I's order in the universe/ the archival weight of High and Low selves

Now toss your inflated me
on the tightly knitted net of my I.

Does it bounce back to
your own face
of playground?

Do you remember the mask
on your face was very heavy once?
And not you
but I bore the weight of it
when you reflected it in
the mirror of my I.

I have recently thrown away the mirror
you gave me
at my birth.

I don't know how old I am
and when born
but I now think of celebrating
my birthday.

There are new flowers
touching my lips.
I am surrounded by sounds of
falling waters after a long frozen sleep.

I am ready with my reins
holding them tightly.

Don't throw any extra weight
on my spiral I
lest it bounces back
and can hit at the nose of your me.

The rotating earth has spun
the threads of my I
this time.

The last word: I know the universe
and I's order in it.

Vinod Vema

They are very far

Dark,dim,depressed faces

look at the distance

of horizon once held in their wrists.

Eyes in their eyes

gaze thorough wrinkles

at walls of cold plaster

painted ten years ago.

Vertically climbing sons

and daughters

one day had a break

and were lifted to unknown floors

leaving behind home,walls and old furniture

and history.

On these faces the wrinkles

deepened into a puzzle

in geometry of three dimensional shape

of a sculpture

of an abandoned old mother

who begs ancestoral gods early death.

They are very far from

our kind of glance

from height of our apartment

and love under a flatted roof.

Vinod Verma

My Love for Uthi

I liked dogs very much. My friends did not like this habit of my playing with dogs. In their view, it was wastage of time to play with dogs, and that too with street dogs.

One day, someone told me that a bitch in our street had given birth to five puppies. The information delighted me. I lost my patience and rushed towards the spot where she was seen everyday. It was small ground in which there was a small ditch. When I reached the ground I was astonished. She wasn’t there. A negative thought came in my mind that she might have gone to any far place with her puppies. My eyes got filled with tears and my enthusiasm broke down. But suddenly my right leg sensed something. I got surprised. What was it?

I looked below. Yes, there was a puppy. He was licking my leg. The puppy was very sweet. He had white skin with brown spots and brown eyes . He was was fat too.

The puppy was trying to hold my jeans but was unable to. I felt very happy. I picked it up and brought it to my home.

My mother was washing clothes. By the way, when I saw her washing the clothes I moved secretly towards my bedroom without making noise and hid the puppy under my bed. But, my luck was annoyed with me as the puppy came out from below the bed and rushed towards my mom and gave out a huge cry. She was already upset with my poor performance in the school and after seeing a puppy in the home her anger reached to the sky. She scolded me nearly for an hour and ordered me to throw the puppy away from the home. I put the puppy back in the ground.

Next day I once more went to the ground. This day I came to the ground with a noble aim. I wanted to build a small home for the puppy. It surprised me that some of my friends also accompanied me. It took us nearly an hour to build a house for the puppy. The house was looking nice. It was made up of bricks, branches of a neem tree and was curtained with old cloth

I named the puppy Uthi. I played with Uthi for the whole day. Uthi was a very sweet puppy. I trained it as much as I could. I made Uthi to jump from the high walls, rush towards when I called out his name.

My whole summer vocations were spent with him. He became clever enough to sit under his home when rains arrived.

Prashant, 14 yrs

The Green Rituals

The dogs in our street

were green

and feverish.

The street was a bowl

of fungus.

Below the water of our lives

in the street
lived our green rituals.

We cooked
and grew plants

for our rituals.

The dogs

that lived in our lives
waited for

the bread we cooked

for our green rituals.

From below the water of our lives
we would sing and dance
eat and sleep
and the dogs waited for

one night old bread
and believed

we had not eaten all.

Our plants waited for water.

After every prayer
we offered divine water to our plants,
and our use of it was ethical.

The water of our lives dried up
before we awoke to life.

Our dogs looked at us thirstily.
and stared at sky

barking hootingly

making us believe

tragic days were not far.

We lived both below and above the water.

Noons were for dogs.
Sunheat drove them seek shelter
below our green rituals.

Our pious plants were restless
when our dogs slept below their shade
leaning against their trunks.

Vinod Verma

FRIENDLY THORNS

A sparrow lived in a bush.
She was, in fact , born in a nest here on the bush.
The sparrow had mastered the art of living with thorns
that were part of the bush's survival. When she was a baby sparrow, her parents would leave her in the security of these
thorns. The thorns were an army of thousands and never changed their posts. They were very reliable and were very proud of their spiky, smooth and piercing abilities. The sparrow would often meet other sparrows who advised her that she should shift from this dull and cold looking dwelling.
There were many beautiful sites for building nests in the neighborhood. The sparrow finally was convinced to leave
the bush. She looked for a location where flowers would bloom
almost in every season. The whole day she worked hard to build her new nest. She returned in the evening to her old nest for spending the last night there.
As she reached there , she found the bush had been cut. It was being loaded in a lorry. The nest along with leaves and thorns had fallen down . Men were getting rid of last minute thorn bites.
The sparrow picked up a thorn and flew back to her new nest. One after another she carried all
these scattered thorns to build her home with these friends of rough weather.

VINOD VERMA

The Pillars in The Body

Midnight had passed

over the sand where my people lived

and waited for morning.

The mornings had previously peeped

in the holes of my people's poor

worn out shoes that were tired

of old leather's weight.

The night's air had touched

the heart of my sand
before it disappeared mystriously

in the eyes of morning.

After my people had been divided

in low and high caste
the morning arrived

stunningly.

Vinod Verma