Talking To Fireflies

From pyre to pyre
you lived to the edge
of death, and time burned.

I speak without
voice when nightingale
sings and become Miranda
at night.

I will cease to exist
for you in twilight and say good bye
to Venus, ready to fade
into oblivion.

In nothingness one
finds the reply of
echoes in valley of Buddhas
who lost their homes.

Go to the clouds
sweetly. Someone waits at
the red stone to blend
the flames with roses.

Satish Verma

Truth Of Being

Walk on the fuming cinders
and meet the sun,
on the other side, where dreaming
starts and also ends.

Your belonging had a
price. I wanted to
seek the explanation, from the
mauled stars in sky.

The mind goes dumb and blank.
I don't remember me.
Circuitry tends to break
the tender relationship.

Trying to heal the cracks in walls.
I watch myself waiting avidly,
for something to happen,
after I swapped my
song with your tears.

The hawk was ready to
stoop on the trembling dove.

Satish Verma

Flight Of The Lost Bird

Why were you impersonal,
redeeming from blues
by blues?

Your shadow shrinks
under the moon, when you
are speechless, and set free
by unsaying.

In the mauled
pink dreams, you cannot keep your
eyes shut.When the
sorrow speaks.

Sometimes you undo
the cobwebs, failing to trap
the beautiful words and
start groping.

Have you listened to
nightingale's song? It becomes
restive and panic-stricken
when the call is not returned.

Satish Verma

Struck By Moon

The cosmic touch.
I was facing moon,
thinking, about the end of
universe and millions
of blue butterflies.

Someone didn't want to die
in snow-white shroud.
A severed hand
fires a gun.

How much was your timeless
wait? I may disappear
in the dots and dashes. Would you
be asking for courage to come?

The cruel realties. You
don't want to look back. The
weeping willow will not
stand erect.

The temple was waste
without a goddess of love.
The return of requiem
makes me sad.

Satish Verma

Stopping At Curves

I don't write a poem.
The poem writes me
for you. A ceremony of
tears to fill in the vacuum.

Those eyes were blue
like the serene lakes. How
my rock salt melts for
the swan's neck!

A part of my psyche
went to you for a smile
in my rare self-pride.
Why the flame flickers violently?

How much intimacy
you need to touch the moon?
Let the darkness of sun
decide at twilight.

It was always difficult
to live between the commas.

Satish Verma

Searching New Galaxies

Words don't speak―
the inner voice.
Words can only kill
the truth.

Quivering like a
hollyhock in wind,
O god, who are you?

Ever wished to
deceive yourself and become
a victim of love, not fear?

Hiding the panic,
you mature into the epitome
of voluntary surrender.
And here lies the riddle.

You will not understand
the effect of distinguished no.
It will burn in my
poems for centuries.

The holy book starts bleeding.

Satish Verma

In Deep Waters

I always invited you
to touch my past
for an impaled―

prophet, who was
adored after his death.

Why were you always becoming
extraordinary, accepting
the closeness of flames?

Was there any ending of a play
which had not begun?
Was it interchangeable?

The mutants had
a field day. You ought
to have remained unchanged
like Venus.

Kissing the pale lips
of a martyr? What am I
doing to you!

Satish Verma

Celebrating The Crumbs

Your hands,
fingers speak your mind.
You will never compromise.

I ask myself
the impossible. The skulls
will not stop laughing.
Face to face the moons burn.

Will you keep
my most precious secret?
how I loved a snakecharmer.

That never was.
White lie on the black
tongue to recite a
blank page.

Why don't you leave
the shade of Acacia?
The thorns will always
entice you?

Satish Verma

Thoughts In Wind

Talking to you
in a dream, shadow of
my lips falls on your
face.

It was a strange
knowingness.

You wanted to give
a name to my
unborn poem.

To live was to kill
the moons, asking nothing
from sun, becoming
yourself a flame.

Something you could
do. Put faith in me
and go, pluck
the roses.

My vessel was empty.
I am pouring in some
brainy thoughts to woo you.

Satish Verma

I Have Arrived

Searching hot plasma
in your eyes, which
changed me for all times.

There was no legend,
you crashed on the spikes
swaddled in pain.

Thinking again in
circles. What did you give
me to keep me looking
at the cruciform shapes?

