Indian Dancers by Sarojini Naidu
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night. The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter […]
Indian Dancer by Sarojini Naidu
Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that glimmer around them in fountains of light; O wild and entrancing the strain of keen music that cleaveth the stars like a wail of desire, And beautiful dancers with houri-like faces bewitch the voluptuous watches of night. The scents of red roses and sandalwood flutter […]
In The Forest by Sarojini Naidu
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, Here let us burn them in noon’s flaming torches of fire. We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let […]
In Salutation to the Eternal Peace by Sarojini Naidu
And all life’s ripening harvest-fields await The restless sickle of relentless fate. But I, sweet Soul, rejoice that I was born, When from the climbing terraces of corn I watch the golden orioles of Thy morn. What care I for the world’s desire and pride, Who know the silver wings that gleam and glide, The […]
In Praise Of Henna by Sarojini Naidu
Lira! liree! Lira! liree! Hasten, maidens, hasten away To gather the leaves of the henna-tree. Send your pitchers afloat on the tide, Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old, Grind them in mortars of amber and gold, The fresh green leaves of the henna-tree. A kokila called from a henna-spray: Lira! liree! Lira! liree! […]
Humayun To Zobeida (From the Urdu) by Sarojini Naidu
Your sweetness in the nightingale, your white- ness in the swan. You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon, Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune. Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment’s grace, You cry, “I sit behind the veil, I cannot […]
Harvest Hymn by Sarojini Naidu
LORD of the lotus, lord of the harvest, Bright and munificent lord of the morn! Thine is the bounty that prospered our sowing, Thine is the bounty that nurtured our corn. We bring thee our songs and our garlands for tribute, The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit; O giver of […]
Ecstasy by Sarojini Naidu
Mine eyes that are weary of bliss As of light that is poignant and strong O silence my lips with a kiss, My lips that are weary of song! Shelter my soul, O my love! My soul is bent low with the pain And the burden of love, like the grace Of a flower that […]
Damayante To Nala In The Hour Of Exile by Sarojini Naidu
My liege, my lover, whose imperial head Hath never bent in sorrow of defeat? Shalt thou be vanquished, whose imperial feet Have shattered armies and stamped empires dead? Who shall unking thee, husband of a queen? Wear thou thy majesty inviolate. Earth’s glories flee of human eyes unseen, Earth’s kingdoms fade to a remembered dream, […]
Cradle Song by Sarojini Naidu
O’er fields of rice, Athwart the lotus-stream, I bring for you, Aglint with dew A little lovely dream. Sweet, shut your eyes, The wild fire-fiies Dance through the fairy neem; From the poppy-bole For you I stole A little lovely dream. Dear eyes, good-night, In golden light The stars around you gleam; On you I […]
Coromandel Fishers by Sarojini Naidu
The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free, To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea! No longer delay, let us hasten away […]
Corn Grinders by Sarojini Naidu
While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord is dead. O little deer, why dost […]
Autumn Song by Sarojini Naidu
The sunset hangs on a cloud; A golden storm of glittering sheaves, Of fair and frail and fluttering leaves, The wild wind blows in a cloud. Hark to a voice that is calling To my heart in the voice of the wind: My heart is weary and sad and alone, For its dreams like the […]
An Indian Love Song by Sarojini Naidu
Lift up the veils that darken the delicate moon of thy glory and grace, Withhold not, O love, from the night of my longing the joy of thy luminous face, Give me a spear of the scented keora guarding thy pinioned curls, Or a silken thread from the fringes that trouble the dream of thy […]
Alabaster by Sarojini Naidu
Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart, Carven with delicate dreams and wrought With many a subtle and exquisite thought. Therein I treasure the spice and scent Of rich and passionate memories blent Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove, Of song and sorrow and life and love. ————— The End And that’s the […]
