Missing Portrait Poem by 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.