Gift Of Takers

The poster boy
was a blind hunter
waiting for the blast.

The salt mausoleum
melts in moonlight
white as a sand.

A mofussil background
will search the estranged
words of childhood.


Like a hostage held
for the return of holy book
written in blood letters.

Satish Verma

Not Seeking Retribution

Struggling with-
a fakir's heart, at random
fall, remembering a reverie
in quest for unstopping
in your home.

It was not a personal
guilt to modify the echoes
to let go the original voice of
the shelter.

Not believing in-
a parasol, I asked the moon,
why the sky was crying?

Walking alone in the
valley of dolls, I
assemble the broken watch
of faultless decisions.

Time was up and you sing
in honey-trap of life.

Satish Verma

The Perspective Fault

With a live moon between―
us, you were staring beyond me
in blank looks.

Shackled, you hang―
from the past praises.

In a crematorium you will now spend
a night with some noises
in penitence.

You have to come out from
the old scripture and invent
a new libretto.

No breathing room was left
in the crowd. Would you
become a little wee taller?

Meanwhile I will listen to bird songs.

Satish Verma

Too Old

In times of stress―
the island sinks. Will
plant a tree today.

Will dream again
of the fall.
When there was violence.

In new bottle―
there was old wine
as panacea of dementia.

I will not forget
your name, though
I don't remember me

Satish Verma

Posing Questions

It bewilders me, when
I follow you. Why the savaged
retribution starts for a
separate mouth?

I may become little
demanding, sending you a
death watch for tender memories.
Why did we meet for different truths,
to fork out, not pardoned
by anchorage of our spriritual pursuits?

At early dawn, a sad
cuckoo gives a long, lingering call;
desperately evoking the
soft bleeds of beautiful past.

Your profile was very
sharp, aquiline instinct, to
smell a lover.

October is here. Intuition
develops a sixth sense.
You don't want to leave the nest.


Satish Verma

Not Reproaching

Robbed―
of my aloneness, by
an army of ravens―

thoughts. I
meditate and weave
your face―

in muse. My
journey begins on a
mist scent as the moon rises.

What more you
want, than the silence,
before the bell tolls.

Satish Verma

Being Trust

Don't speak the truth―
loudly. Bipeds
are listening.

I will not blame
any one ever,
for my poems.

I must invoke
Buddha, if he
was an avatar.

Rage again for
the dying sun. Night
was very cruel.

Satish Verma

A Mask Done

Your time
was not my time.
An arrow had pierced the space.

There was no past,
no present.
Only I had given you the future.

And now
a volcano will not sleep.

When the death
arrives from sky, how
will you welcome it
with broken heart?

When somebody is
burnt-out, would you collect
the ashes of poems?

The proceeds should go
to barren fields of human mind.
May be, a virgin marigold
bursts out.


Satish Verma

Silent Wails

Humanoids fill
the universe. Where does
the humanity live?

Back and forth
the song birds fly to
find the roosting place.

This road leads
to nowhere. You stand
midway holding the map.

Irrepressible was
the goddess of death,
magpie has come to play.

Satish Verma

Midnight Blues

Like godfather,
moon was giving a
benevolent smile.

Picking at bedclothes.
Cannot sleep―
moon was too bright.

Stony creek.
I collect the pebbles―
of all colors.

The peacocks―
cried in rising crescendo.
Night was silent.

Satish Verma

Taking Off Frills

Copper-brown
I was always looking
at your face.

One of trinity,
the fallen spirit, that
did't bore any number?

A visible mark
betrays the flying grief
of a pagan.

Between the cacti,
desert was blooming. No
water, no river in the eyes.

The smoke was
rising, in all its viciousness.
The panic was writ large on the face of moon.

How far was the death
camp of unwanted dreams?
I am not bone, I was not flesh.

Satish Verma

It Was Outlandish

The genial face of nephrite.
Jade, stone of the flank,
was becoming sectarian.

The pain was excruciating.
Not the evidence of god―
an imitation love.

The anatomy of conflict
looks vulgar. The street fight
comes out in open. A new born baby

on trash bin. I will not
ask who was the father of
truth. Today I commit myself

to the walking stones. There
was no music. You are
awakened by a loud thud.

The god falls from a big height.

Satish Verma

Beyond Discernment

The last thing
I wanted to say before
the sun went down.

Heal thyself, Oh
seer, stoking the flames
under the lake.

Honey-yellowed,
fall of your climax―
for golden calf.

Like a hen in blind
panic, under the spell
of innocent blade.

Satish Verma

Clean Hands

Deeply troubled inside,
I become silent
like a quiet, serene sea.

Impatience. It
has erupted again in my
hardened mood.

Playing a gamble
without a dice. An unmasked
body trembles.

