HAPPENED

He climbs on his being, 
crawls 
like a lizard; 
frightens. 

Sometimes after, 
in a shock 
falls back. 

Runs away 
leaving behind 
a trembling trail.

Satish Verma

WHITE HOUSE

It was a rape of a city. Go ahead. 
I still speak the old phrases 
with back pain. 

And let fly the silence 
in beautiful emptiness 
of a swollen heart. 

On pain of anonymity 
I wanted to clear my name 
from tangled fame. 

The after death comfort 
of words when clarity 
moves in the home of a meaning.

Satish Verma

CONTEMPORARY

In tottering penetration 
of blue summer 
you become 
silent game. 

I accept my defeat 
from stones 
falling on 
intellect. 

Carbon fear of rosewood 
was rising 
to reintegrate 
illicit love of twilight. 

Testing the waters, before 
a swim in prophecies 
I ask the bank 
to hold the seasoned waves.

Satish Verma

ALL I UNREAD

I unwrite a song 
for she, 
a gratis homage. 

Questioning imperils 
the sky, 
clouds would not weep. 

A cover-up comes to quote 
scriptures 
the meaning of deployment. 

Was I feeling smug after 
counting 
the pages of unread death?

Satish Verma

TERRACOTTA

With fractured hands 
I lit a pyre 
of small nudes 
with pink globes. 
A moon bleaches me white in a long night. 

A reprieve was needed 
from the scorching sun 
opening a jinx 
of a metaphor. 
The poems will take care of the burning home. 

Of deaths and forecasts 
I would like to see the 
ending of descent 
from the mount of pain 
The ice will tremble in the smoke.

Satish Verma

HOSTAGE

Cohabiting: 
my poems make me sad. 

You reflect the times 
my body leaves the wound marks on sand. 

Again I had gone to my tattered home 
to sleep under the moon. 

There was only a small window. 
I would look at the stars whole night – 

to conceive and jump into a lake 
of synthetic fathers and hired wombs. 

The grieving faith now holds you responsible. 
O god, in reverse order, become a man.

Satish Verma

A LASSO

Battle remains between 
white and black, 
a synthetic truth 
and a bald faced hornet. 

Aching violence was spreading 
on moon. I was tossing around 
the stars placing the apostrophe 
in the end. 

There was a conflict in pain 
and the pill. It was a prelude to the 
carrier of a gun. Father was degenerating 
in his son’s boots. 

The social split was widening 
in the gulf of posterity. You dress 
as a bride to receive the punishment 
from the hands of arrogance.

Satish Verma