The war goes on.
Repeating a poem hurts again.
A gift must have
a sun and clouds.

The rage sins.
There was no chaste moon.
I never reached the
right word.

Satish Verma

In Quicksands

You wouldn't know,
what you didn't want to,
after a sweet osculation
of a cleaver.

There was blood
on grass, after witnessing
the afterlife of a future god.
The goddess still weeps.

A black moon hovers
in blue sky. Was there a
polite embrace after
a violent actuality?

Delicately you hold
back your tears. The most
important exit was to
remain reticent.

Unsaid ache was the
greatest bliss.

Satish Verma

Afterpains

In my blood book
what was your
divine constant?

The arithmetic fails.
a black hole― sucks in,
the brilliant stars.

I was collecting
the rare salt, from the
abandoned beach of eyes.

Poetry was the flesh,
bones. Heart stops
beating, when images drop.

We will not speak
in dark, when the moon
was rising in the east.

Not lived to die.
The road will not end.
Every word becomes a milestone.

Satish Verma

Violets Under The Rocks

You pray for deliverance
when the pause between
the words have some
meaning.

Moon sheds the light.

A fantasy takes a risk,
going too deep in for future.
You fumble with the right tone.

I ask you to come
slowly like a wounded tigress
for a final kill.

The silent howling
bends down to pick up the
red clover. Nobody wants to
be half-dead.

My immaculate faults glare.
The copperhead waits. I
am ready to take a kiss.

Satish Verma

Joining The Hyphens

Hitting from the
arch of eyebrows,
my pain were you.

One brief death
in illusion, settles on
all the descents.

Not taking any
road to reach the moon
on hill, when you were gone.

For all the half―
spoken words, this was
the moment of liberation.

Solemn signs without a
phrase don't turn the
key and door remains shut.

Between coming and
going, time remains still
like a frozen lake.

Satish Verma 

Mythic Hymns

A godly pluck
from your lips,
the nightingale sings.

I know your
concern for the trampled
mushrooms. Where
the fairy will sit?

I broke the
promise once, not to
kiss the buttercup.
Life was so hurting.

Sitting on rainbow,
sometimes you forget,
and start talking to eyeless
daffodils.

The Narcissus
was not me, pining
for the moon whole life.

Satish Verma

When Horizon Meets The Moon

Stoking fire
I come back to moon.
What if a whiff of nature
topples my poem in afternoon
of wilting roses?

The genre is spoiled.
You want to drink moonlight
in dark, but water
remains neutral.

An unreturned kiss
of believing in yourself,
takes a big toll. Dreaming sky
in cloudless days was
a casualty.

Why do you talk
without words? The prophecy
of a hollow bust comes
true. You become your own enemy.

After war there is a war.
Can you find peace in my verse?

Satish Verma

Would You Recognize?

I will listen to me one day
and stop uncoming.
A waxing moon was watching.

With a kiss at dawn
all the gods were stolen.
Like you were changing
the depth of water.

There was no ceremony,
after landing on the
burning temple. Priest was
mauled and goddess
will never come back.

Wheels are sunk.
Chariot was impounded.
Sun was hesitant to move.

You can come on
tiptoes. I will wait
till eternity in blue fog.

Earth was not behaving
like godmother.

Satish Verma

Legacy

You put your hand
on my hand, stealing me
from me, erasing the―
past and future.

An irradiant face
floats on the still lake.
Moon by moon
I try to reach you.

It will not last,
the bee without the sting.
Honey brings the trap.
There was no secret.

Beautiful navel
harbors a dream.
You want to climb the
hills, to see the stunning
sunset.

Satish Verma

Breaking Point

Where do I touch
you in dark? You don't have
the skin, like water.

The echoes were dying
in the stillness of nightbirds.
Do you call it tranquility?

Unhinged, a sharp cry
moves around a Michelangelo,
unbelieving in last judgement.

Catching of the falling
leaves in autumn, reminds
you of impermanence. Yet I
will explore eternity.

The call returns. Time
to collect the bowls. Roses
are dead at altar.
You cannot stitch the wounds.

I will again
measure my height.

Satish Verma

At Crossroads

I become your past
in some confrontations
trying to hear you.

The lexicon gives me
a path to go in the quiet of
night, when you are sleeping
in moon's arms.

