THE SNOW BAT

                       English Translation: V.Vijaya Kumar Telugu Original : “Manchu Gabbilam” by

Dr K.Geeta

In bone-biting cold
In the sixth street dustbin lane
Amidst the stack of carton pieces
a wrapped shape in the husk
Like the thoughts excruciating even in sleep jolts alert
Swirling murky hair down through withered hairy hat
Rusty boots with worn out skin rags
Hanging from wounds moving impatient
I do not know when she woke up
Roaming on the roads
Rolling all along on a Shopping cart
There on the piece of placard
Donate a penny
Homeless please help
Work for food
Whatever begged in silence
The same is seen in collapsed eyes
On the American road
For a homeless citizen
A warm hope –
To a shivering soul
Somewhere in the heart a surviving
warmth of hope–
Forbidden bathing
Odor behind clothes
The smell of rotten garbage over the body
Ganja under uneven rotten unbrushed teeth
Hide as if covering the corpse inside the pit

He may have been the one who had it everything
Unemployment swallows home
Homelessness the relations
May be he’s workaholic
Identity without address
Job without existence
Are forbidden here

Out of thousands tens only accommodated here
It’s a lottery of darkness to those daily destitutes of life
To the beating heart for a quarter of every afternoon
Next to the road, inside the park, where people roam
It is a country of strict rules that do not allow to sleep freely

Avoiding all night not being caught by the police
Rolling like a ball of paper
Found fallen somewhere near a pile of dump
Like a broken couch in scrap
Legs and arms folding to stomach
Bearing the biting of the early chill
In the streets of heaven on earth
Hanging like a Snow Bat.

*****

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