A Rajput Love Song by Sarojini Naidu
O Love! were you a basil-wreath to twine among my tresses, A jewelled clasp of shining gold to bind around my sleeve, O Love! were you the keora’s soul that haunts my silken raiment, A bright, vermilion tassel in the girdles that I weave; O Love! were you the scented fan that lies upon my […]
A Love Song from the North by Sarojini Naidu
Wouldst thou recall to my heart, papeeha, Dreams of delight that are gone, When swift to my side came the feet of my lover With stars of the dusk and the dawn? I see the soft wings of the clouds on the river, And jewelled with raindrops the mango-leaves quiver, And tender boughs flower on […]
Wishes by Satish Verma
Nothing was beholden. Colony counts were perfect. You were never guaranteed and exit. I am stalked by lips of a black tulip holding a moonbeam. The world moves wearing a shell of emptiness in a cosmos, inviolable. Aggrandizement beyond the bluffing. More beliefs and many withdrawls. You will not kill me? Half-way to soothing words of ecstasy. Satish Verma
WINGS ATTACHED by Satish Verma
In slap at your icarian path the call was not taken from inside me. Anxiety in a troupe of clouds was rising. A deep dissent within winds surfaces after sunset. On the footpath comes a noun in the land of abuses, taking a vow of silence. The moon becomes green in a blue sky to get the blessings of surging frost. Knew nothing […]
WHAT ENDING by Satish Verma
In your limpid eyes a pacifism slumps. All I could say was, wrong sex was ending in ice. Dark energy: we were not expanding Lies galore : we were casting off our skins. I will not seek afterlife. The hand carries the old coat. Retrodiction. Don’t want to shed the charm. Waited for the change which never came. Chicken, wearing love, no bones. Latest […]
WHAT ASYLUM! by Satish Verma
Come and meet me in chamber of death where the tempest comes every night. I start disrobing the anger to find the eye of the moon. Where do I get that ink that writes an unwritten poem on water of eyes when the ship was burning after a rare landing. Come and meet me in sleep of an infant. It […]
WARMING UP by Satish Verma
You could feel it. The fear in that pristine howl writhing in throat. Something was wrong with the sunflowers. A genital cutting had brought the snowdusting on mutilated emotions. A premonition warns. We are shining on wrong side, under dictates of religion. The cult will take care of mouth. You will celebrate the breaking up of man. The bone between the lips. I am […]
WALKING TOELESS by Satish Verma
Stone by stone you kill me. Petal by petal I die – holding a scalpel to unwrite my name. Violence erupts among words. A temple breaks. O goddess! don’t cry beyond silence. The infant’s milk spills in darkness. Antiquity raises a wall around the mother. I am vanishing now, freezing my assets. Satish Verma
WALKING INTO YOU by Satish Verma
Tonight the nectar will be spread to tame a random tormentor. Black and white, I never saw my father weeping. Lonely he was. I am my own creation today weather beaten. Confession to – confession, unread. When the- storm was tethered, there was flooding and neck deep- you were in tears. Am cannibalizing my own poems, to write a new line. It was a midnight […]
VOICES by Satish Verma
When the sun goes down bleeding beyond the hills yonder, I will meet you under the acacias. As a souvenir I will keep your lips in my books for history. As a gift I will give you my tears. This desert of hate has bleached my fingers, bone white. I cannot write a monologue of death in waning light. I wake to sleep in […]
VERY DISTURBING by Satish Verma
Rains will not come to my land. Bisexuality starts a slut walk. Blackbucks were hungry. The stray dogs were barking at moon. Into the night goes the snake without any truth. Nearly over the scooped – protection of virginity against the dazzling hirsutism. Lost fortune of the flaunted Buddha. I have no legs to bow down before the pale god. This is the […]
Vaulting by Satish Verma
Deep inside there was a simian jealousy. The opaque words will raise a burnt-out storm – returning the whole family of white flowers to the moon. The falling inside the bowl before the snake could strike interrupting the dead soldiers of unknown war- weapon-free. A stunning invasion of the spoons in summer months, when sweat was expensive than truth and a sentence was lost between the punctuations. Yet I […]
Unsung Hands by Satish Verma