What a dream. A
white tiger jumps on the
pink belly of earth to
find the browless eye.

Standing before the
firing squad, you were
still planting the lilies
and iris will go blind
for thousand years.


The coral reef has
started dismantling.

Satish Verma

Against A Backdrop

Like the light
trapped in a diamond.
I watch your face.

You know, that
you will never know yourself.
There was no elegy
before the cessation.

One day this will pass. You
will not lie against you,
naked as a moon.

A pride sins
the rose for tearing off the
bee's wings. I smell
a self-conceit.

You were drawing on your
fingernails, a portrait
of a dying river.

I wanted to live
before my cold-blooded carnage.

Satish Verma

Tell Me, Tell Me.

Under the cosmic
dust, an elite existence
wants to close the waterhole.

Hostility was increasing
between the same species.

But evil and good would
always co-sleep.

O Buddha
I will make the tree
walk and come to you
where you used to sit under.

And ask some stingy
questions. Why you want non―
violence when violence
would always exist?

And the light
hesitates to shine in pitch dark?
And the words remain quiet?

Why it was so impossible?

Satish Verma

Purple Bleeds

Untied I set myself
free. You pass on―
the moon by lips.

If you cheat the
words, they become your
strange, noiseless adversaries.

The prison has
no keys. You can come out
and go back. Night
unmakes the walls.

Perhaps, one day
I will meet my craft of
oriental track of
drowning in your silent eyes.

Pink death of setting
sun takes away all the glory
of seasoned smile.

Slowly Venus will dip in twilight sky!

Satish Verma

Hidden Sojourns

Watching in shifting
stance of futurism, I will
be choosing frozen―
pains of the past.

Endlessly I begin
again, the pursuit to meet
the end at moonrise.

I look up at the moon,
and you look back at the road.
And I will ask, what
was the black truth?

You always think of
the windows, when the doors
were shut. To escape from
the colossal mistakes?

Truth, one day
will melt in your eyes.
I will pick up the pen.

Satish Verma

A Walk In Omninight

Being a soft terrorist,
you cannot change me.
When there was nothing else
to do, I will mix the tears
with sweat.

Will you think of me?
Violence was growing
in garden. The spirit of
roses was becoming restless.
Why we were quarreling for grafts?

You said it was a
custom to kill the dream―
in bud. Timeless past
becomes my present. I will
never believe in the gift
of prophecy.

Will you join the painful
blues? Remove all the conciliatory
phrases and write a new script
in blood calligraphy. Why
all the clocks have stopped?


Satish Verma

After Eyebaths

Dahlias laugh like
you, swinging their heads.

You want to rub
over me, like a vast sea in wait,
linked with an island.

There was no reason
to script like Albert Camus.
But I was moving
out of line.

Would you be my best friend,
after I was asked to love
my rival?

No ghost name was
needed to follow the truth,
when you were being
counted.

Behind the red
clover lies a promise.
There was no malignancy.

Satish Verma

Little By Little

It was unfair.

The uncanny animals
are leaving an impact
on human beings.

Under the sway
of absurdity poetics
also comes.

I try to decipher the knot.

Do you know what
you become, when you laugh
like a mockingbird?

My only angel, who
has dropped by the earth
to see me in twilight.

The heart of palm,
you will not eat without me.

Unspoken words
come on the trembling lips.

Satish Verma

Predators

The aura was waning.
White pigeons―
were not ready to stay.

They wanted to go
home, wingless― from where
they were kidnapped.

Braless the moon, laughs.

Garment sellers, were
placing the bets on valentines.
Where they will land?

The watchmen will
abandon the gates.

de rigueur
demands the undressing
in public to show the scars.

Someone wants to
become bisexual.
Not made for each other.

Satish Verma

Deceiving Non

After the death of the dark,
in the way you wore
your smile, I asked you to
see me at dawn, before the
sun rises.

A star is born,
you take on the moon.
I embrace my poem.

You own the candle.
I was the flame.
The light pays homage.

A timeless pain
still follows you in woods
to stitch the womb.

You have to run
away from the wolves
to save the doves.

There were no more allusions.

Satish Verma

On The Knife Edge

What I feel, was
incredible to shake off.
And the moon cries.

Why do I tie the
knot with nature? Your
eyes and cascading voice?

My wait will never
be over after the brief
encounter with the rising
mounds.

