SPLINTERING

You always repeat the moons
in your eyes.
I will not drop my lids.

I was talking to myself
about the perversity of skimming
the sperm, throwing black rocks
on milk white daisies-
to protest against the fields
not ploughed deeply and scattering
the seeds in wild jungle.

One day panther will die
on his own, head down,
swaying, leaning on one side
and then collapsing.

No pheromones will come out
from the spent body.

Satish Verma

HERE LIES THE QUEEN

The frozen voice hangs on the
door. A crowd waits.
Midnight explosions
will start soon
to herald a benevolent sky-
for squatters.

In rise and fall of an empire
I won't put any label
to generation drift. The
changing geography will
take care of the ashes.
A ragpicker will tell the story.

Ambulatory moon
had become economical, blanching
the stained dreams only
like our land's wounds.
The sea of hate lies naked before us
to sweep the carcasses. I know not
how to become omnivorous.

Satish Verma

BLACK RIVER

The supermoon was rising with
a great aplomb to shame the stars.

At night the buttercups wage a war.
Come unpretending, as you, not him, -

on the lake, becoming a stranger to
yourself. There ia an endless nocturnal confession.

Do you know the poison tree blooms,
when the golden eagle rises to take a dive

on the row of funerals.

Satish Verma

Blind Alleys

A nascent cry
demands the signature
of space.
I will start the self destruction-

clawing back
on the land of
betrayals.
The rule of sky was at stake.

Trees were burning
and the birds
want to grasp
the stark reality of notional violence.

In dark hour
I know not words
to lift the eyelids
the cloud, the flowers, the blood!

Satish Verma

The Scream

Burying
your titanium teeth
in flawless
apples.

You release
a terror.
The scream.

Centuries-
of fear
and fear of
centuries
chasing a mysterious silence.
The scream.

Satish Verma

Salvaging

1

The reluctant thereness
I want to embrace.

The spiritualism without a god?
This whispering darkness -

always becomes an incensed flesh.
I unwrap myself.

2

Please let me touch
the multistrands of understanding.

After all what was a religion?
You were always seeking an exit.

The betrayal, godliness and
fog hours. I always remained obsessed

with the failing lights.

Satish Verma

BLACK SUN

Witch hazel jumps the
gun. Questions arise.
Why the cuckoo will not sing today?

I am drumming the wall
raised between us,
opening a small window towards the sea.

Strange things happen.
Full moon was bleeding
Astringent. I call for the mountain's music.

This fractured statecraft.
You become a stone after a blast;
moving towards the periphery.

Half-naked a statuette
was walking in night to find a
mortuary where Apollo was laid to rest.

Satish Verma