Satish Verma, 22 october 2014
How it is that –
at shrine while saying prayers
sex was on your mind?
You hated the betrayal and emptiness of life.
but still tuned to sweet indulgence.
And then a sudden flash back
slaps in your face,
and you want to commit suicide.
Afraid of hurting your pride
I did’t fulfil my promise of wiping your tears
in a sprint of flinching ache.
It is night now
The words have a peculiar burnt-out smell
of the road,
as if they were smouldering
in hot ashes of peace.
Satish Verma
Celine, 22 october 2014
she told me nothing
would ever get better
she told me i was too weak
too fragile to fight the war
that was each step and each breath, in and out
she told me i was at the bottom
that nothing was lower
that there was no ascension from
here, no exit
no hole
no way out because i
had dug myself in too deep
she told me i was too weak
that i was unworthy
that shame was a better suited
name, she told me
that there were people worse off
people with shackles
people with dry throats and parched skin
and people whose very lives were ripped
to shreds.
she told me i was too weak
she told me i had a roof and parents
how could i dare feel this way? how could i
feel like i was at rock bottom when there was more
there was more bottom than this rock bottom?
so she told me i didn’t deserve to feel this way
she told me i didn’t deserve to live.
she told me i was wrong that i
had been thinking of the wrong things, that
my life was constructed with broken glass and
watery glue, that my thoughts were not right
that i was doomed from the start
doomed from now to the end of eternity,
she told me i was destined for nothing.
she told me they lied, that their words were a mask and
their thoughts weren’t beside them, that they didn’t really care because
they had better places to go, better people to see, so she told me.
their smiles were for politeness and their hugs were bare and
empty, they didn’t care, they didn’t care, they don’t fucking care
she told me.
she told me to stop searching
that nothing was going to get better, that i was too weak
too feeble to stand up and find someone
that nobody cared enough to listen
that it was my fault it happened, my fault it was here,
my fault that she was grabbing me by the ankles
because i deserved it.
she told me to get over it
she told me people found me annoying
desperate for attention, for care or for love, whatever that means
she told me i was looking for attention
that nobody wanted to help, really
that i should stop pestering people whose lives actually
mattered.
she told me i should hide it
that it was a shame to carry it around, that i should smile
with my muscles and cry with my heart
that people would at least know i was a human, then
that i wouldn’t bother people
she told me to stay quiet.
she told me so much that even now,
even after mastering my smiling and learning
the laughing, even now after so much time
even now when i know she was wrong
even now i can hear her voice ringing
reverberating against the frail ribs of my inside.
Ailill, 22 october 2014
Child,
denied your rights at the family
dinner table of Horatio Algers
rags to riches fable,
heard your anger the other night
in the sounds of her cries,
the banging on the walls
coursing through apartment halls.
Spotted the fear in her eyes,
tears she could not hide
as she ran by my opened door.
Shocked to the core, powerless,
didn’t know what to do
to break up this family dispute,
knowing all you been through.
What? With my hands stained red
by the blood that you shed
when you were beaten for being different?
If I called the police,
how would it haunt me?
For you knew my hidden wounds.
You knew I’ve been hurt too.
It was a secret we kept between us,
dared not speak of.
Betrayal, blackmail, cuts both ways.
Within this play, each of us, shades of grey
clouding the way. Imprisoned by chains
holding us together, fault lies
on both of our shoulders.
Looking out from this prison cell
I find myself in, the irony of it sinks in.
The ways I’ve sheltered myself from you,
how you’ve hidden from me too.
Hold up a mirror and you will see
your own reflection within me.
Divided by religions,
Superficial competitions, other isms,
victimhood - oppression cuts both ways.
Wounded, brother against brother,
in denial of our shared trials.
This fear and mistrust between us,
goes both ways.
Forgotten son,
Is this the way to succeed?
Change history?
Defeat the oppressor within ourselves.
Don’t take it out on someone else.
Have we walked in their shoes?
Seen what they’ve been through?
Break the cycle of victimization,
create a transformation of consciousness
within us. Change this tragedy
into a comedy of survival.
