Did you taste the ejecta
after a sacred ritual of exploding
a makeshift bomb in a crowded market?

I am worried.
I am becoming death, curling backward.
The wood spirits have started a fire dance.

The healing, yes, it comes from the blood
of steel, they claim, the blackness of a hole
has a purity.

Hunger starts a riot of lewdness in the
ribs of an empire. A skull on the hill
betrays a slaughter of young boys.

The makers of AK-47 were repenting,
for the brutal aura. I have started
telling lies.
Satish Verma