big trunk?

Satish Verma

Open And Closed Book

Salmonella wanted
to broker a truce─
between life and death.
We were very scared.
The questions were never answered.

A fault on the earth’s face.
Who will ask the─
hangman? The tree was
standing without roots.
The questions were never answered.

Who was the spider
and who was the fly?
A rose was unfazed;
it was a naked thorn.
The questions were never answered.

Satish Verma

A Tree House

The rubble was still rising
after the direct hit. The
private dens were in ruins.
Salicin? Do you know the─

willow-bark? My father said,
the spirit of the tree healed
and removed the suffering
and pain of man.

Celebrating the cease of
fire, death moves in a circle,
seeking the truce between the─
cage free neighbours.

Don’t pull out the tubers, the
roots. The ancient souls─
live in them. The psyche, you
will have to read off mute greens.

Ask the questions. From the wounded
earth, will be an electric response.

Satish Verma

Recovering

Outgunned by life, you escape
to epipheny. The inner─

voice had betrayed. Are you
ready to meet the believer?

Sad ending of mithridatism─
in the wake of realization.

The growing clout of pink petals
was overwhelming the dust.

The leaf body mimics the
rocks. From the rear ocean

a wailing picks up the blackberries.
I was ready for the final assault.

Predawn blitzkrieg begins.
You start picking the apples from

the green eyes. The truth─
was never so near to moon.

Satish Verma

Recovering

Outgunned by life, you escape
to epipheny. The inner─

voice had betrayed. Are you
ready to meet the believer?

Sad ending of mithridatism─
in the wake of realization.

The growing clout of pink petals
was overwhelming the dust.

The leaf body mimics the
rocks. From the rear ocean

a wailing picks up the blackberries.
I was ready for the final assault.

Predawn blitzkrieg begins.
You start picking the apples from

the green eyes. The truth─
was never so near to moon.

Satish Verma

Changing Landscape

Living on shifting sands,
do not go for the rains.
One day you will become
a robber crab.

A cross-dresser you were.
My candle burns to see
your face in dim light. Moon
said, it was not yet dark.

Playing with rustling leaves
of autumn. I went on collecting
the gifts of winter like my
variant moods, yellow, brown and red!

Go and meet my deadpan
silver. It would never be my
sizzling poem. I will pour the
green river in your blue eyes.

Satish Verma

Plasmolyzed

This was a troubling concept─
to start a dress rehearsal,
of ethnic cleansing.

Something pokes out─
on the tail end of the story.
There was no heart in the game.

You are driven like a─
flock of sheep. The shepherd
lives in the fortress of slogans.

A placebo effect was quite-
evident. Everybody was
drunk on sugar pills.

Unadulterated, the swearing─
had become genetic. You start
walking on the burning coals.

Satish Verma

For Nothing

You broaden your desire
base, by legitimacy,
ignoring the will of
storm-ravaged sea.

As the sun meets the
falcon, I will give you─
a call, that demons were
entering into the dreams.

The time stoops to pick-
up the wounded peacocks.
The red hibiscus will write
your name on the wall of bricks.

This was a swan song
before our parting. The
darkness will find the stars
hiding behind the strewn─

feathers of blind moon.

Satish Verma

Returning Home

After dispossession,
collecting the dolls─
dusting them off.

Who was watching
you, dousing yourself
to give a political statement?

Cutting the leaves
of grass, I open
the book of Walt Whitman.

This was a targeted
killing. I will not join
the funeral procession.

A mistaken lull.
One day I will─
shoot endlessly.

Satish Verma

Disaster

The cult, the─
rape were also in play,
when Icarus flew out of Crete.

Carrying the sky
on your shoulders when
you were burning.

After visitation
I will write a poem
on the triumph of failure.

The dialect of body
will tear down the bed
unlearning the love.

Whom would─
you believe in distress
unforgiving the sword.

Satish Verma

The Art

The embedded curse
of a roving planet, brings
out a story of otherness
versus loneliness.

Adultery was on cards.
An issue was rising
between the string
and the bullet.

Let us pretend. There was
a serial killer in every─
home, who will come out
at night to send the message.

The curved dots will join
to give an explicit image.
Do you like it? Can
you put it on mantelpiece?

