Cause And Reality

In the moment of reckoning
or nemesis, I call you
from the clouds.

It was a poetic
whisper, no rectification. Only
different versions of truth.

The maverick will not
take it as a personal slight,
if you are preparing a premature
exit.

Can we undo the damage
and become friends?
Unuttered, but still vocal.

Who was talking
of eternity? Your love
was Being. Nothing else matters.

Metaphysically you become
abstract. I will draw
the unseen other for me.

Satish Verma

Numberless Crimes

I was badly shaken―
by the strange
gene expression.

When a bullet―
made a hole in your chest,
blood spilled on my book.

Ultra-conformist,
plummets to a new low.

You would not alter
like the moon's pain
and sun's tears.

Coming to a critical
threshold, when we talk
about the death.

I would say god
was the killer.

Satish Verma

Hot Corridors

Shame of centuries,
you wanted to erase.
Breasts were empty

Strafing nonstop,
you throw
the rocks on martyr.

The naked saint
accepts defeat.
Covers himself today

Ode to severed
head. He was
still smiling.

Satish Verma

How Will You Do It?

In transition, of
a starry namesake, holding hand―
in priceless moment,
of anthropic lineage.

Give me the heritage
shock, contents of unknown.
In ghostly silence, I will
talk to an empty chair.

Remember Van Gogh. Why
did he cut off his own ear?
Not to hear a big No?
Million fragments speak the truth.

I will write on my skin
my dark name in blues.
Do I make me understand?
Soon the moon will rise
to take a side.

A face drowns in my arms.

Satish Verma

No Reason

Collecting more luggage
while moving on.

The hostages were left behind.

A chilling reminder.
Travel light.
Snow was not going to melt.

Water was rising in the eyes. They look hazy―
the church, the mosque,
the temple.

Violence. It was inside you.

You were walking in sleep
inattentive of mines.

As if you will walk through the fire―
ball unharmed.

Satish Verma

Beyond Imagination

A truth a day
was not sufficient.
There were many snakes.

The tree will speak
under the sky.
You will need solitude.

You see what
you want to see.
Eyes don't tell the real.

The silky way
you want to hold
the poems of moon.

Satish Verma

Yawning

What organicity!
Moon was coming down
on me. A visual alacrity,
accepting the surrender.

Journey to dead phrases
begins. Revivalism?
You dig out the extinct remains,
the forbidden Anemone, daughter
of Mars.

Come once, to my side,
to receive my fervor,
making me timeless.

Desires were ace runners.
Mind picks up the cobalt blue
of your eyes.

Now you go blank―
against the cult. The thumb
was set lower than the forefinger.
It will not pull the trigger.


Satish Verma

Slow Melting

Trap unplugged,
There was a hairy assault,
when you started playing
the sitar of three strings.

Though fearless, you
forget, it was evil, when
you flew towards
the sun, to pay homage.

Your god had failed. I am
counting the winters. No body
was left whole. Piecemeal
you collect the remains of burned outs.

In Bay of Pigs you stand
alone amidst the scars
of invasion. A river upturned,
an ocean dried, there was left no ship.

Satish Verma

Some Thinking Space

Asking for privacy, a
green snake becomes deviant,
and turns lunatic.

Lunacy demands innovation―
like atavism, returning
to primitiveness.

The fear becomes
your enemy. Instinct develops
to kill, to slay.

Again a beheading, you
wash your hands
with the blood of a god.

And dedicate your
life to a goddess of bodypiercing
crime, soaring high.

Satish Verma

Not Your Doings

A solemn moon
talking to hills,
plunged in pain of tainted love.

I steer quietly out
of this queasiness, did't want
to accept the risqué.

A spider was climbing
on a wall to weave
a sticky web for a baby face.

Like an aspen leaf
you tremble in even a slight
breeze of a beautiful thought.

The garden lizard
changes the color. Who was responsible
for the ruins of temples
and mosques?

Let me talk to the god, the god
standing at my door
engaging the harvest moon.

Satish Verma

In Restraint

Of many gods,
I chose the rock-cut Buddha.
At night we would talk daily.

Like at talkathon―
I will accept his grace,
to follow my inner voice.

