Bagulbova

Author's note: The following poem is for the NaPoWriMo2021. Day 2 Prompt: Translate a poem from your mother tongue. The original poem Bagulbova (Boogie monster) by Vinda Karandikar is at the end of this post.

When night unfurls

and curls around

a lone mango tree

at the front of town

Avert your eyes!

Walk straight ahead.

Hidden amidst blackened boughs

Waits vile Bagulbova to claim its prey.

I still remember

that bogey night

when a ghoulish leer

pounced out in bright moonlight.

A supple, rotten jute-like braid

hung o'er the sceptre's ghastly head.

Crazed, acidic eyes bored down like hail

Warning of a mind deranged.

And his nose! Sprawled across

from cheek to cheek

- like peeling walls from some horror scene.

Tongue slithering between its teeth

like a crocodile attacking from a polluted creek.

As for teeth themselves - blackened stones.

Sieved and selected using its giant lugholes.

Seven short of seven thousand years,

For Bagulbova, age is but an irrelevant sum.

Yet, to fill its rotund stomach

the monster demands a single diet.

The flesh of a snot-nosed, whiny child

to satisfy its disgusting palate.

Post-hunt it scatters fresh green leaves,

the same ones we romantics collect and keep.

Then assured that the prey has ripened well,

chomps it all: leaving not a bone to sell.

So on lonesome strolls, when the wind has stayed

but nearby orchids sway

Reader, you have been warned - Beware!

Bagulbova has found its prey.