I will ask my
river goddess one day―
where was my moon?

Exploding in its
face, the enigma had never
any physical.

Making things easier for you.
I stand in the moment of truth
on flames.

Satish Verma

Clinging To Hope

Revealing id,
without ego, and hunger.

I may not touch
you ever, placing my palm
down face on the burning candle.

Step by step I come
near you and move away
collecting my pins.

The medallion still hangs
in the cleavage.

You will throw your head
backward and laugh in misty chimes.

The skiagram shows the increased
vascularity. Would you come
if I don't call you?

We will smell together
the parting lips, trying to say
love, but unannounced.

Satish Verma

A Leap Of Faith

Nothing left to do
anything today.
Snow falling incessantly.

Did not believe ever
in shortcuts.
Still moving on legs.

Soundlessly I
meet my strange god
under a sickle moon.

Faraway my old
faith listens―
to the footsteps of dawn.

Satish Verma

It Hurts

You start forgetting
the absence of
existence. Wishing to remain
dead for sometime― to see what you did't
want to see in the hands of god.

A tricky aura
overlaps the consciousness―
of proxy war. Someone
cries out for the earth's hug.
Wolves start howling. This
was a stainless murder.

I get nightmares. Craft
slips from the tongue. You
must decide for yourself, who
was a clean angel. Door was
locked, key in your pocket.
You cannot move in the absence of proof.

I told you, we are heading
towards the Apocalypse.

Satish Verma

Where A God Sleeps

At the end of the day,
standing before a shut window―
in fear of power game
under a cataract of twilight.

A panther had visited
again at night in your courtyard―
to sniff out the
hidden moons.

Your ism was on fire.
Logic gone. The weird neighbors
had become bedfellows.

A dirty war will ensue
between the translation and
original script, in fake
and real.

You slap a drum. Pathos.
I have reached where I
did not want to.

Satish Verma

The Shaken Faith

Incandescent―
the oil lamps floating
on the holy river, have
started bleeding.

So much blood had spilled
on the street, after
slitting the throats of a
runaway couple.

This was not my religion.

Do not steal me from my
footsteps, wounded by
the gifts given by you, I
will not come back.

I have stopped reading our gods.

It was the lynching of the savior.
Let me count the dots and―
dashes, the unsaid crimes
of opening the text books.

Satish Verma

Quite Palpable

In a wasp moment―
alone with myself
I was struggling to find the signs.

This was an out-of-body
war, a preemptive
strike to wipe off the imperial
message of unknown.

Was it the fault and
sludge of the common man to override
the gratuity of existence?

The primal animus still
goes on. Meaningless, you
repeat the mantras, all of them
to appease Kali.

Like an adult, punched
in face, you want to start again
the ontogeny.

Do you believe in black art?
A sculptor will never become extinct!


Satish Verma

Black Woods

The hanged girls,
unraped?
Or the slit throats?
What your antennae are sensing?

Unlifting the veil,
why were you rubbing the
stones in dark?

Absent seizures.
You blink only, without
any response.

Print your body on the
canvas, with cracked
hands.

The cities are burning.
Throw the nets in the
river. You may
catch a prophet.

Satish Verma

Different Pathways

Why silently burns―
the red moon, in
moaning night?

Why in my
absence, you started
picking the rose buds?

Who had placed
the red strings in your
dampened eyes?

A missed heart
beat, always sounded
as if your name.

Satish Verma

Coming And Going

In last breath,
when the door remained
open, you walked out.

Accepting the truth
was my fault.
Everything was not true.

After a death
there was no other dying.
Thoughts were deathless.

A self-portrait
would be not simple,
you were watching.

Satish Verma

Bald Arguments

How do I remember
you, I ask grammarly
between life and death.

You were not very
keen to know,
what I did not say.

What I saw was a
moonshot, restrained by a dig in.

Ultimately I sniffed that,
nobody wins in love.

The bona fides are at stake.
The mob was not a validity,
stranger than real.

Collectively I will gather
the stones to throw on god.

The road warrior was dead.
There was no path.


Satish Verma

Marking The Graves

Remaining hawk
in voyage of tears, birthing
a poem.

If art of communicating was
via testosterone, why
did you land on water?

Mongrels were increasing,
dirtying the road.

Greif multiplies. Hate was ingrained
in faith. The arithmetic goes wrong.

Landscape stays. Moon moves on.

Why red roses were
dying in your land? Tell me
angel, tell me.

The rage insults me. Who
was perfect in the crowd?
Do I ask the god?

Satish Verma

Silent Perception

The crowds,
I was always afraid of them.

When you were
battling for a space,
you became a number,

in the golden cage.
Let me think...
what was the temple-secret?

