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