In a starry night
an adolescent thought starts
a rivalry. A baby moon squirms.
No hour was safe from terror in dark.
I climb the stairs breathlessly.
The great divide deepens in hearts.
Incisors bite the tongue,
grey cells bleed inside.
Thick ash has not stopped the cinders
smouldering under the veils of flushed peace.
Cupped tears wash the feet of death,
a caravan of words moves desolated,
cutting on the edges, before you say
goodbye to green vision.
Today I am pulling out the nails
from the walls. No hangings of departed centuries.
No portraits of exiled flames.
Only the face of truth, burning
at the interface of unthruths.
Satish Verma