Duryodhana's Last Word

He lies near the stinking pond
filled with guts and blood;
all around him-devastation and death.
Himself a half-carcass,
his thighs and testes smashed
by Bhima's illegitimate blow,
broken in several places,
left to die,
his twisted face lights up again
at the macabre apparition-
Ashwatthama.
And as this angel of death
narrates the tale of the final
slaughter-how he stole into
the Pandava tents after dusk
putting to the sword
every man, woman and child,
Duryodhana's smashed, bleeding,
mouth-wound replies:
"Good, good, good.'

[From The Used Book]

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