A CIRCLE WITH AN OUTSIDECENTRE

After drawing a self-portrait, 
I want you to believe 
that I am not in it. 
The style of rebellion cannot be judged by 
blurbs only. 

A chunk of refusal, 
a narrow escape, 
and thin veiled hysteria, 
all go for a parody of exactness, 
which had been really absent from our lives. 

Can you find out 
who is betraying whom? 
where the tears are migrating? 
And where the smiles have gone? 

Instead of brutalizing, 
I care for the tender torches 
moving in the dark bush. 

A precise definition is needed 
for self-denial of molten lava 
which moves like a river 
but does not grab the heights.

Satish Verma