Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Rajendra Kishore Panda

Amen

In the dark
I dug out my burning eyes
And hung them on a milepost.
And then I felt
many other eyes burning there,
many other people like me
standing in a queue.
I made the queue a little longer
and prayed for the third eye.

While singing
someone went dumb.
Others took it up
only to meet the same fate.

All of them gesticulated:
Here, we are in a queue
for centuries,
waiting for the visa.

The eyes in the mileposts said,
This is the only road
to the other world.
Amen.

AMEN

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Amen

In the dark
I dug out my burning eyes
And hung them on a milepost.
And then I felt
many other eyes burning there,
many other people like me
standing in a queue.
I made the queue a little longer
and prayed for the third eye.

While singing
someone went dumb.
Others took it up
only to meet the same fate.

All of them gesticulated:
Here, we are in a queue
for centuries,
waiting for the visa.

The eyes in the mileposts said,
This is the only road
to the other world.
Amen.

Amen

In the dark
I dug out my burning eyes
And hung them on a milepost.
And then I felt
many other eyes burning there,
many other people like me
standing in a queue.
I made the queue a little longer
and prayed for the third eye.

While singing
someone went dumb.
Others took it up
only to meet the same fate.

All of them gesticulated:
Here, we are in a queue
for centuries,
waiting for the visa.

The eyes in the mileposts said,
This is the only road
to the other world.
Amen.
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Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
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Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
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Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
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