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poetry

Satish Verma, 18 december 2015

Communion

This shapeless fear
gives birth to cosmic vibrations
a prelude to porous thoughts.
Foreign in pain, a face burns
in deep meditation.
Nothing consolates. Hurting
the contents of judgement,
a reflexive existence exonerates
itself from a spiral fall.

Indecisions of sun
to penetrate the fissures of dawn
failed the valley of flowers.
Aloneness was speechless.
The shoots plucked
the sky in flakes. The wind
played at the mercy of trees.
The royal departure
of night sprang a surprise.

The dying seed had
a pride to offer. The sprout.
Nothing is upsetting the garden.
no one is certain of crazy fate.
The sap has a sense of liberation
coming out of conflicts
and chaos. A communion
with space takes place.

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Gert Strydom, 17 december 2015

One Military Hospital

At Klipdrift military base
just outside Potchefstroom
where now the kaki bush,
other weeds and grass are knee high

through ash holes, rubbish, broken glass
barbwire, tins and stones we went
with fire in movement exercises
and live ammunition fired over us.

We ran, cat walked, leopard crawled
and was sent to and fro
with bullets hitting up dust around us
and some grenades were tossed
a distance away.

The very next day my left knee
was busted good and well
and when I reported sick
the PTI-corporal
almost busted his gut
and touched the crossed swords
on his arms

and told me if by any chance
I came out of the sickbay that day
he would see to it
that I would really take a beating.

The doctor at the sickbay,
called in another one
and yet another one
and the three of them
didn’t want to treat me

and said that there was a big chance
of me losing my knee
which was swollen like a rugby ball
and they sent me by ambulance
straight to One Military Hospital
at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria.

I was wheeled into casualties,
where I had to wait some time
while shot up people
flown in straight from the war
was treated first.

When they finally got to me
they took one look at the leg
and wheeled me into
an operating theatre
where they asked
if I wanted to walk again?

I just said heal me
and they removed my uniform,
strapped me down
with bands around my feet
hands and legs

and gave two injections
just above the knee cap
and said that it was local anaesthetic
but wouldn’t help much
and that nothing would really
take the pain away
of the next procedure.

They pushed a big syringe
with a large needle
in under my knee cap
and the pain was great
as they pulled out puss
but I didn’t make a sound
while tears of pain
were in my eyes.

The laboratory identified
the infection that I had
and they said that I have got
septic arthritis
and everything was swell
while I got a drip
with the right antibiotics
and some pain killers,

watched television from a set
on the wall,
had my own radio
to choose music from
and could even order
from a menu
and it was like staying
in a great hotel
where they fixed me properly
and after two weeks
that was like a holiday
I walked out of there.

[PTI=Physical training instructor.]

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Ailill, 17 december 2015

Dream Deer

Why did we meet?
Was it chance or timing?

That morning you tried to trot
through the crosshairs of my headlights
before you bounded off in flight.

First time,
naïve to this side of things,

rewinding my life into slow motion,

like a zen koan.

No thought
of future or past,
contradiction or contrast.

Just awareness,

that didn’t expect,
only hoped……I
might…….Survive.

Diving off the road,

the wheel
with a will of its own,

directed my fate
on this blind date
with destiny.

Between real
and fantasy;

like a dove,
I was Dr. Strangelove
racing toward destruction,

flying.

Not knowing....
where I might land.

Sand colliding,
my ride bucking,
runaway flashing lights,
stage of mind
in siren fright.

No door opened
to welcome me in.

It was just me,
rolling down that hill,

coming to a
stand still.

Strapped upside down,
in wheels spinning round.

Earthbound,
I’ve watched the sun rise again,

but since then, it's been unclear.

Deer,

Is it you,
breathing new life into these dreams?

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Satish Verma, 17 december 2015

Full Stop

I allowed you to tread on me unflinchingly.
My mind on pause,
ungrieved you turn back the clock.
Enough to stun the century,
I take cognisance of divine’s club foot.

I did not believe in self-pity
but I was racing against time
to avoid a jealous path running with me.
Yet I was sleeping on bushes of estranged thorns
without locking my golden age.

Tulips are no more my favourites.
You have to dig deep to plant the bulbs
and wait. When death opens the door for me,
I wanted to be free from any commitment
and ready to walk in, like a foot soldier.