There it goes, my self―
made tryst with burning ghats,
to search a lost face.

The twilight pain
climbs again in my verses.
I cannot weave
a beautiful sunset.

For whom the
echoes travel very long
in dark woods?

Satish Verma

Only To Live

The savage moon
will not stop at passionate
kiss and embrace.
The pansies were ready
to burn.

Every word becomes
a shrine. You adore the
dark shades of
sparkling eyes. There
was no epitaph.

The knobs won't
move. Granite
melts in granite. Fireflies
take revenge and
stop flying.

Struggling for voice
the tongue slips at full
stops. Small commas now
dither to find the space
between the meanings.

Satish Verma

End Of The Beginning

Being cheated by
a moon in dark night
of winter.

A corruption of
my name makes you
everlasting.

Would you ever know
the spirit of surrender,
without giving yourself away?

In the start, there
were no signs. Only eye contact
with adrenaline rising.

Because I will not
know you, sparingly
silent footfalls
of rain will overwhelm.

There are shadows
growing under your eyes.

Satish Verma

Becoming Less

Catch the waning
moon. It may not come
back tomorrow.

The traveller stops
under the sun, not to ask
for shade. The anger
was rising.

Like candle light
brightening your face
in autumn halo.

Would you like
to read a love sonnet
to retrieve the lost
Taj Mahel?

Squeezing the cool
bright moon in a glass of
drink, I want to see you
mutable moods.

Satish Verma

Untouchables

Did the supermoon
change you, as the earthmark
was disintegrating?

What you didn't
say becomes a smeared dot
on your forehead.

I would survive
between the two eyes, measuring
the space in thoughts.

Your place the ash
from pura at the feet of
walking out moon.

Why the lies are
used to save the truth from
the burning bush?

I become a raw
ghost. Do we meet only
in heaven?

Satish Verma

Roll Me

The words are splitting
in your lukewarm eyes.
I turn purple,
and ask you not to―
wait for me.

If you walk tenderly
on the edges of white lilies,
try not to look back into
religion of stingrays, which
never forget to strike.

Was it a poetry game
of musical chairs, when you
stood alone, thinking not―
to sit on a barbed seat
for testing unalloyed integrity?

The direction is lost.
I see through the masks
of masqueraders, pretending
to be angel's, they
were not.

Satish Verma

Unclaiming Debt

Dissecting the moon
to know the incredible,
in half light, I will
pursue my endless pain.

Rebirthing of illusion,
becomes a curse.
Unreality was supreme
I want to touch you in fog.

The condemned darkness
has a hidden secret. One day
the prophet will marry the
stupid truth.

You betray the wrapped
emotions, shying away
froma second life. Silence
steals the words from
your lips.

I will ask the sky
to lull the hot moonlight.



Satish Verma

This Unbelonging

Why did you want
to become mine,
when god was not there?

This sun, this moon,
these stars. My Miranda,
my nightingale.

An Atman floats
without a body. Can you
touch it with lips only?

Like potter's wheel
starting, you want to create
a body with words,
not hands.

Then why did you follow
me, watching me to take
the ash-bath, becoming
sinless?

Tears runs faster
than blood.

Satish Verma

Reading Shut Book

Don't throw the light
on rocks. It gives
more pain, explaining ethics.

What was passive
violence? You want to
kill your poems with out
hurting anyone.

The teacher lives
without giving a lesion but
you won't learn.

Want to read
Kafka again. Why does
nonviolence exit? The
silence tells the truth.

You can understand
yourself, when you don't
speak in the twilight of
moon and sun.

Satish Verma

Night Games

You have made me
a replica of dust
without sins.
There was no questioning.

Would it become
a mirrored crime? Word
by word, the meaning
was slaughtered.

Civility cries. No
holds barred. Life takes
revenge. How will you
stop the wolf?

Sleep well, on
pillow of grass, with
impermeable thoughts.

Blood cantos. The
moments turn into centuries.
A confessional guilt
starts healing you.

Love divides you in
body parts.

Satish Verma

Blue Tapestry

At the ritual you
become half angel and
spread the cascading black
hair on white moons.

The unwritten words
can start a private violence
in public domain.

I suffer silently
digitally in discrete
signs. I will not project
any genesis.

