With Paper Frills

Touching your
glacier lips with my poems.
A splinter thought
has hogged the center stage.

There was a double
meaning in relaxed posture
of rebellion. Doves of peace
were not visible as yet.

The poverty of freedom
to defend the talent of embracing
death without bullets of shame.

Stones in limelight, left
and right, hitting the walls
of silence. The fat people with
golden hair will decide the hard core burns.

All night, I was
changing sides. Moon was
sending the messages in gaping holes.

Let the skin of hands,
hang like salt-and-pepper!

Satish Verma

To Be Human

Not thinking of you
in vacant mood.
Sometimes you want to put
questions to yourself.

Touching the bruises, like
a lover, not to feel the pain. You
want to wipe out the hurts,
trespassing the area of darkness.

Changing the script, you want
to etch out your name―
on the trunk of a fig tree. Under which
a Buddha wanted to meditate, but did not.

The hands print will tell the tale
of a masterpiece built by them after which
they were chopped off.

Satish Verma

How To Proceed

Opening night's silk,
remembering you, under moon―
walking on wet grass.

You were not fake in
a crowd of naked fakirs,
taking bath in sun.

The truth must come out
to face the mother tongue,
when god was killed.

Where it hurts, the shoe's
nail. Prodigal son was blind.
Did not read the road.

Satish Verma

In Terrible Times

Poetry stares, unblinkingly,
in dilemma―
at mindless extremism.
Evolution of words,
was going retrograde.

Your pretty face―
needs dusting. I was
curious to know about the story
of night shifts.

Sometimes I am hit―
by your feline grace to go for
immolation of male chauvinism.

You erect the barriers,
so that I won't
reach your lips. The moon
went laughing whole night.

A slow poison, like
hemlock, you drink the hurts
to stay alive in a wax house.

Satish Verma

Flowery Path

I will return you
to yourself in the twilight
of waning moon.

No more we will speak
in dark, to read the message
of holy night in pain.

A long way to reach
you in misty thoughts after the
priest breaks the vowels.

Something was certainly
wrong. Coffin was on way to
pick up the vessel.

Satish Verma

Pragmatically

I will not have any
alliance with your words
I am lost in wordless thoughts.

Ask the dead phrases―
you repeat often. Like evil hydra,
new heads come out daily.

This is my domain, my
battlefield. The letters do not
take any shape. Dots speak.

I love the statue
of laughing Buddha. Melting
the pods of transmission.

You know that, you do not want to say.

Satish Verma

Mystic Paths

In alternative lies,
a which-hunt starts―
to find the blue eyes trapped
in amber.

Who will ask, not to
dig in the land of suicides,
without boundaries?

Behind you, were hidden the
rocks. The thin-lipped screams
would not reach the nests.

The color fades, when you move
in the sun. Survey
was futile for another truth.

Courier was walking limp.
Cherries were withering in moon.

Bare-foot a journey starts to collect
the salt of eyes.

In the crowd of swans― nobody
has found the water.

Satish Verma

Smoking Candles

Soundlessly steps move, in
midmoon― deleting trust.
Now I am the time.

You left your guitar
on the moving sands of beach.
Waves pick up the song.

Watching a seagull―
wolfing out from eye socket,
of a sinking fish.

A gift from a barbie
doll of tanned skin in nun's garb.
Please stand in hot sun.

Satish Verma

You Don't Tell Me

How much to live
for you in different ways
becoming just me.

My grief mixes with
the clouds to rain on the
wings of songs.

Chenille. Like lifting
your memories
with beautiful metaphors.

Nonverbally the words
fall on the roses,
without any cause.

I bring back the moons.

Satish Verma

Like Searching Some Heirloom

It came like a hail
of leads.
An avalanche of
frog words.

There was no apology for pods.

Living in a seed vessel,
was very precarious. It
splits open from both sides.

You stand naked amidst
the barbs.

Will ever the man will do god
to a man?

I come near the lake
when moon lives.
Something was wrong. He was
looking very thin tonight.

I was not prepared for the pink tears.

Satish Verma

Trashing The Skill

Veneer was coming
off. Tribal fear to fore, am
trying to figure out.

From where the light will
come, between the pain and heart?
I will wait and watch.

After paying debts―
I will wake you up. When it
was my time to leave.

There was an anti―
hymn on my lips, when light went
out. End comes to play.

Satish Verma

Day-Night

By the time you had
left the podium, you―
had turned gray like an
overcast sky.

Life was short like a
twitter. How do I―
call you from the jungle
of screams.

Do not go into the woods.
The nightingale sobs
quietly. Flight was good
but there was no depth.

