For Those Silent Riders Poem by Sasanka Sekhar Panda

Here in dark patches of land
you can see only the nameless
the truly exiled
and can feel the filthy smell
of their nakedness and sweat
and the exhibited desireless sex.

You can't see a single moon
with sweet face there
only everywhere
the emptiness
of the decomposing breasts'
no flesh and no life for life
but as if
an endless procession of the deads
in a ruined city,
bombarded incessantly.
No fleshy emotions
but locked hearts of
grief and suffering.

They can remember
no more than this very moment
they swim upward
against the river current
they trade with stones
they run with bare feet
the luckless millions.

Can you see those silent riders
passing through the darkness?
can you hear the ceaseless
beatings of the gong of death
resounding in the air?
can you observe the seeds of fire
anchoring in the
deepest corner of their hearts.

I know only
This is the beginning of the beginning
and there is no name in my tongue
to name it
the knock on the door of the evil
by those uncompromising silent riders.