Demanding Answers After The Chemical Attacks In Damascus

I was not afraid of the clock, ticking,
dividing your attention. A guarded
withdrawl of the statement, had
brought a comic relief to the distraught
vicitims.

Caving on guns, the
mustard cloud could wipe out
the entire generation.

The tender bodies
wrapped up in white cloaks,
ready to be sent back
to mother's womb: earth.

Why a sun wanted to
pass out gingerly?


Satish Verma

Unhurting

Unshackled, the pallor moon
was lying still, in a white―
shroud of clouds, only face
visible, staring―
down languidly.

I have come afar,
from the whispering dark,
to annul my existence.

Your hands tremble,
carrying your name. The
magic of unsaid―
poems, working.

Life had been a Medusa.
The blues, the reds, the
greens, overbearing.

Scores will be settled
when moon,
goes down.

Satish Verma

Ancient Echoes

Art of dying
comes, after
you listen to the siren song.

The intention
was to kill yourself,
non-violently, when
moon was hiding.

Man was changing the skyline. You can
redraw the landscape without hurting the grass.

Don't offer to sacrifice
the goat on the rock,
where the shipwrecks took place.

You burn that, what you
would not eat. The
assassination charges were true.

Satish Verma

Stopping The Wheels

It was a free fall.
A plot seems to thicken.
I would never know.

Perhaps I will not explain,
how the test tube baby
slapped the sky.

The fun of unknowing
the secret of
a cold-blooded murder.

Suddenly the streetlamp
goes off. Night cracks
open to release the animal.

How a godman
becomes a werewolf?
The shadows are hovering.

Satish Verma

Rehabilitation

Trying to bring the change
with bleeding silver.

As it is/was, this world.
You may not agree to it.

The release of tension
from the cupped eyes? Will not
alter the secret deal.

There at the hemline,
bodies were scattered, slain
after the trespass.

The royal coin, flexes
its muscle. It will talk
through the muzzles.

Poorest of poor will become free.

Satish Verma

Endless Yearning

The thirst will know,
the river was there.
To lie on the grass was ultimate.

It was not the green,
it was not the blue,
but desire had the keyhole to look
at the fine sands,
where you stand to find the
elixir of life.

A crackling of joint, awakens
you. You will not wait
for the rains to come and overwhelm
the permeable umbrella.

A fluttering butterfly
knows, how to become floppy
and dangle like a dead leaf.

The stream was
drinking its own water.

Satish Verma

Of Innocence And Black Magic

The evil city? You
become the smallest
light.

The lamb did not save
the godman. I was
praying loudly.

It was falling apart.
The concept, the belief
the palace.

Years roll by. Until
the priest was shot down
on the street.

You marvel at the
turning of the mountain.
How do you climb down the salt?

Satish Verma

A Keyhole Surgery

Sometimes, I want to write
a folk poem, without name.

Anonymously, you want to
postpone the commitment
to accept the murder
of yourself,
the griever.

The towering belief―
that there were skeletons
on the grains, as the words
become verses.

A snowy virgin
will take a knife, to bring
down the stars
when you sing centuries
of love.

Satish Verma

I Shall Let Go

Moisture was becoming
the strength of dry eyes;
pounding a glacier.

There were different stages
of anguish under the aegis
of moon. I am abandoning

the night of terror. Days
were numbered. One by
one, they fell before the dawn.

Time had been revengeful.
Asking for the pound of flesh,
against kisses of death, given free.

I refuse to submit an
apology for writing my poems
instead of sending laurels
for the rising sun.

Satish Verma

Condensation

A butterfly
in a bell jar.
All I know, we understand
each other.

There was no sun
at midnight.
Only a blue black
dilemma of―

the sky, to burn
like human combustion.
I am ready to start
a journey with sunbeams.

Satish Verma

Unbroken View

Segment by segment
the secret breaks. There was
no song afterwards.

A robin hops on the dirt road.
Time was scare.
Living water was escaping.

Visibility has not changed.
I walk in great agony
without you.

The fabric was loosing
the color. The book will
never be complete.

I enter the colosseum, for
digging up the voices―
buried in the throats.

The daffodils wait in
backyard for the ceremony.
Light has come in the eyes.


Satish Verma

An Uncanny Feeling

I would let it go
anything now. Will not accept
any grace.

I am moving unfazed―
buttons apart. Let the night
descend.

