BY THE WORDS

Always he was picking up and counting the pins 
to distill the essence of rainbows 
and find the symmetries of elementary 
laws and eating leftover words from the table. 

The terrorists had wired his house and he was 
not aware of it. The wrinkles on the face 
for the bridge destroyed, would not bring 
peace within. Times were different, icy and slippery. 
He hated only himself for the failure of ships 
to sail through the scope of explosions 
rage and tears. The madness of unchaste 
happenings submerging the cognition. 

His tongue was heavy, hands writing the epitaph 
on air. The bald eagle scoops a bride, 
slices the breasts for the green stigmata 
of liberation. Ajmer, INDIA 


Satish Verma