‘These days I enjoy getting irritated from time to time’: The unexpected prose poems of Joy Goswami

The golden deer has come on its own and is sitting inside my cowshed
Eating leaves and grass
Who shall I run after now?
It takes one year eleven months to get one line of poetry
A baby entered the womb, was born, waved its arms and legs about, learnt to walk,
Babble baby talk – and I?
Couldn’t pluck up the courage, even today, to call a dictionary a dictionary
To call Sachin Deb Sachin Deb

Merely – yes, I’ll deliver, I’m on it,
Saying which I’m accumulating rubbish, peelings, garbage by the shovelful
In book after book

I’ve never even kept a pet parrot but I’m behaving as if
I keep peacocks at home
I receive the Right Honourable Graven Raven with smiling hospitality,
I say, How immaculate you are!
If I see him visiting Bishakha’s house then I say,
Oh my, how like the full moon over the empty Maidan
I still think about myself as if I’m a thermometer in a lion’s armpit
Still afraid to call a moo a moo, I say “cooing of cuckoos” instead.
But why don’t I keep in mind that I am, now, more than ever more masterful!
More followerful!
It’s utterly unbecoming of me to keep moaning “Monjori Monjori” and dying of love.
Not everyone flails about like I do
These days many mistake me for a rich man
I should take advantage of this situation

Consequently, these days, I enjoy getting irritated…

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