I will narrate about the
walking giants, silent birds,
and weeping Ashokas.

In togetherness we had
separated with hate in
aloneness.

The love bites don't
excite anymore. The religion
of sex and―

religion of war have
become one. I will not
recite any adage now.

Satish Verma

In Vacuum

Before you eat
your words,
smear the dust of rose―

on your eyes.
The incense will blend
with your vision.

Don't walk like
a thief in the house.
Moon will face the night.

The bell rings
not. Tonight temple
god oversleeps.

Satish Verma

Evening Prayers

I plant my last kiss
on the wall of mausoleum,
and turn back to face the
inevitable transparency.

Like a birthmark―
you stick to me for an eternity.
Honeyed tongue swaps
a blue. I am not a path,
only a candle in the wind.

Moon-washed your face
swims in my black eyes.
I search my genes
in you, for an answer.

In poetic jargon, with
broken wings, I take a flight
to that horizon, where
my aura ends and your spell begins.

Blameless-you spin,
and break into hundred of shards.
They become stars. I remain
stranded at sunset.


Satish Verma

Grim Reminder

You come like undersea
quake, hitting
the sleeping moon.

No headlines,
no bleeding hearts,
just masochism.

Drinking angst
and spirit, from― a
Venus in exile.

After holy scripts
drifting out
with battle scars.

Satish Verma

In Praise Of Unknowing

The unthinkable,
has happened.
I am still alive.

After the harvest
moon, there were―
many aspirants,

to reach the Mars,
when a lynx left the
pug marks on their chests.

First snow went
deep in asylum.
All gates were locked.

Satish Verma

Going For Vendetta

Take me in moonlight
when it is dark, outreaching
every ache.

I will not ask you anything
when you are on prowl in cobra night.

The womb crumbles.
Salamanders will not endure the flames.
Elemental soul wants to
stay in water.

Living in a wax palace
with honeybees inviting sparks.

My religion wants to change its name.

Cold touch, I will wear
a shawl of slaughtered scapegoat.
Don't call me on the name of a
messenger.

You know there was no
dearth of lies.

We shall meet when our hands start trembling.

Satish Verma

Sailing Incense

No wintering.
I have come to stay
warm-blooded.

Recreating the
swelled knobs of
loaves.

Excruciating
ordeal, had made
the bones strong.

Now I sit
quietly to hear
the morning bird.

Satish Verma

No Prophet Speaks

You decide first-whom
to blame? As if I am―
on threshold of denial
and anger.

When to kill a polluter,
who was deployed to―
protect the virginity of blue ocean?
The stealth fighter becomes a fake.

They meet like polygamists
exchanging the rings to remain
unfaithful. The untested blood
was a carrier.

On the brink, comes the army
of black ants, waking the lover
in evening light. You should not
stir. Greed will make the sleeper move.

Satish Verma

Way Back To Indolence

You nurse the tender pains
to feed your soul. In sunshine
of nothingness, that was falling apart.

And which was not―
the abrupt exit of inconceivable.
Me, still struggling to remain alive in―
thoughts of you.

The vast blankness of mind staggers.
Where the loud music, like tinnitus,
runs slow like crickets
and peacocks, giving a pause.

Then suddenly the crescendo
ups, symphony of loud, beseeching
rumpus, drowns the protest
of songbirds which were giving mating calls.

Listen my love, we are islands
in an ocean. There were no walls.
Only strong waves leave us speechless.


Satish Verma

Bull's-Eye

The divination.
A broom―
becomes a wager.

The penury
begets the rags.
How much you need?

Sweep the
courtyard. Tonight,
moon sleeps here.

I have come,
a long way to
meet my lost friend.

Satish Verma

A Celestial Missive

One strange movement
stops. You won't conform
an angel's thought dream.
And I will not give in to an epithet
for paradigm shift.


Unblinkingly you stare through
me weighing my
dewy eyes. They had spilled the ink
of heart. Subatomically, a mass
becomes a howl of unheard scream.

I want you for all the
pores of my consciousness. On a
blank paper you will write a betrayal
of cuckoo. The small songbird
cries in joy.

An earthern lamp burns
tirelessly. I cover the flame with
my palm to give you a handprint
of my waist.

