Life in my Land
Life in my land is not by right
With greed, we are wound around
Hardened ruiners ravaging all we have
Like raptor they kill, devour and fly
Cupidity, the spirit of avarice
Eating up the weak flesh and bones
The bones and marrow are gone
The butchers cry for them at least
But voracity, the soul of gluttony
Are stuck to, the looters of, them all
Frightful shudder
Quakes my land and its borders
The foetuses cry for fear of murder
They see no safety in their mother
Desperate ones are full of fright
In fluster, they make to swim out to land
Through the reddish stream for life
But sadly, their dual times are slaughtered
The parasites of our mother's head
Are not even bothered about our care
When the land is shedding tears
The swamp's trickles must be bloody red
Grievous time like this was never known
These are years of sorrow untold
And a season of terrible dash of hope
On the Disappearance of Friends in Exile
The land is haunted
By unburied corpses and foetuses.
None have names,
Or tribe with kinsmen,
Or identity with place-of-birth,
Or wounds with scars.
None of them are known,
But they are gone to early death
History, even, does not know who they are.
No voice of mourning save the speeches--
The hollow, laboured speeches of poisoned lips;
And sorcerers calling for them from hidden shrines.
It's an old story - the oldest we have in the land -
The story of ebforced disappearance.
I cannot walk on your eggs
I better lie on oyster bed
I am not impotent, you know, but afraid of coition
Because your eggs are fragile-terrible
Shattering like a pouncing wolf.
It is a strange job -making love with you
But it is elemental -both love and fear
Dominated by the passage of time
Both have to be silent with time
Both have to be sheathed by my poor mother's ghost.
I am not impotent, you know, I have affairs with **** snails
On the street where strange voices raise questions
Minatory shadows surround my ashen face
And look straight through my window
It is an affirmation that mom has not come tonight.
Sands are receding baring turtle eggs
Sea slugs frig around
Hungry foetuses are waiting
Clouds are gathering absurd eyes to lift me up as a song
Deadly legs drive through the hills.
Nights still stretches ahead of me
Like giant captive crabs.
I am stepping onto a savage world.
In a trance I kiss you, I am not impotent, you know
I have to collect my early morning pearls
Before the final war begins.
Cajoled for a perfect kill
carnations were ready to jump for creating
a schism between future and past.
Keeping an eye on moon, a bald maiden
blew herself up in howling night
to slay a group of faithfuls.
Irresolvable it seems, a right to weep
for the dead. You don’t care for
living legends. The drones dive to eliminate
a hardened breed; kids run to collect
the regrets. Sky is overcast anointing the
unborn foetuses
Even a temple aches to shift the deity.
The stair collapses. Youths hide behind
kisses of holy books. A shoe is thrown
on the clock.
SATISH VERMA
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