DESCENDING

i make ready myself for an insult 
and chest pain, keeping unshorn hair like nettles 
on contours, to take unknown turns for restoring 
the clouds on moon-blue hills, spreading the water colors 
on trees; someone inside the shrine was making 
turbulence: yellow room has the footprints of 
a naked fakir, after the apocalypse, who walked eyes closed 
on the burning ghats, his rags are now worshipped, 
the later years found the darkness 
glowing in the furnace of propped up body 
by roses, roses all the way, he tells the 
hanging man, how tall were the poles, with song

Satish Verma