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poetry
Ailill, 22 october 2014
Both Ways
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
Far away
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
MOON STRUCK...
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
The bee-box
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
INFERNO
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
AN AGONISED PRAYER
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
SHAMBHOOK...*
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
To be a explorer
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.
Gert Strydom, 17 october 2014
Throughout my life I am trying to know God
Throughout my life I am trying to know God
do notice His handiwork in nature,
in the events happening in my life
that could not just be destiny
but my own powerlessness against the darkness,
and the presence of the evil
that strikes continually is almost overwhelming
and the world is full of pain and fear
and here I come to the realization
that I am only mortal and human
while people elevate themselves like gods,
are caught in the spirit of the time, the zeitgeist
and even when my honourable ideals come to nothing
the love of my God remains selfless.
Satish Verma, 17 october 2014
MUM IS THE WORD...
When I started seeing you, needs were
accumulating. A great paradox.
The price is high for stoicism.
My inner life gets battering
Give me something to think of escape.
It was not a deliverance. I was learning
daily from the elixirs, a prudent toxin.
The other story is simple. It was the game of
enchanting annihilation.
Miracles sometimes suffer in the hands of
ordinary. The scales start tilting. No body
stops for you. Grief becomes your partner,
Silence in your bed.
The silence is ultimately the moment of
truth. Truth erases the lie and seals a
kiss of death.
Satish Verma
Latest comments:
20 january 2026
ajw
Nieodżałowana strata. Dla mnie był Mistrzem.
20 january 2026
jeśli tylko
czyżby..
20 january 2026
bardzo smutno.. coraz mniej poezji..
20 january 2026
z dojrzałych śliwek to najlepsza cujka :)
20 january 2026
dojrzewają, jak ser..
20 january 2026
to efekt "optymalizacji" produkcji..
20 january 2026
Jaga
Końca nie widać, ale można ujrzeć początek.
20 january 2026
Żeby tylko Piotruś nie odmroził się przy
20 january 2026
sam53
... ale ciągle jest na wyciągnięcie ręki
20 january 2026
I sny się starzeją...
20 january 2026
Krówki miały smak i konsystencję krówek,
20 january 2026
Weronika
Nie wiedzieć czemu, koniec się oddala.
20 january 2026
Jaga
20 january 2026
wiesiek
19 january 2026
Jaga
18 january 2026
Jaga
17 january 2026
wiesiek
16 january 2026
wiesiek
11 january 2026
Jaga
10 january 2026
wiesiek
4 january 2026
Jaga
4 january 2026
wiesiek