Where was I
when the inferno started?

The grass still
waits for a showdown
with tall conifers.

Satish Verma

The Deep Anguish

In city of thousand sacrifices
the dominion reads―
your mind.

When you were putting
salve on paranormal wounds.

Telekinesis begins.
Fear lurks in your home―
before the orgy of slaughter starts.

The echo of blood―
looms large on the beach of glassy eyes.

The sinner wants to be
anointed, to
do it again.

In stench you walk alone
to meet god.

Satish Verma

Do You See?

Distrusting a
sure rise of moon―
if clouds were there.

From inside
a voice comes to haul
a burning sun.

If you open the
dark room, would you
find the tether?

The beast roams
in night, to escalate the
violence of sleeping truth.

Satish Verma

Death Was Lucky

I will find another
indigo in you, when you
were linked to exercising talons.

Stealing my moons,
for a rapturous choke,
I was being observed.

A face off begins
on the stage of life, between
wrecked ego and collective guilt.

Thumbs severed off. Ghosts
of war are mushrooming.
A winter crop was becoming rich.

Only god knows, why
singingbirds were silent.
October was not very cool, and
big tears were not flowing.

The unparalleled blood
was becoming thinner.

Satish Verma

Unclaimed

You create a hybrid
without protocol.

A body of clay lies―
in the morgue. The fear
guides you.

Hold me, we
would discover each other
in dark.

You can, I would say,
without hurting yourself,
become what you are.

The great divide
between life and death
must continue.

Satish Verma

Breakdown

When you talk of
a war on the behalf...
you become a sinner.

A self-deceit
wants to believe in demon,
what he was.

In mode of morphing
into a giant, who
had no limbs.

Truth was not
this. It was trying
to prove it was.

Satish Verma

Evening Smoke

It was like a combat
exercise at sunset.

I won't call any deity
for my prayers,
and expect to survive
the blasphemy.

No, there was no carnality.
How could you take
your own creation?
An affair with your own shadow?

You always loved the
hidden meanings,
unstitching the wounds.

Seeking an endless
peace for a pilgrim, climbing
a river of quivering eyes.

A tongueless marionette
does not need the strings.
The Barbie doll may not crumble one day.


Satish Verma

Hole In The Heart

It was all white.
You wanted to see the interruption
by black rocks.

In frost you don't
leave footprints, do not
reach anywhere.

A facial deviation
separates the primates from
enlightened beasts.

Stones won't roll
today. Bystanders would not
pickup the fallen.

The unarmed question―
marks fall flat. There was
no ready answer.

Satish Verma

In Hubris

Talking to
vanishing lights―
then I panicked.

Historic low.
Ghost will not leave.
I see him everywhere.

The journey
in caves, to reach within
the vultures.

Black and white
will meet one day all―
with empty cups.

Satish Verma

Strange Eyebaths

Looking into yourself,
one day you will say
I am not an alien.

The unborn nightmare
takes a secret look at the
self-portrait of a Rembrandt.

The contours were
losing the shape. Being
dented you don't―
want to become a pawn of time.

The hearsay was genuine.
You start believing
about the blameless moon.
Pink threads were appearing in your eyes.

An enigma flourishes.
Neither you will open your mouth,
nor the night will end.

Satish Verma

Suspended Fog

Charred―
blueberries.
I am returning your gifts
of cruel times,
when none was crying.

Chewed―
evidences.
I don't want to look at them―
to provide the measurement
of face.

A demoniac―
version,
of a sweet dialogue, stuck
in your throat.
You bend double.

Epitaphs
demand justice.
Nobody dies for his god, you
want to disappear to
take revenge.

Satish Verma

Morning Hour

The grass clings
to earth―
for a feel of mother.

A tall conifer
sends the message
to sky.

Not hearing―
the cooing of ringdoves
in snow.

Listening to
the swish of a car
on silent road.

Satish Verma

Within The Apparition

How will you undo
the legacy of violence?

A thought persistently bothers me.
You need high heels
to become taller, lifting
your face in dark.

Thinking without direction,
my dilemma was, how long
road rage will resolve the xenophobia?

Looking at the moods
of moon, would you
travel to an ocean in anger?

My eyes meet your hands.
They were busy doing nothing.

Like the apocalypse,
we will perish in savagery,
and meet our kismet beyond the stars.

A glow in the east is going to die.

Satish Verma

The Parable

Fear of staying in sidelines,
as a waning voice,
and falling in a drain.

You stand at the door of light,
and see the truth― boundaries
crumpling.

Afraid of transmission of lies,
interfacing long threads
of darkness.

It was extraneous, A
lot of heat generated by the
conversions. The doorkeeper remains the same.