Want to nix my day? Take
away my pen. I will write
a poem with soaring
flames of my heart.

Satish Verma

Becoming A Recluse

How much I know me,
I will ask you one day.

That was a symbolic
wish, if you were on moon
to celebrate your own death,
at the hands of unknown.

The deepest mystery was,
why must you live.

This was a culture of thriving with
make-ups. If you recite
a truth, you become ugly.

Hunted by lymphs and
nodes you cannot walk straight.
You turn back, when
the time of departure comes.

Hail the dead, who
licks the rock-salt in end.

Nothing else was real.

Satish Verma

Because You Count

The name. You were my
flesh, my bones. Forgive
me for this moment. I am
burning all my belongings.

Looking at small things,
weather beaten. I have
come back to pay my
indelible debt.

Darkness was always there.
Who am I to light the candles
in storm to glorify the thoughts―
the shrine of past sins?

Ichthyotic. I am peeling
off the skin, the dirt― the stains.
Want to stand naked, firm, rigid
and erect in my aloneness.

It was time to climb blood totem.

Satish Verma

In Hypnosis

I wanted to see you―
in leap of night,
when the dreams walk
like moon's center of pull.

A book keeper will ask―
where this revenge stops?
Like sex slave you submit
to the lust of the system.

How does one die inside?
A day after, when you surrendered
to a cheat under the sun,
a mocking bird started singing.

A paper hawk makes a―
dive in dry river. Sleepwalking
begins to collect the lost
memories with an empty bowl.

Satish Verma

Subject To Arguments

Blowing up a no-show
you walk out of
procession of primates.

Moon and memories
and million of years
to become a full being.

Cognition gained,
I touch the raw nerves
of liquid stones.

Roasted nuts,
I will taste you,
once I revise my vocabulary.

The laced stars,
one on one, I meet
the dark holes of your galaxy.

O god, at equal. I will
call you one day to
climb down from my shoulder.

Every age wipes out the footprints.

Satish Verma

Ethnicity

What was that in your
eyes, which still haunts me in
evening of life.

You will not say, I
will not know where the story of
wailing song bird ends.

The first dark cloud of
Monsoon, becomes messenger―
of the young drowned moon.

Let's go and collect
the gifts of parting kisses.
Deliverance stops.

Satish Verma

Any Panacea

With a hushed tone
the shadow of the full moon
falls in the blue lake.

Stampede brings into sight―
another murky tale of fast
disappearing earth.

You must not hear of―
me again, at the pile of
gifts from the red Mars.

Knowing you in end―
to unknow my destiny of
walking on hot coals.

Satish Verma

The Other Periphery

Hurting yourself,
You won't say anything about
falling notches. It bruises, it
bleeds.

You will condole,
and like sundew, trap my poems
in backfoot.

Explicitly I will ask,
never stop crying.
Your neighbourly pain will descend.

Its lips become dirty,
when facial expression of moon
alters.

I want to change
my religion, drumming up
the nuances of refusal.

It wrongs you,
when an acceptance,
means never.

Satish Verma

As If Life Has Stopped

Why am I so sad?
I asked the waning moon.
The sun started flirting.

The vellum― still carries
the imprint, where you had
pressed hennas hands.

I came out once of
myself to look at me
from the falling star.

You would never know.
How had you cheated yourself once―
by praying for death.

Satish Verma

Against The Tide

Like a dwarf planet,
you follow me in distant
sky, so near― so far.

I love you like poet
Pablo Neruda. My eyes in―
your dreams, wide open.

When the tears would wait
to bloom like hidden flowers―
under the steady rocks.

Not me, not you, were
aware of the rising moon,
between snow and sleet.

Satish Verma

One Of Many Thoughts

Nobody was bigger than
your destination, you
were obsessed with the birth
of a new caste.

I was very angry
at me, to be myself.

We will not
meet at one dot
of separatism.

The arousal upsets
the mongrels. The wagging
starts liberally.

We will not exclude
the romance of delusion,
while interpreting the spirit
of the book.

Living by yourself
the inadequacy will
indulge in self adoration.

Where will I go?

Satish Verma

By Grace

I can only offer you small things―
like a coma,
a full stop.
Parenthesis―
or a hyphen.

To lit up the sparks
in visuals.
And no page was left unread
of my life.

Walk and talk
with me― to unsolve
the twisted humps
of times.

Your assets
had failed you.

You stand alone not to return back.

Satish Verma

No Primal Questions

Today you were
not you, sitting in your
cozy nest.

Talking of ethics
of pomp and rituals.

