ARCHAIC HUMOUR

Something was always missing around
one had to die daily.
To find out, what?
Just a slip of time,
life was death and death was life.

Death of a man or death of a city
death had no other name.

Hearing the footfalls of death
dogs were howling around a temple
where god was dying.
The nation now mourns
for the banished priest.

At the burning pyre
there is still no peace.
Anger lives inside the books,
flame hides in the candles.
And a rage surges forward
in the bones of archaic humour.

Satish Verma