Missing Portrait

Folder: 
Satish Verma

I climb up the stairs to know 
How much you need 
between nothing and a thing? 
Grasshoppers are storming the sky 
in inverted outwardness. 

They will breed in millions 
and then die to become the delicacy 
on the platter of man. 
From basic instinct to martyrdom 
Insects don’t eat. 

Violence was middle name of lust 
Homo sapiens was walking again on all fours 
hurling the abuse, grabbing the flame 
becoming the god of oppressed and approved 
words are crawling everywhere. 

My fingers are burnt, my poem bleeds 
give me some water, some real cool. 
Lake is on fire, god is on run. 
Clouds are empty and sun is an abstract. 
Frame is broken, portrait missing.