HEIGHTS

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