WORDS

Was it sacrilege to reenter the bones of knuckles 
thinking of your primrose, a backlash of twigs 
in garden of homeless birds, a high-profile 
sweep starting a mad rush of blue winds 
in the confused landscape of life? 

my hills are strewn with bones of eaten, half-cooked 
lines of defence, the diplomacy not working to mimic 
peace; dead words grip my truths; must you 
kill the surgeon who has severed the wrist 
of a thief. 

I am falling unbidden on Pole Star, the terror 
on the wings of flying swans, a child sits 
on a chair with enormous head shaking involuntarily 
and the cyclone breaking on the dumb noddings 
of failing light.

Satish Verma