The wisdom goes with
a begging bowl. Spirit was to
become an incomplete text.

Satish Verma

Sudden Flurries

A vinyl god
hardens. Forsakes affinity.
I take a dip in tears.

Rains freeze in
my turbulent eyes. The mist
makes you disappear.

Yes no meanings,
you will find in the verses.
Blood drips from the pen.

A flock of startings
sits in wait for―
the sun to rise.

Satish Verma

No One Was Real

In aloneless,
searching for you―
in a dark truth
trying to find a place
between the eyes.

Like a meme, a gene―
I carried you in my arms
by moonlight sonata
where the ocean meets
the flames.

Unmasking
pumic stones, the
face of volcano― frozen eyes.

You walk under the palms
in dream shadows.

The dust flies without
a wind. Exposed relics,
in dry river bed,
give you the bloodbath
of forgotten rhymes.

Satish Verma

If God Wills

In a sneaky way
I liked to distrust him.
A between of daemon and man.

The fake guru. There was
a covert sign. I can find no name.
A delicate balance, of standing
in sun, shadowless, faceless.

The art of making a night
of riots with blood splattered roses.
This was magic.

The gullible falls, head on, carrying the cross.
A star crosses the moon.
A saint was born.

Satish Verma

What Else

Was trying to―
make eye contact with
unknown in dark.

Shadows become
real people, when I ask
who are you.

Remember to die
when you want to live
for eternity.

The giant ficus
smiles at woodpecker.
Buddha sleeps.

Satish Verma

Not To Be Understood

We were not in the
same book. Gods different,
we were placing dots
and dashes, smelling nights
writing our own epitaphs.

What this insane world
had offered to you in the
family of nonbeings?

I learn to sell my
wounds to buy peace.

The equinox equals
the strange life. Half yours and
half mine.

Undoing the disgrace
of falls, living in glorious
retreat, you do not want
to be understood.

The evergreen grass under
the running feet, would have the last laugh.

Satish Verma

No Makeup

Milk thistle cheated me.
There was no incarnation.
The solitary purple flower
was my leitmotif.

A girl was taking bath
in rose water on moon.
This was a poem of night,
alluring the sleeping snakes.

A thick blanket of snow
covers the wounds of earth.
You swear and spit and become
the saint of all the fugitives.

The yawns had crashed
on the bed of pointed nails.
How long you will take to
get ready for a revolution?

Satish Verma

Swift Descent

In cascading
tresses, when moon
got stuck.

I held your face
to see the frightened
fish in eyes.

Seven feet deep,
the snow-
escapes the man's foot.

A terrible fight
still goes on
between temple and mosque.

Satish Verma

Inertia

The night had dumped
the moon on the hill.
I was going to drop your name in rose bushes.

Sleeping alone was a torture, when
anxiety shows its fangs
in drooping lids.

Mysterious calls come,
from nowhere, when you were standing
on the sharp edge. A crisp decision
had to be made.

You become gold, without crying
and expose yourself
in dim light― where day and night meet.

Who will talk
about the final descent,
when you will deceive yourself?

A soap bubble was
shooting skyward.

Satish Verma

How Blue Was My Country

The godman also had
an underbelly.
He lost his vision,
came full circle.

Now paper lamps
float in rows
on tear effect.

An underdog―
becomes a horseman,
follows the royal buggy
with a naked king.

The verdict was
very simple.
It was a nightmare.

Satish Verma

In Celebration

The giant pain was nameless.
Held captive in
tearless screaming.

I have come back in
my deserted home.

The sitting peace was unstable.

Never I will say,
I do, going outside the
accepted boundaries.

No honour killing.

Misfit for the slot, you were
making your own sky, where
you seek liberation
from twilight zones.

Satish Verma

The Naked Book

Come and sleep with me,
I said to moon. We have to
talk about earth's fidelity.

Don't become a neo-rich.
I was afraid to
lose you in my songs.

A poet will always
remain contrarian. An enigma
covers the smile of a rose.

Then a tactical withdrawal
from the stars crowd. You had
wanted only the full moon.

A blood spill will
never tell you, why the blackbuck
was shot in broad daylight.

You freeze, will not move.
The gift of your bust lies in dust.

Satish Verma

Collapsing Lights

There was no ending
of questions.
I grope, I miss.

Memory plays
tricks. I have come
afar in shrinking heights.

A face jumps
in mirror.
Cannot recognize me.

Aging eyes.
Moon. Fallen leaves,
wrinkled yellow, harsh winter.

Satish Verma

Stray Moments

Even a lizard―
stops and looks
at you intently.

How the things
have gone―
wrong without asking?

You bend like
a bow to read
illegible truth.

Scissors ponder,
what was the need
to cut the rose?

Satish Verma