There is no other way to see
our original face
the one we had before
the day we were born.
Gert Strydom, 21 october 2014
I am jealous on the friends,
colleagues and children
that is daily with you
and even your two dogs
that holds you company
in the afternoons and evenings.
I am jealous on the beach
where in summer
you lay and tan
and on the bed
where both your sheets
have got you tightly against them.
It is quite a thing
to be without money
and more than a thousand kilometre away
and to love.
Satish Verma, 21 october 2014
I have put the darkness
behind the burning flesh.
This world was not very open.
Stoically I lift the nameless grief
and take a leap in the blind shaft.
Morality had always been in contrast
with enormous guilt.
The adventure of turbulent life
was in quest of scraped moments.
Tender roots come out
from fallen seeds.
Of untouched desires.
Moonstruck I will gather dust.
Was it not sufficient to live on,
when past and future were not my part?
And how forsaken
was the moon.
Probability was always certain
and worship of a new messiah
a distinct possibility.
Satish Verma
Gert Strydom, 20 october 2014
At the local church I had been gardening
as it was my responsibility
and the bee box of the old retired minister
had become a danger to me
as if it housed beings that was sinister
and after reporting been stung nobody did a thing.
At the service in church there was an ominous humming
where that swarm of bees near the back window was left to be
and a sermon a pastor did administer
when the congregation did some angry bees see
and great fear did in the church register
while that small harpies that could fly were stirring
and did sting a first time visitor in the face
to the church’s and God’s disgrace.
Satish Verma, 20 october 2014
Speaking of our troubled times,
Incenced, enraged,
the crowd seeks revenge.
Reason drowned,
Unthruths pitted against individual.
My heart bleeds, beneath this monstrosity,
point-blank you ask the question.
Give me a chance to recover
I am deeply perturbed today.
Mist is settling on hills.
Cannot see the world through the vision of sunless god,
and I am going to walk under a cloud.
Ruthlessly the dust moves on
covers the faces.
Normalcy is out of town.
People float like corpses.
Toothache hurts. Caries are very deep.
Pray that it stops. I cannot chew the words.
Satish Verma
Satish Verma, 19 october 2014
Death was prowling
from funeral to funeral.
No shadow will be spared today.
I am not ready yet for the final curtain.
Bullets have left some clocks
ticking in the pockets of time.
I shall call the leader
who is hiding behind the scriptures.
Don’t choose the destiny.
Don’t commit the date.
Anguish itself will find the path.
What was wrong with the earth?
It has stopped moving,
the stars are drifting away.
Another explosion in the sun?
I don’t know.
This world is heavy with pain.
Rivers are flooded with blood and tears
and I am roaming in the jungle of lies.
Are you listening?
Satish Verma
Satish Verma, 18 october 2014
Reeling in faith, dread of truth overpowers
I loved the reason.
My legs were shaky when I was treading
on the barbs
getting ready for a leap in the unknown.
Somebody said myth was a whore.
It turns the men into sheep.
Tomorrow a person will become a chair
and belief will start a religion.
Superhuman entity is needed
to define the grief
It is not loss of tongue.
The woman takes to hauling
the virgin coal.
A green fire is to be kindled
to show the moon,
the pond is ready for the sacred bath.
* An important character in the Ramayana who was poisoned by Lord Rama only because he was reading the Vedas.
Satish Verma
Gert Strydom, 17 october 2014
No other man
can ever feel,
like I do feel about you
and the things between us
is so special and unique
that nowhere else it is just like this.
If not I would have known,
would have heard somewhere
or someone would have told me
how it is to be an explorer,
would have told precisely how it feels
to have new experiences constantly
with a new coast laying
to starboard and how it is
to experience new adventures all of the time,
to experience the swelling breaking sea
that tears at life and brings changes
and how it is to discover a new unknown continent
and the things that are between you and me
causes me to constantly
want to sail through your waters
to the harbour where I can hide
against the storms,
and I want to spend a lifetime with you
when the sea rushes storm-strong
and the waves are crushing down
and also when the water lays mirror smooth and calm.
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