Satish Verma

Euphoria

Moon, eye of
night, will watch
your mandarins.

Deep orange-red?
No.I would
prefer hard cider.

Daisy has a
flair to wink―
in bright sun.

A netter on
prowl, for wingless
butterflies.

Satish Verma

Walking Without Shadows

I will talk of human
conflicts. No one was targeted.
Like you pick up a slug―
and make a thermonuclear device.

That green-tinted sand,
olivine. I will spread―
on your path, so that you
can breath easily.

This was a tranquil treatment―
before I become dazed in
polluted air of the earth and get
a thrombus. One man lives,
other man dies.

This dirty city was growing. I
will bear the blame. I
have not stopped writing
poems daily.

Satish Verma

Remembering An Unknown

The moon at the window
tonight, was like a dreamcatcher.
I am going to sleep in your charm.

Image builders were
becoming scarce. In your tempest
I will find my dustbath.

Amidst the sailing
swans, becoming a semi-recluse,
you wanted to write poetry.

Why don't you go back
to your home, O fairy?
Did I clip your wings?

Not for sale.How
far it was? My liberation
from the shadow of the lips?

Ashened, a fakir wanted
to give away his precious jewel
to an unknown star.


Satish Verma

Not My Angst

Tribal instinct spares none.
You change the script,
and come out to see the murmuration
of a flock of starlings.

The precision, the blend
make you wonder about the harmony
of small birds in unison,
an army moves as one body.

O man, your mathematics
has gone absurd. The sects and
cults. The zealot, the devout.
Brother, I will say unleafing must start.

More poems?
That does not work.
All the daffodils go blind.
Thousands of years go―
in making a vision.

Satish Verma

The Eagle Swoops

Why ending your life,
on death bar,
close to terror―

of life? This is how
your dreams come true―
to play with inevitable ?

You had nothing to bleed.
One million times you
kiss on the lips of wounds.

We're all insane, chasing
the muse in dark. Earth
weeps in turn.

The walls are coming
up. What does the time tell
about the age of many tombs?

Satish Verma

Entering Sanctum Sanctorum

A sacred lotus emerges
from the navel, while you rest
on trembling waves. I am shedding
my leaves.

The knotty hole. Center
of the earth. A shell
breaks inaudibly in the churning pot.

The pledged promise was
deep. Pole's red aurorae stream
in new birth.

Was it necessary to take
an oath under the bo tree―
to become a sacred Buddha?

It sucks. Fake or genuine?
I am searching the faces of whites,
browns and blacks. Who
wants to be buried in a nameless
grave of a soldier?

Satish Verma

Giving A Miss

Backlash of scars
becomes glamorous.
It was not my fault.

Pulverized temple―
rebuilds the god lying
in dust.

Miracles are no more
relevant. You treat the ending
as part of rebirth.

Breasts plundered―
galaxies were ready to
reglitter the dark moons.

Why to hide anything,
when you don't possess
any earthly gifts?

Satish Verma

In Upheaval...

This was the rise of animal
after dividing
the pain of man.

The shared past―
would guide the misreading,
calling bloodbath a mistake.

Balancing the pole, walking
on long rope, in sheer
darkness of moonless night.

The words fall on your
feet, begging the exoneration
from name-calling.

Square meals and two lipped
lavenders, will bring the aroma
to wipe out nonexistence.

Satish Verma

Without Fetters

He was not at guilt,
it was the neuro―
hormones, hired from moon.

You were burning
inside, smokeless
without flames.

I throw the net―
in lake to catch,
the moon for once.

The day was ready
to close the eyes―
to practice philanthropy.

Satish Verma

Repeating Again

Not a single word was
written today, watching
the masks being perfected.

A nosedive, of what
I built without mercury,
without threads.

Sitting on a black
stone, wishing moon a
mist bath of absolute.

It again aches, my
roving heart, trying to
knit the harmony in black and white.

Satish Verma

Behind The Glass

I will write a very
soft poem for you today.
Moon had promised
to standby.

You cannot stay outside
your lips. They were frozen.
I will trap a ray of light
when you fall in a pit.

Such aplomb. I must
give you a gift of an Ariel.
Come equinox, I will wait
for the harvest moon.

