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