CHESSBOARD

dark matters are floating 
like bowls made of leaves 
spilling hunger, make me upset, figures moving 
like ghosts wrenching out the fish plates 
from rails, nothing will move now except 
the eyebrows of stone faces, bodhisattvas 
sitting in scorching sun, unshaven, crosslegged 
waiting for realization to come, not to 
them but tormentors, a milky way in ever 
night, the dry wind slaps on the faces 
to remind them not to sleep, the shade 
of the Cacti and Acacia seldom stubborn 
to give you the shadow of the blades, the 
sun ultimately compresses you in the 
waist- high grass of death trap.

Satish Verma