Harvest:Ashok Chakravarti

Ashok  Chakravarti 

Harvest

The harvest of manslaughter is ceaselessly obtained here.

Seasons change only in accordance with the wind’s direction.

From east to west, north to south

Harvesting never ends, round the year,

For vultures.

Their slimy insistence on confining words into lines

With literal exactitude,

Their fondling of rainbow corpses of words

Smeared with the rouge of dying sunsets-

Let them fool around and flirt,

Declaim insane eccentricities,

Beat their breasts, conspire intrigues of unrest

We will turn the tables on them!

Translated by Charudatta Bhagwat