A hired applause was not needed.

As the gorgeous earth plays its last tune.
I will wait in the lobby, to fail again.
There was no repeat
of the deciduous teeth,
coming back to chew your fingers.

The small steps you won't
take to bridge the unknown.

Scoping the language, watching
itself dying.

Satish Verma

Not Water Proof

Stoned to death.
The rooted plants had begun
to climb the mountain.

Very hot here.
Difficult to breath in.
Why lesser flamingos were landing
on dry lake?

They enter via back door.
The multi-tuberculates.
Why the man was
running away from the orchids?

Strange, our lineage was
getting interrupted, by
smoke screens.

Satish Verma

Classical Entry

It takes billions of years
for ancient light to reach us and
rescue the trapped darkness.

You can hunt among rocks
in the palisades, behind
the ramparts.

There was an apocalypse.

Stem cells were ready
to repair the myelin―
searching ancestry.

It was a tense stand-off
between the headstone and a living dead.

Cannot repay the debt of blue
Sky, sending us
the warnings of catastrophy.


Satish Verma

Invisible Ink

I will meet the moon
on the terrace,
when the dust settles on the
lids, smothering
the uncharted barricades.

Life had been full of dresses
to play the lead in
conflicts of alliance vows.

Like untouched goodbyes,
you hover around the exit―
to seek the blessings of dark.

In the glasshouse, you cannot
walk nude. The wounds, the scars
the burnt-out fabrics
will tell the truth.

A priest will invoke
the mercy of the vessel.

Satish Verma

Updated

I will not elaborate,
what I mean.
You have to dig out the treasure.

The puzzle was not new.
The memorial will be
buried in the sand.

A bloodbath will give―
the final touch to the
ground, less savoury now of inhumanity.

We celebrate the anniversary
to forget the world's
conflicts, man made.

Will you come in the
dark? The snipers are watching
out for the sparks of mercy.

Satish Verma

Holding Back

The credibility
of an apple
becoming an icon.

It draws first
blood, when you―
were sleeping.

It still matters:
thinking of milt
but sinking your ferry.

There was no epilogue.

A midsummer night.
I will forget
your name.

Standing in a
queue, you should not
punish yourself

becoming unmatched.

Satish Verma

Not Accountable

A breast bomb,
makes a sudden lunge-
disfiguring the landscape
till your body was pulled out.

Your choices were very few.
Either you walk straight
or become a leaf of grass.

It will not work. A swift―
withdrawl from the controversial
marriage with ferocity,

as naked as moon. How
about the aspirant refusing
to sit for engraving in gold?

The salt bearers were coming
to act like gods.

Satish Verma

The Ground Gives Way

To blunt the offence
of beautiful pain
you stopped remaining good.

This was a perverse phenomenon

wearing the straight jacket
you try to become
a beast.

The glowing eyes will
send the message to dispose off
the headless body of
a marbled saint.

Someone has taken off
the eyes. You will need
a transplant of religion.

I am very unhappy.


Satish Verma

No Explanation

How difficult it was to
remain a simple truth,
as passive grass
with no frills.

I was ready to talk
heart to heart.

You cannot stand all the ink,
writing, simple verse, furtively.

What was eating you up,
I asked the milkweed.
"On this summer, monarchs
were not coming to breed"
it said.

I felt the unease. Grappled with the
amount of pain, at tiny thoughts.

The scale and brutality
of the times, the throats slit open.

Like a clam you shut up.

Satish Verma

People Versus Silence

In the humid night
there was a circularity
of rhythmic chirping of the crickets.

Suddenly there is a lull.
Everything stops in the tracks.
Then a chorus rises―
building up to crescendo.

You become easily distracted
being sole surviving species―
not defending you flaws.

Then your mind shrinks.
You would like to hide
the emptiness, but
the psyche impales you.

The baby moon starts
transliterating the great―
silence on your lips.

Satish Verma

Chasing The Wild Cat

Pushed aside and
sequestered, like a
frieze, you hang on a wall.

From grape to grapefruit
the journey was tedious.
When you start reading the mind,
the crisis deepens.

Cannabis? Like psychoactive;
the anger rises against hyper―
male identity. A gender

based disorder. It kills
scores of cuckoos. Who will
give now, a mating call?

A prison-break. You set
free all the songs and
release the inmates of conscience.

Satish Verma