Satish Verma, 22 december 2015
Standing on a cliff
holding the hand of a tall tree
the wind said –
I am going to die in few minutes.
Moon was laughing.
In elements of air and fire
a deity was in burns.
Who had the déjà vu?
Sky was wearing white.
A divine mushroom was going to fail.
A purple wart is growing
along the innocent neck.
The colossal death of hungry strangers
is going to go in waste.
“Being” was truth, but conditioned to lies.
King was wearing an amethyst
watching a marathon.
A single sperm will win
to enter a paradise,
for the sake of a celibate.
Gert Strydom, 22 december 2015
There had been a night
that the darkness
did really shake her cloak
and hundreds of stars
fell out of the heaven
drawing lines in the sky,
the moon did hang red like blood
and blotted with the sun
in did flee away into the darkness
and people did notice these things,
did trust in the predictions
about these events
as if the coming of the Master
is right at the door
and sometimes I do wonder
when I look at this old world:
where are we now?
Satish Verma, 21 december 2015
Pursuit of a desire
in the middle of philosophizing
life was an absurd idea.
I was drawing a relationship
between reality and death.
Learning from destruction brings a pause,
holding the hyphenating truth.
The energy flows in voices
of charity under the flowering words.
When you slur over a depreciation.
no one knows a bias.
The bridge was incomplete and walls were high.
The decay spilled out of the house, removing rotten beams.
The first and last economy
of throat sinks in
the mud of heavy propaganda.
It was not exactly a storm,
only hollow drums
beating for the drifting night.
The blood drops falling
on the moonlit earth.
The questions remain unanswered
who were the killers
of prophets and saints?
Who had changed the flesh?
Gert Strydom, 21 december 2015
I had dreamt of you
living in a world
where skies are always blue
and you loved me
with a kind of sincerity
and we had much joy
as just a girl and a boy,
had a kind of innocence
while our thoughts
whirled up like incense.
Your smile radiated like the sun
while you loved me like your only one
and our companionship was sweet
while butterflies fluttered at our feet.
You kissed me with sheer bliss
and there was magic in this
but I had to go then
back to the world of men
as promises I had to keep
in a world full of pain and strive
and I was devoid of further sleep,
I was devoid from you in my life.
Gert Strydom, 20 december 2015
At night the mind plays its tricks
reliving situations from days gone bye
as soon as there’s darkness in the sky
and sleep heavies the eyes
dreams bring out their gimmicks
of loves lost and wars past
but I would rather dream
of only you
of the sky blue
and how lovely it is
to be true
and trying to make it last.
Satish Verma, 20 december 2015
The eye within the eye
of a soul is tranquil
but the storm is raging.
Around the body, the cluster of names.
Father and mother,
brothers and sisters,
I am refugee in my home.
I steal glances over the western sky,
a blue star beckons.
Ambition was a small
city in twinkling night
a pilgrimage of amazing nothingness.
My heartaches for the missed
happenings. The decay was inevitable.
The flight of swans continued.
The memories of flowers
had a funeral for me.
Death was ready to strike
eyeball to eyeball, I refuse to gratify
One long vigil was still
incomplete, ash & flame
will break the distance.
Today a song will rise
from the ruins.
I will wait for another blossom,
another voyage to dreams.
Satish Verma, 19 december 2015
Reading the innocence of leaves,
a tree, yellow stars,
I was always glad of new birth
and another death. Ceasation
did not repeat itself.
I hold the nightmare, hypnotized.
Pride without flame, ending in smoke,
until you come at dawn
like an echo in silence.
At process of transmutation
old memories are indelible
stains the solitude,
when I am in retreat, to awake the silence.
The wilderness haunts
the morning glory of creation.
Hope imitates the wings
for a brief time. Waking is painful.
In attachment to walls,
labyrinth of miseries
we wanted our language
to show non-conflicting assumptions.
Love generates the search
for cloudless humility.
Seeing through was not
the romance. Denying
was the essence of purity.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
How close are we
to verge of our journey
up the Green Mountains
as our hiking boots turn
in an unseen silence
sighting a deer in first light
a morning fills with frost
encircled in a path of snow
sheltering words in these lines
which emerge outliving our time
from an earth-wise nature
on this Fall
seasonable pike
as flakes drift trekking
from Vermont's
long memory
saying canticles
of St. Francis
in white coated anonymity
walking into a concert
of Chopin
crowded with patrons
of the symphony
by lovers of music.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
Rising to a jazz rhythm
keeping in the lane
forgetting past riffs
by helping one beside us
to get up from the grass
of a recent blueberry harvest
grinding around us
with four hours left
to mimic last night's sleep
yet pressing toward
the recondite right landmarks
gambling on this day's calling
with no stop watch
not quitting until dark
until the yellow finish line
appears out of nowhere
near crooked peaks
and red birch
as runner ups in landslips
over greensward dales
trying to be undaunted
but not fully understanding
why here at my age
taking turns over this time
off and on windy lashes
unlaced in a chalk circle
following an eagle
on the Bay
not frightened by a scarecrow
on the side of the road.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
Jolts in my body
hitting the wall
hearing barefoot fans
interceding for us
by road beds on river ruts
our shaken up bodies
near birds on statues
singing by tree stumps
at the first hour of dawn
by indelible tracks
on distant paths
crosswise near green hills
some recounting time
others wishing to make
a record for themselves
under bridges
soon with wobbling knees
and sweated shoulder pain
bodies with feet blisters
cramping hope
on rugged terrain
far from home
with one hand clasping
from two sidelined
recumbent leaning bodies
wishing us well
all in search for meaning
or here for charity
as our salt eyelids
rivet from its blur
wanting oxygen
and a bottle of water.
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