Satish Verma

PREPARING FOR NOTHINGNESS

Like the thinker,
why did you not-
become thoughtless?

You do not display
what have you not.
you come out in bazaar.

Surviving in darkness
in the depth of the─
inverted sea.

The rise and fall of
the chest gleaming with
water and flame.

The want, the
desire, the thirst, kissing
the inappropriate.

Satish Verma

The Perceiver

Becoming you,
I perceive your face─
in body swap.

*

The stakes were
high, when I missed the moon,
in the desert chase.

*

The soul
was trapped in an earthen pot,
while catching the shadows.

Satish Verma

THE IRONY

The six minute run
on the beach.
All the way ducks saluting.

*

Weep not.
Believe in the dark.
The sun will rise.

*

The wheels
will not stop. On the
tracks sits a quartz.

Satish Verma

The Blues

Such were the times.
You wanted to become sane
after losing the mind.
*
A death trap-
looking in the rear mirror.
The first word you spoke.
*
The ugly turn
of the events. This November
a moon eclipse.

Satish Verma

Uprooting

The intrigues, the twists
unravel the woven threads
of the mystery. Traumatized
and dazed, I play-

dice with the unknown to
find out the truth.

Confronting the purpose
of existence,
you come out of the flesh
after flogging-
and start dancing
with bones.

Extremely poor,
you play the hand
and fail.

Elsewhere someone
climbs on the pole
and sets the house on fire.

Satish Verma

Arithmeatic

What was the
secret of the path?
A tree was climbing on a hill.

*

Temple festival.
I have come from faraway
to pick up the marigolds.

*

My clouds
will not reach your summit.
They are heavy with rains.

Satish Verma

Soul-Searching

Incubation was not
complete. The thirst of
thoughts will find a
convoluted shell─
wrapping up the kernel.

Throw a stone on the
sinner. This was on
me. I will accept the
rocks to open up─
a fountain.

There was a silver screen
for the lovers. You will
not regret for the raw
emotions. A sperm whale
in the sea will spew─
a streams of profanities.

Satish Verma

UNHEALING

In the waning moon
you were talking
of fathoms.

*

The water
has countless images.
Do you need a boat?

*

The vampires.
Why you go to the ruins.
I am bleeding.

Satish Verma

SANE DEPARTURE

How age slips away
from your hands?
How deep you will
go in the cavernous
mind of time?

Why brother,
why, the healing started
to hurt you and you
did not want to
stitch the name?

No tattoo will tell your
address. You want to
go anonymously, leaving
the moon behind
the brown hills.

The shadows are─
lengthening. Time was up.
Lay down your arms
and walk away with
empty hands.

Satish Verma

PARADOX

Time. Marches on;
tasting the blood of hikers,
who would not─
reach the summit.

*

Red clover.
I walk under the black
moon to light─
the fire.

*

Meet me
sometime, in the half way
house, I have forgotten
my name.

Satish Verma

Superstitions

An empty chair in a
muffled day, starts
a self-import and
falters on steps.

You need the fear, to
strike back, when the
tracer distribution
returns with a ghost.

The discount will substract
from the truth. I will
find the zero at the
end of lies.

Will I concede to the
barter? Let me first taste
the bitterness of victory,
become drunk on your hate.

Satish Verma

Ritualism

A rose.
Atonement for-
all the thorns.

*

I will gather─
all the poems. For anointing
your memory.

*

Where the sun
hides, I will paint a
field of marigolds.

Satish Verma

Rivalry

Unable to conceive.
The theme had not arrived─
near the mouth.
It was agonizingly close,
Before and after the storm.
A dharma had failed.

Law of the land:
first a sprint,
then a strained voice.
You lend your voice to
a surrogate throat.
The audience roared.

Star by star, you walk
in dust. The search goes to
find the unknown, who takes
a big stride and leaves
gaint foot-prints
in dark.

Satish Verma

A nightmare

The system aborts.
(Multiple organs failure)
A deviant art
of dying pompously.

I wish, I was on a ─
moving floor, sailing
without a walk, looking at
the camouflaged ceiling.

The shrill voice of a whistle─
blower, mimics an opera.
I will snatch the words,
raw, from your lips.

It was here, in absence.
Your poesy, matter-of-factly.
Can you raise your voice
against the fall of the thing.

Satish Verma