STENCH OF DEATH

Why do you run away 
from the primordial fear? 
Of tight emptiness? 
A shapeless entity of drifting psyche? 
This was your home 
where carcasses of cliches 
hang from the doors of wisdom. 
Unplanted seeds 
of vacant connotations. 

Inch by inch you were eating 
your prophetic pauses 
salt had become tasteless. 
Counting the kisses of 
moths on the screen 
a candle burned furiously. 
I never picked the colors of cloud, of rain, of blood. 

What becomes of happening, 
of being, of reaching? 
The stones of truth are very sharp. 
The roads were conspiring 
insects collecting, under the surface. 
Circling winds had 
a heavy stench of death 
but words were very intelligent.

Satish Verma