Your pageant was
fake. A disquieted observer
was being observed.

Everything is not true.
Sometimes human judgment fails.
You revert ―
to your native sense.

Morality again was nailed
on the stake. You are burned
alive for putting up the acoustics.

You hear nothing
because nothing was said.
A lull before the half-saints appear.

Satish Verma

Red Lines

In eternal quest
of peace I will find you one―
day in flowing tears.

Doors are reticent.
Blue stars were melting. Poverty
will take the back seat.

I promised you, I
will never hurt you even
in my wild dreams.

Take my hand to stop
the tremors of earth. The moon
was dying on naked beach.

Satish Verma

Courtesies

Mounting surveillance
on myself after snapping
hyphenated bond.

I will set you free
from the white paper, carrying―
your beautiful face.

The slanting eyes
will haunt me in dark, I will
turn around and cry.

When did rift emerge―
while playing the moons? The lake
was ready to drown me.

Satish Verma

Incompleteness

Sometimes words
are very cruel. You
cannot chew them.

For the spirit of―
dying moon, you
wear a death mask.

Sitting on a wind cheater, in
tower of pain, you
want to understand the breed
of conflicts, fuelling the duels.

Yes or no, you have
to come with me. Stones
will not shame you anymore.

The black spots―
of dream-dropped roses,
smell of family dust in the
eyes of white ghosts.

You fatten the flames.

Satish Verma

Reprimanding Self

You must act now,
to deceive yourself. Laugh,
when you want to cry
in blue silence.

Getting ready to choke on
the unspoken words―
of committing a sin of speaking
the truth.

Unaltered ego of lynx eyes
goes through the walls of double-blinds.
The drugs were fake and
faith was dead.

With whom you want to
share the brickbats? The cheats
will ride the colossus and
the new moon will rise red.

Satish Verma

Great Leap

The stones will speak for
river bed― a perfect home
for drowned principles.

Like shrew you enter
the belly of jewels to talk
to a bronze Buddha.

He stands in vigil,
your godhead, after the thieves
plundered the frames.

The small hands pointing
the pistols at the heads of
ancient fathers.

Satish Verma

Winter Sleep

The dust to dust phase
in between, you
did't want a self-destruction
to resurrect a dying myth.

Only God knows. Why
there was only the body language
to explain the miracle.

You wake up a frog
from hibernation. There was
no drought. Plenty of rains.
No nightmares. One has to change
the climate shift.

A muted denial stays
in throat. You wanted to say
the whole truth about life,
which never was uttered.

Scoliosis tilts the water
balance. You cannot carry the
vessels on head. Doubts
would play on the script.

Author had promised to live again.

Satish Verma

After The Execution

Just wanted to be
myself today, ripped after
the apocalypse―

of stainless bodies.
You pull down the era of
earthen lamps from ruins.

Give me a wrapped
guilt. I am a boat in water
without wooden oars.

Black eyes stitched
to dolls. They were going to
wed the white gods.

A knife's cult invokes
the barren cave. You had planted
the severed heads.

Satish Verma

Lapsed Memories

Can you foresee the
future, the unstable peak, the
ground's underneath tremble?

A lonely moon sits on
the palm― watching the risqué
world go to long sleep.

I am nowhere in
this crazy― maddening race of
musical chairs.

Unsure, I meet the
blue eyes of the lake, ready to
jump into my leaky boat.


Satish Verma

Where Three Rivers Meet

Homeless, you
remained on the
wrong side of moon.

Trying to steal
yourself from light.

Now money speaks,
undoing Fabian formula.

Why one should exit
from the cabal of choosers?
Your infirmity will
sink you in wet sands.

When salvias were blooming,
you wanted to become
an accomplice of a sage.
Killing without crime.

Sometimes you fill
your life with meaningless words.
A trivia of hurting others.

Satish Verma

Unpolished

A romance begins
between a tall tree and grass
to lighten the land.

The absence of thrill―
makes you mad. You wait for the
sky to become red.

A cat has nine lives.
Each for redemption of an
enemy in the house.

Staying silent whole
life, unlike anybody else to
become ordinary.

Satish Verma

Mixing The Shades

Catching the colors―
of rainbow, altering sky.
You kiss me again.

The panic was real.
Confession of a lone wolf
enters twilight zone.

Strange undergrowth sends
misty feeling of raw wounds.
I sing my farewell.

Sorcery comes alive.
You tie my hands not to write
the violent sunset.

Satish Verma

Renewal Of Faith

At middle of nowhere
I don't want to believe
in your truth.

In white robes
a crowd, like mushrooms
of same genes, raising their
heads, after paying obeisance to
mother's mausoleum.