The pure hymns. I
turn my gold ring for a miracle.
The scars were singing again.
Out of reach, a star winks.


Satish Verma

Not Ready To Forget

Very scary, I admit―
your vintage―
lovemaking with
a ghost.

Life in a crate was
creating nonpoems.
Water on the ice moon
was never there.

Unmasked you shoot a
songbird in flight.
The soft music went into
the barrel of the gun.

Come and meet my other
self. My penchant for talking
to flowers has made
me a martyr.

Satish Verma

He Did Not Return

It was not a jubilee,
but I had come to pay my debt.

Stepping gingerly in your
father's study, you open the almirah.

No I am not afraid.
I have come to visit my father.

The hurt has not destroyed me completely.
Days were numbed like by vespa stings― with
burning, swelling and soreness.

I slide the clothes. In
deeper layer a plastic pack appears. on the
bed of dried rose petals,
sits a singed, brown vertebra―
collected after his funeral.

My talisman. I touch it.
Turn around―
don't look back
and walk away.

Satish Verma

Coming Near You

Like a walking fern, you were.
I was talking to you. Why
would you nose down to touch
my landscape and fall into my arms?

To protect you, I was
making a massive wall― encouraging
the revivalism. Predator
drones were intending to follow you.

The dirt― it will not
stain your innocence. Don't
stand on the ledge. Faceless
winds can topple you at night.

We are beasts, with no space
in between. Like sardines you
are packed without names. The
sea has dried up. How far
was the sun?

Satish Verma

Violent Shaking

Colored truth,
becomes a hot balloon
in denial mode.

For your own―
relevance, negativity will
not accept the defeat.

Between the stars,
anger erupts―
to reorient the gaffe.

Outrage and despair
are writ large
on the face of non-white moon.

Satish Verma

Unbendingly

You went tounveil your own
statue, before being shot―
dead, for telling the fiction.

Day was stranger than
night. You can discern
the oblique faces.

Handcuffed, you pick up
the pen, to rewrite the name
of omniabsent divine.

Trivial rise of surface
temperature will melt
the snow-clad breasts.

A clove-scented pink―
in the hands of a butcher
does not bring a smile.

Satish Verma

Life In Dewdrops

In unblemished irish,
the vision was a link
in blankness of thoughts, when
I was weaving a dream
around you.

Your cameo appearance
in flurry of tears,
rips apart my landscape.

The other moon wails behind the clouds.

In androgynous past,
you want to separate the sandwoods.
Death comes as a long sleep.

Your thick braid moves
like a reptile.

I have stopped scripting
the letters. Words float on the
carpeted domes.

Rains would not come tonight.

Satish Verma

Elusive Answers

Constrained.
The starlings will
not fly today.

There was a hole
in the sky.
The god particles will fall.

Drawing out
the blood of fallen―
angles, on the street.

Can you count
the sins of man?
We still celebrate the hate.

Satish Verma

The Explosion

I sleep, I wake
for a vigil.
What was time?

The godhood
fails, when you
become a beast.

The thick cloud
of sulphur,
after the blast―

rains limbs. To
meet god, this
was so easy?

Satish Verma

Be Deceived

Living a death daily,
becomes a normal chore. It was an intense
realization about the ephimerality
of words, the message appearing,
import dying.

The sparks in your eyes
ignite the earth,
without defiling the blue sky.
It was most elemental.

Walking, chatting
green flames― convey a denial
of condensed thoughts. No
milky way. Farewell to tears.

Until you come, the stars,
the moon will not brighten my
kingdom. A peeled off enigma
still prevails.

There was no daymare.

Satish Verma

The Nightmares

Like Sequoia,
you wanted to grow tall.

But fear of fall
and right to die
become two opposite poles.

Keeping the death
alive, you turn psycho―
magnifying the departure.

And desires reflect scars.
The dreams fall
like ninepins.

The sheep, the lamp, the
snow, you forget,
where you wanted to go.

Satish Verma

Dying Flames

When white mushrooms
come in procession
after the rains,
you bring back my ache―
O pink rose
words fall like birds.

Caparisoned, the
moon was rising from
the sand dunes, like a
camel after the festival of kiss
of love. The singed bank
of the lake was submerged in tears.

