Poetry

Pigments on rocks were darkening.
Violence had permeated like skunk.
Enough to go numb. Stream of blood.
Entire limbs were missing. You want to go
insane, deoxygenated.

The bomber was going to face a firing squad.
Were you ready to bring back the body
home? Mother was wailing?
Law was blind and absurd. A victim wants
the terrorist to live, arms severed, genitalia
blown off!

Was it in you, the violence? Guilt in me?
Are we not responsible? As a price of sorrow
I resort to silence. Nonviolence accepts the evil,
the fact, the truth of now.

Fear? The decline? A collective dying? I
cannot cry. It hurts the arguments. I am
red and bruised. Will not survive the sunset.
The subsequent years are bleeding.



Satish Verma