It was still a face
of terror, my trampled
future in our nemesis.

Was it a divine curse?
I remain, who I was. Unscathed
unharmed, after you left
before the knif's plunge.

The alternate damage was
mine. I will bear the asp's
bite in my glory.

Closing the door of
crypt was not my choice.

Satish Verma

Indebted

Hips and the rose hips.
You bite your tongue. Desire
has many connotations.

You always feared
of a free fall. I rise. The
war will continue.

I permit myself
to talk to the waning moon.
The clocks stop taday.


A train whistles by.
The river trembles violently
under the bridge.

Satish Verma

Dreams

Like the furled leaf―
with teardrop earrings, why you
will play with the winds?

The temple vestige
will invoke a forgotten god.
The dove circles in sky.

The history repeats
in desert of uploaded censors.
I become a narcissus.

The tremors return,
when I start drinking moon, from―
your glittering eyes.

Satish Verma

Repealing The Command

Like sheltered, as in fist,
the firefly―
my poem shudders
in your cavernous eyes.

You will not bend down,
to pick up the dropped
coin of moon.

A benign lump
refuses to melt for a
speckled beam of light.

The charred bones
of the burnt-out church,
wait for the second coming.

There was no
curtain drop. Everything
will happen before the weeping grass.

The father and son,
were both guilty― of killing
the mother moth.

Satish Verma

Fantasies

Leaving a bloody trail―
moon jumps into lake in hurry.
Sun knocking on doors.

Existing without
the soul, was a fatal mix
of lips and hamlock.

You write your name
on the decapitated moon
declaring a war.

Fireflies now dip
the sparks in your eyes, which
will become blue poems.

Satish Verma

The Grand Finale

Your night eats the―
umbel of light with curved lips.
What was the ethics―
of this getty image?

Your responses are weak. You
walk in, on unsteady path.
Will not lift the rock from the chest
unlike Sisyphus.

You roll down on lilacs
gnawing at my pain― nibbling
away at my poem. There
is no gender, there was no god.

The spilled milk of moon
now washes the face of night.
I become you in the embrace
of unlimited death.

Satish Verma

No Departures

A massive black hole
devoures the devdasi.
The temple becomes
a cadaver court.

Some say it was
less punishment for the sins
of the pulsar.

The dancing baby
in the womb of rubble
of prayers does not want
to come out.

It was a price of
dying intact.

The incense of screaming
roses blooms. How much
heavy was the wreath?

Overnight the image
was replaced. There was
no spinning wheel. Only
a water cistern.

Satish Verma

Silent Complaints

To remain normal―
how difficult it was. To undo
what had not been done.

A pinch of salt was
needed to taste your skin.
Belief will come later.

My unearthly lover, the
moon was becoming physical
sending me a lipless song.

Once upon a pain,
I had asked you to be, what
you were― my rival.

The uncanny fear, wins
over the whispers― when it
appears stark naked.

Satish Verma

Everything Was You

A poem dies in me.
I search for you again
deep in my breast.

The initial spurt of
the raging thought―
sleeps on the rags.

With scrawny fingers―
you write a verse of―
moon in night.

The half-moons rise
in the vacant looks
like venus flytrap.

Do not pluck the―
blood roses. My fingers
were still bleeding.

Satish Verma

In Burial Home

Not for me,
this politics of living
for sexless alchemy.

You take on―
the pen's broken nib,
writing blood soaked birth
of an illegitimate avatar.

The spin was fatal.
Unfazed a bizarre tone,
announces a miss call. You
are pronounced dead.

You will swim now
in veil. Eyes looking deep
in water where light does not reach.
The mission of salvaging a
heritage fails.

Dog winter.
Sun hides behind the thin survivors.
There was no will,
no suicide pact.

Satish Verma

Moment Of Hubris

Discarding―
the past, systematically,
you reach the core,
of undoing.

A curse hangs―
over the empty cup.
Now you can fill it
with tears.

Space shrinks.
Eternal memory of
losing your faith―
brings in the damaged truths.

Stick and carrot―
both survive.
It was not, it was,
the liberation.

Satish Verma

Green Fire

When I need something.
I will ask you.
But I was never going― to need anything.

From where this―
armoury comes, trying to
influence the vowels, from
the clenched teeth?

When I hold your hand,
you start trembling.
There was mist and
there were walls.

Are we drifting apart―
in search of moons?
Flesh for flesh, bone for bone? You
swim fast, I track on the land.

Satish Verma

Who Answers?

Time
was the great avenger.
It takes you away
into war,
with swan words.

