DRUMMING

in hired spring and naked thighs 

the eternal sorrow did not go, it was living in our 
memory under the gun of an unknown soldier. The 
mania 

had brought the overwhelming jeopardy of artificial 
smiles, the swords, and ropes and different 

tools of torture brew abomination, my clay 
absorbs the shock, the abandonement of pain; 

I reach for the icicles of veiled fire to burn 
the generosity, the sacrificial amputation 

of one’s own neck in service of opposition

Satish Verma