This cosmos is mine, body is for you.
It no more obeys my command.
No more commas are needed,
a final full stop will do.
I am returning back to my home.

number of comments: 2 | rating: 1 | detail

Gert Strydom, 16 december 2015

Something about a bird in a tree

I. Solitary

There’s a solitary bird
sitting in the berry tree
as if watching me

and every now and then
pecks a few, before looking again

and it comes daily
and maybe now
sees me as its friend

and I watch it eating
with the sun glittering
on its green feathers
and its long tail
swishing up and down

and when I look away
I do hear it calling, calling
as if trying to attract my attention

as if seeing me looking
holds something of company for it.

II. The going

Why did you not make me aware
that never again
I would see you there
in the berry tree
from early morning
singing from dawn to dusk.

You were chirping and indifferently fluttering
like every other day
and I did not realise
that you were going away
with the setting sun

and now any movement
in the berry tree
catches me to see you,
but only to realize
that a sparrow
is also hungry.

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Satish Verma, 16 december 2015

Faithless Autumn

Bleak landscape
transcends its shoulders,
writhes in pain.
I praise the light for green haloes
and tall figures, which cast
long shadows on parched lips,
my world. The hot sand fills the eyes.
A palpalable seizure shakes the horizon.

I drift like a dry leaf
on the winds of time
the perplexities of sand dunes
and dancing smoke.
What I was striving for all life?
A metaphorical silence
spends the energy of unspoken waking.
The rich decadence of things unhappned.

The occult rules the flesh
and the music of life dies.
The names start trading the tree,
full of flowers, inarticulately
to faithless autumn.
The twigs long for mother shape
the icons will swallow
the melting grief in vain.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 1 | detail

Ailill, 16 december 2015

Multiverse

Invoked by the eternal Om
strange attractors
attract from a sea
of infinite possibility

Mutual arisings emerge
out of parallel pasts

Each arising a note
on a chromatic scale

Actualizing potentiality

Metaphors of becoming
reflect one another through
a process of relationship
between is and is not

In manifestation
time celebrates the rise
and fall of individual waves

Out of discordant rhythms
one gathers momentum

A frothy foam becomes home
to impromptu jazz melodies
syncopated to love's eternal beat

like a spider spinning her web
everything interconnected
strives toward underlying
unity

World remade
through the rhythm
of breath

Time begins again

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Satish Verma, 15 december 2015

Living Legend

The flame will not die.
I pursue the path of smoke
the virtue of suffering
gives the pure light.
The book knows my inside truth
and tells no one. I weep for the swallows,
I could not feed.
I lay one white
stone for each death.

You will scatter my ashes,
in the abandoned land
where silence walks
and words lie like microcosm
of contemporary hunger.
Life was a cupful of tears.
The voices always spilled challenging
the fidelity of flowing water.

The living legend turns in grave,
I pray for peace
I promised myself to stand erect
when the quake comes.
I will save the flora
and the grass of dying earth.
I ask for one more life
to clear the debt & bleach my guilt.

number of comments: 1 | rating: 2 | detail

Gert Strydom, 14 december 2015

While the year hangs skeleton

While the year hangs skeleton
in this winter
there are sparrows, starlings
and doves catching my eyes

and from somewhere
a squadron of weavers suddenly does arrive
that descends on the seed
that I have spread
like a hungry crowd out of the sky

that does sing jubilant
while they eat the seed
and I know
that the Lord does also
stretch out His hand
with wonderful things for me.

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Satish Verma, 14 december 2015

Smile Becoming Larger

Being was my forte,
where the words speak no more
a lifetime of black stillness,
the sunflowers sleeping.
The controller and the enquiry
freeze the ozone.
I repent again for all the sins of eloquence,
the rustling of leaves.

Take care of mood,
hoarseness and slippery speech
there is no room for pain.
A whole tribe of thoughts
scatters the lines to avoid
becoming, featureless and nameless.
Boulders are falling on feathers.
I am leaning towards eerie winds.

The other side of the door
was misty. The kiss of fire.
Mind wanders aimlessly.
The destiny breaks the steps
of sleepwalkers. They are falling in dark,
towards dark. A moon rides the clouds,
its smile becoming larger & larger.

number of comments: 0 | rating: 1 | detail

10 - 30 - 100

Latest items:

poetry

Communion

One Military Hospital

Dream Deer

Full Stop

Something about a bird in a tree

Faithless Autumn

Multiverse

Living Legend

While the year hangs skeleton

Smile Becoming Larger

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