*DEPRESSION

There was thunder in the hut
teeth clattered under the ground.
Handcuffed you walk in inequality
to qualify for hanging till dead.
I may not tell myself
what was happening to me.

Moving in opposite direction
the bird was able to catch the smell.
My stance was always making a stroke
in the canvas of a tormentor
abbreviated in a muscular arm
starting violences of sleep.

Corralled in doorframes, keeping
the lights off, this was the nemesis
for asking for the change. Haungered, the
human being, absorbed by the
absence of chains which were not
coming in sight.


*On the fate of Kanu Sanyal, founder of naxalite movement, who hanged himself to death on 23th March 2010.


Satish Verma