Fold your wings, O peacock,
clouds are going back home.

Satish Verma

Very Discreetly

Tonight moon was
gliding like a swan,
white and graceful.
But you slept on my hand
like a skylark.

Your eyes lit up
when I squeezed a verse.

Do I need to tell you
that fireflies had gone mad
after striking you?

And the weird thing was,
Aurora blushed after running into dark.

To catch your shadow,
time stood still, until
the sun passed away.

Satish Verma

Ennui

In a frame of a―
window, I watch
daily, a saddest,

star, and a palm
holding the clouds
like an Atlas.

No winds. The
bougainvillea still
drops the colored bracts―

in wait of moon―
unheeding the advice
of bright sun.

Satish Verma

The Final Retreat

In reality― you were
in a ring of fire. I had been
left with no claim on you.
Your failure had become mine.

This was not the game―
changer. Moon had latched
on the watery eyes. Synapsis
had started to break away.

The god wears different
apparels― as per the need of the
occasion. Nobody is going to say,
rest in peace.

Gradually I will stop
speaking about myself. When
my time comes, I will lose everything
and set you free.

The blind eagle will find its abode.

Satish Verma

The Fugitive

Bending the gravity
you start falling upward.
There was―
no distinction between earth and sky.

Unsaid thoughts without words
blend. A sign language conveying
the ageless twinge
of a faceless spirit.

Against the outrage of morals,
flatness becomes deep. The
quality suffers. Inception
invites the crime.

Strange things happen. Man
becomes a fireball, torching
the domes, shrines and littering
the streets with newborns.

Satish Verma

Self-Portrait

Life inside the doors―
mocks the nature.
Still life. Cup and Vase.

You lived for others
and died for me.
I become homeless.

In charity, the body
becomes water.
Gold sinks.

Very precious for me.
The hurts―
you gave me unasked.

Satish Verma

A Suspended Rock

Your freckles should not
go like innocence. Sun
was overlapping the galaxies.

I become whole for a while,
when you cry for the blueberry
moon in vain.

Why the night dips into your blue eyes?

No irony. I will wait
for you on the burning deck.

The schism was widening.
An animal living inside me
wants to raise his head.

The loser gets the inky jet
to cover his body. How about
getting a glimpse of lightning
walking down the road?

Satish Verma

Uncrafted

To become yourself,
declaring war―
for inequality.

Who was supremacist
in the pygmy owls―
nondescript voices?

The termites had
stopped making
anthills as nest.

The tall grass
now hides the migrant
labourers.

Satish Verma

Cobwebs

It was difficult to
rewrite one's own death―
on parchment paper. The cloudburst,
had washed away your writ.

The cadaver turns around
and talks. Faith and fire going together.
A flickering light from the brown
eyes, would tell about Advaita. The
nonduality of pain and body.

You can become painless―
if you leave the physical and
watch yourself intently.

Captivity crumbles. You want
to make sure, the bread does not
come between desire and grief.

Satish Verma

For No Obvious Reason

When I wanted
to stop you, the flame was
snuffed out by an invisible hand.

I let the missing link
go. My body turns blue.

You return back the
rusted coins. Fountain was
dry. Someone was going insane.

An albino touch with
blue eyes― the planet quivers
in chill.

A punishment for
remaining brown in the
crowd of white lilies.

Summer is breathing
last. Frozen lips now stop the flight.

Satish Verma

It Is Raining

Syllepsis. A story goes.
You can kill two―
birds with one eye.

Your charisma does
not work.
Solomon has failed.

Not difficult to live
in a shell, if you
are a white pearl.

In aloneness, you
meet yourself on the
way to morgue.

Satish Verma

Metempsychosis

Why would you need a
miracle to become human, after
shedding the skin?

In smoke screen you
become a lizard, creeping on lips,
hips, and chest of an ignorant person.

Verbs would roll down to
explain the gorgeous valley
of sylvian fissure. You had stopped
thinking after tequila.

The agave blooms once in a century
and dies. The man becomes
beast in one night and lives for ever.

Anguish calls. I don't hear my voice.
Become brain-dead, to meet my―
blue gods―

Satish Verma