Inspite of voiceless
protests, you inherit my
theme, like the morning
glory of sun.

There is no mutilation
of truth. I will
take the Agni test to
prove my incapability.

No medals were displayed.

Satish Verma

Bald Winter

Pushing you away
from me.
I was in flames.

A cadaver walks
without shadow. Blackbirds
were falling dead from
the blue sky.

Do you believe
in omens? Nameless a star
melts into my eyes, burning
the face, arms and torso,
making a history.

All the blind pilgrims,
are ready to depart.
I let you go to
find the hidden import.

The live skin
becomes leather. You want
to wear the shoes
to remember your foes.

I look back, from
where the journey didn't start.

Satish Verma

Baked Tragedy

It was a waste.
The mantel was too sharp
for the dying words.

Will not give a call.
I was angry with me.

Your skin wearing
on my hands,
O god I want to undo
my sins.

It hurts me,
whena praying mantis
keeps a watch.

I have defeated myself.

Very proud, an instinct
prepares me
for blue burns.
You will never know yourself.

A thick pain drips
from the swollen eyes.

Satish Verma

Two Large Feet

Something is left
out. I ask you
when you are not there.

It was too cold here.
Can I hold your warm hand?

I hear, what I was
not hearing. The voices
live underground, like land mines.

I sing to myself
to make me sleep!

Do not take my moment,
do not trace my lines.
A half-religion separates
the salt of tears.

There is no art in
saying No. Youwill wait
whole life to say Yes.

A red rose bleeds in my hand.

Satish Verma

Dust Of Dreams

When you carry
my poems in your eyes,
I will bring the
daisy moon.

Leaping into the
cult of climbing the books.
I lost myself.

The reign of terror
begins in fireflies. I pluck
the tangerines from your
beautiful valley.

The falcon sharpens
its notched beak
to rip apart the pride
of the wild thunder.

An angel bleeds
inside. The ashes are
swept away from
the funeral of lips.

A song echoes from
the far hills.

Satish Verma

Soul Searching

Immaculate boundary.
I touch your nose
to read your mind.

Let's share the same moon.

Unthinking, I have
to find a new phrase
to describe the daisy.

The way you look at me.

I am. You are.
Sometimes game
changers. Sometimes lost.

We try to reach the whole truth.

Meeting anthem
under the fig tree to
start a new book of raw love.

Where the sum has gone?

Satish Verma

A Pain To Forget

In candid silence,
we come closer, and
healing begins.

Where the moon
bends, I take revenge
on night, fumbling
with the garter stitches.

And what a poem
will do, without
touching your eyes in tears?

Star weavers want
to knit purple moon on your
veil before you walk
away as a bride.

Don't keep your
mind empty. Somebody will
put a newly born
to fill in thought.

Satish Verma

Libretti

In fluid state
my words will catch you
one day.

Almost mortal,
a goddess visits the dream
and wears your face.

Not trying to
reach anywhere to get a
new name in writing
you a poem.

Would you ever
mean to die for a cause
when the trigger finger
didn't pull?

When you don't mean
something, I had become
a thing.

Beyond the time
there was an endless bliss.
Will you care for me?

Satish Verma

The Absolute

Keep me in the last
chapter of the book
you have not written.

Let the end come
of a story written on
the sands of time,
with handprints.

An old hill walks
to meet the river on fire.
When hands tremble
to tie the knot.


As I reach near
the sunset, a slice of moon
cuts my wrist, to let
the poem be born again.

A boneless assault,
a tearfull withdrawl.
How we will remember
the anniversary?

Satish Verma

The Contest

My deep anguish
simmers. Why the man
betrays himself and
starts eating the kin?

Like a venomous snake.

It was difficult
to stay normal in the
jungle of players
to become a ruthless sovereign.

The time gap,
space― the distance between
the hearts remains intact.
You start breaking up.

You lock the words
of charity, and become a clown,
moon-skilled
reciting dead hymns
in praise of a no-god.

Satish Verma

Moon Path

It stuns.
A vampire bleeds
the vein of black moon.

Unresigned,
I pursue the path
of your historical pain.

What provokes
your inner beast to become
your own light
to enter the darkcaves.

The stone tools
cross your footprints.
A python tries to swallow sun.

You steal,
not imitate my golden words
to become immortal.

Satish Verma