How can you unsee an etched wound? The name will tell the moon. An empty sky now calls for the rains. What was it- the ceremonial farewell? A dependable pain now starts pulling out the sharpnels from the body. You may call it meaningless. My poem now moves between the stings. Somebody was going for a merciless kill. Satish Verma
Unstitching by Satish Verma
Do not take a vow of silence. Death will find its home. The circus has taken over the needles.Who will stitch the wounds of earth. A man walks into sunset carrying a bowl of tears. The sit-in was going to resist a poem of life. Would you unrobe your identity in public one day? Always I am punctuated at night by […]
Unspoken by Satish Verma
It was not dark in a killing field. A primitivism has prevailed upon an intimate hate crime for brand mnemonics. A bronzed moon will come out tonight. The glances were missing and you – cannot see properly. The blue bird was nesting in a pink cloud, when you were -, less than half. Killed but not raped. Who rattles the montage? Let the etiolation speak. Blood was scarped off, but […]
Unruffled by Satish Verma
Was I sane? Like poetry infiltrating, when you were eating grass? And money was walking free. The hollow eyes had the moral authority to expunge the fidelity from the book. Are the blue needles hurting you, I was asking moon? Moon’s stony eyes started watering. Strangers in bed, the trust had a different taste, another […]
UNREADABLE by Satish Verma
It was a fake time, moon will not rise. Words were afloat on junk dna. A stonefaced pseudonym dies point-blank. The surprise, the speed was not on our radar. The ravenous siblings now asleep on walls. Naive or disingenuous. A sitting Buddha will decide. Satish Verma
Unphrasing by Satish Verma
in love with vermilion floating on optics you learn in moments of insult or insults in moment of learning fishless bones still he smels of withering pain on black satin you don’t want to suffer with asterisks annotation disfigurs the essence i will boil the moon to find the separateness between scent and grief i […]
Unforgetting by Satish Verma
Like swapping your face for a tormentor. Stop the rains. I am going home, after a hard choice of peace in sunlight. Give me back my memory. I want to take a flight. Scanning the midnight sun on blue lake. Stairs are climbing on me. Stay with me. I am falling on your purple doves […]
UNEVEN PATH by Satish Verma
It was a summer night. A windswept moonbeam plummeted. Sexualizing an indigo flesh. A butcher was seducing a spider, in company of a holy book. Sunbathing in mass grave of skulls. The eyes peeking out of the caps. You want to pluck the blue berries from volcano mounts. The key player will burn your script. […]
UNDECIPHERABLE by Satish Verma
A little death comes every day for the lost age. The fingertips write your name on ice, to burn in sun. and still, I will say it was good. Searing poverty of words scrambles for a suicide vest. No meaningless truth can save the kleptomaniac. After the demise of a sentence I can say, would not go for an award. The struggle to live […]
TURNING GRAY by Satish Verma
You wanted to understand the tenor of wet, heavy lids ? that had emigrated from deep oceanic eyes. You believed?it will go on for ever. Roused in peace. I will listen to the voice of river lapping at the shores of pain. Cocoon was lying still, will not open to us. I was ready to receive the death at door. But it was a […]
TRUNCATED by Satish Verma
A midnight craft dumps the moon on a heap of deceits. I ask my sap to turn back for truism. It was a question of spacing between the bodies in scapegoats; coming for slaughter. A scale measures the depth of defeats. The hands were busy in mending the walls of psychiatric ward. Have you ever tasted a white poison, sweet in taste? When you grow old, […]
TRANSPARENCY by Satish Verma
He wants- to sort through the voices he used to hear- in his head, to understand the vexed past. He will make his bent arm a bow and shoot a moon between the doors. Walk with a snake in grass and feed his children. Irreverence becomes an import from the strangers. When you were burning inside, what was the need for the family of periwinkles to condole […]
TOELESS JOURNEY by Satish Verma
The hawk was always hatching a pacer, to spin the surveillance, tampering the tracks of violence. The haul was heavy. Moon and fishes went on to spread the dragnet striking gold from the liquid denials. The sovereignity was violated of a virgin god. The rule of drinking was sidelined. Kiss will survive after the death […]