A POEM

A poem, like death-was
unpredictable. You wait for it,
it does not come.

Then you drag a corpse
on stones to find its home
which never materializes.

You give me a hurt. I
become mute. Very shy
to accept the verbatim.

How different we are
in alikeness. I touch you in twilight
of life to become one.

And from daily life
I gather the pain, to print
the version of tomorrow.

Satish Verma

MY AFFAIRS

It was the presence.
Somewhere magnolias
were in bloom.

At this moment, there
was a meek withdrawl
sidestepping the explosion.

In the hour of
waking. Moon was sleeping,
morning after the acid attack―

putting ahead the
dilemma, before the sun rises
retracting the claim for martyrdom.

Anxiety was writ
large on the volte-face of earth
when it failed to lasso the witch.

Satish Verma

THE STRANGER

Ready to pounce on
a scarecrow.
The ants were hungry.

It was a dried bone―
frame, wearing the royal
costume, waiting for the moon.

Can you play with the
jewels and still
remain poor?

The suckers refuse to
shrink, taking away skin,
the eyes, the ears.

It overwhelms the loneliness,
the silence, the colossus,
and the two-faced king in making.

Satish Verma

THIS KIND OF TIME

What noun was combative,
enduring the poison, when
you were subject of―
the history, which will
remain unwritten?

The war was on, in the
night of terror. You cannot
reach the extremeties, for the
sake of modesty. Violence
sits in speech, in dirty words.

The flesh needs new blood,
and blood demands the bone
of justice that will not―
conceive mutilation. You become
benevolent in spreading the fear.

Satish Verma

Living Dangerously

A moon interrupted;
riles the social class.
A native sense comes of age.

Piercing stare becomes rarefied,
unbuttons the peaks and
kills you with a mallet.

The scared mask falls
off the divine embrace, lets
free the pigeons from the golden cage.

The forked tongue will
speak only truth. Blood
was the only stain, washed easily.

I will get the tan
in moonlight only. My scars
will remain invisible in silver.

Satish Verma

DECIDUOUSLY

You did not want to play―
into the strength,
of the other.

Wrecking the pecking order,
to become poorer,
giving away your entire height?

I could live,
without your blasts, O sun,
but I need my moon,
for whole night.

It pervades,
the dark matter, in every pore.
Like gingko tree
I will drop all the pretentions
tonight, and become leafless.

Satish Verma

BEING WATCHED

The one happening;
which never happned.
A slice of mock invasion on
inner sanctum to find your own name.
Who were you?
A mind not on the mend? A
house you were not living in?

The forecast was wary of strangers.
A deadly intent was hurling
the desires onto the stones
of eyes. A fog hides the melt.

You were not ready for syntax,
a rhyme breaks into sobs.
Washed by pain, a sting
becomes the poem.

Satish Verma