UNHEALING

In the waning moon
you were talking
of fathoms.

*

The water
has countless images.
Do you need a boat?

*

The vampires.
Why you go to the ruins.
I am bleeding.

Satish Verma

SANE DEPARTURE

How age slips away
from your hands?
How deep you will
go in the cavernous
mind of time?

Why brother,
why, the healing started
to hurt you and you
did not want to
stitch the name?

No tattoo will tell your
address. You want to
go anonymously, leaving
the moon behind
the brown hills.

The shadows are─
lengthening. Time was up.
Lay down your arms
and walk away with
empty hands.

Satish Verma

PARADOX

Time. Marches on;
tasting the blood of hikers,
who would not─
reach the summit.

*

Red clover.
I walk under the black
moon to light─
the fire.

*

Meet me
sometime, in the half way
house, I have forgotten
my name.

Satish Verma

Superstitions

An empty chair in a
muffled day, starts
a self-import and
falters on steps.

You need the fear, to
strike back, when the
tracer distribution
returns with a ghost.

The discount will substract
from the truth. I will
find the zero at the
end of lies.

Will I concede to the
barter? Let me first taste
the bitterness of victory,
become drunk on your hate.

Satish Verma

Ritualism

A rose.
Atonement for-
all the thorns.

*

I will gather─
all the poems. For anointing
your memory.

*

Where the sun
hides, I will paint a
field of marigolds.

Satish Verma

Rivalry

Unable to conceive.
The theme had not arrived─
near the mouth.
It was agonizingly close,
Before and after the storm.
A dharma had failed.

Law of the land:
first a sprint,
then a strained voice.
You lend your voice to
a surrogate throat.
The audience roared.

Star by star, you walk
in dust. The search goes to
find the unknown, who takes
a big stride and leaves
gaint foot-prints
in dark.

Satish Verma

A nightmare

The system aborts.
(Multiple organs failure)
A deviant art
of dying pompously.

I wish, I was on a ─
moving floor, sailing
without a walk, looking at
the camouflaged ceiling.

The shrill voice of a whistle─
blower, mimics an opera.
I will snatch the words,
raw, from your lips.

It was here, in absence.
Your poesy, matter-of-factly.
Can you raise your voice
against the fall of the thing.

Satish Verma