i make ready myself for an insult
and chest pain, keeping unshorn hair like nettles
on contours, to take unknown turns for restoring
the clouds on moon-blue hills, spreading the water colors
on trees; someone inside the shrine was making
turbulence: yellow room has the footprints of
a naked fakir, after the apocalypse, who walked eyes closed
on the burning ghats, his rags are now worshipped,
the later years found the darkness
glowing in the furnace of propped up body
by roses, roses all the way, he tells the
hanging man, how tall were the poles, with song

Satish Verma