My baby poem
cries. Lost in a crowd of swindlers.
Not finding the home of truth.

Was it a rarified
phenomenon, that it was
a dark nebula,
that gave birth to the sun?

Are you free to
agree with me, with my existence?

The conclusion was
beyond the judgment of insane people.

Are you going to harm yourself
by accepting the fireball questions?

Satish Verma

A Window Speaks

Shadows―
were lengthening.

I start mending myself.
Speechless―
you commence telling in signs.

Grass flattened. Glass―
in water. The body floats.
The game was over.

A new chapter opens without a book.

Another spurt of poetry.
I will never forgive me.
Fear becomes my guide.

The sound of decapitation
resonates. I lift the pen
and kill myself.

Satish Verma

Inconsistency

Depression―
was deep blue.

In zero-reflux, I was
intimately involved―
with your pride. The conflict
was rising.

Human mind
like shutting off the sex,
was making a bibliography.

Purity of link will
describe a yellow hollyhock,
waiting to be crushed.

It becomes a burden
when I spend on you― my poems.
Chemotherapy had failed.

Satish Verma

Old Habits

I wanted to make
you my friend.

The combative
bull-taming on milk roads
was in vogue.

Somebody was talking
about the rape of
rising sun on the
higher reaches.

A marathoner stops
midway to collect the nails
after the bonfire of shoes.

The festivity over, you
can sing in the praise
of fallen black moons.

The gifts of crimes, for
bounty hunters, were in plenty.
I always stood in dark
to evaluate the triangles.

Satish Verma

Referendum

The sins of mortals
have become ordinary.

You can breathe like
nekton, in deep ocean of
idyllic mind.

Pull out your hubris like
a tinkling coin and rub it with your―
body / let it become dirty.

The wayward emotion and
illuminati will meet for the
first time/on the turf.

Desire wins ultimately.
You pick up a red rose
and place it along the jasmines.

Acceptance comes after the fall.

Satish Verma

Escaping The Wait

Perfect domes―
beehived.

An alien sitting in
Mona Lisa? Do you believe in the
pshyche of a beekeeper?

A vision. The future tense
retrieves the past glory of tenseless era.
The mimicry will do its own job.

A freak incident. Earth was
moving. Corned bodies riding on lead.
You must fill up the blanks to―
prepare for lethal descent.

Idolatry. Every cult becomes
a new idol. Hate-filled sermons.
Yestersins will pay
for the mortgage.

Satish Verma

When The Smoke Rises

Writing poems
on your lips,
fearlessly compromising
the Venus.

The pink, female
moonlets, trying to
stitch a womb.

I start a countdown
to launch,
a death paramour.
My severed hand
holds a yellow rose.

Preserving the―
half skull of artificial
intelligence, living
without you.

Meet me again
on the crossroads.
I want to change
the gender with you.

Satish Verma

Another Assault

Set free the water―
do not harm the spring.
A short poem will write your
theme in air, without asking.

The unbaked bread
will feed the oven.
And the silent prayers
will seal the lips.

The bride of desert―
weeps. No palms, no ariels.
You run over the ruins
to find the tools.

Now breathing stops. A
hammer strikes.

It was the tragedy
of a brainless tumor.
Aneurysm brings the stroke.

Satish Verma

Uprooting Dandelions

Eating a suicide tree's fruit
searching for the answers.

When I am me without you;
poetry meets an accident.

I stand on the shifting sands,
asking each stone, where
was my home?

In core of your earth, I was
the centrex with no message.

The white paper and black dots―
doors had become jealous.

No light falls, on the prayer book.
I apologize for my ignorance.

Satish Verma

Desiring Impossible

To own you,
was my fault. I wanted you flawlessly,
to choose, who lives
and who walks away.

Trying to discover
pure truth, the whole truth―
nothing but complete.

You start groping
for eternal globes, like Mars,
burning hot, but far away.

An aesthetic oneself, searching a duplicate.

The suffering of useless
phrases hurts. Your eyes squint,
wanting to tell, but don't betray.

Who will succeed
awakening the sovereignty of a wayward bard?
Who will pull down the moon
from the black sky?

Satish Verma

Fantasies And Myths

Bleeding the planet
between life and death.
O invisible, in time and pain
I want you.

Telomere― the capping
has failed. My genes are shrinking..
The acid burnt face still
smiles behind the fingernails.

The spurious drugs will
not allow you to pass away. Lip service
was too fallacious. You never
knew how difficult it was to die.

The night dissents. Day has
many upheavals. You stand alone
in tall grass to count the flames
engulfing the sunset.

Satish Verma