Defeat Poem by Samarendranath Mahapatra

All are in wreck: The hills in an earthquake.
The bird's nest in the storm.
The anchor in the sea's mighty waves.
The pinnacle has fallen off the temple.
The geometry of the palace has been lost.
A mirror that lay safe and secure so far
has splintered with pictures intact.

From now on something is set to start.
I can hear its holy beginning.
And the blare of the conch
in the deepening silence of bones.

A horrendous shadow sweeping across the sea
has snuffed out the pregnant river on endless sands.
Bereft of strangers' footprints.

Who's sleeping down the grand wall?
Maybe like a chaplet of clouds
round the neck of the fort of dismembered corpses:
How terrible it looks!
My destiny that lay tattered
and time that tethers me to its cruelty
are mocking at me!