Chandan Goswami

Date of Publish: 2026-09-12

A few poems by Chandan Goswami

 

(1)

Father

 

You know sonny

I am a sprightly youth

Till I remain seated on the bed

But as I get down and step forward

I turn three headed

Steps turn wobbly

The knees cannot bear the weight

Is it because I weigh a bit too much

I cannot make out you clearly with my eyes too sometimes

I call someone else thinking to be you

Many things come to the mind as I hear your voice

That I narrated to you the stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata

You wept while listening

And the role of Dhritarashtra

 

Now you have grown-up

Crossed half a century

And in your childhood

While poking the fire

You sought answer to many things of life

Rights and wrongs of life

And kept me warm

with an unknown warmth in the chill

 

Why do you hesitate to come near me now

Indeed you brought nurses for me to take care

It was a such a voice of solace

As you turned up from somewhere

and in the same breath recite the entire days events

 

What a forest of memory

 

Gradually as those foods have gone missing

I have to gulp the medicines

Considering them as hearty conversation

 

One day everything turns weak naturally

 

So many times you traversed to my bosom

By gazing through my eyes

 

Ok leave it

I get angry with myself sometimes

Strength parted with me to allow me sit on the courtyard even

I have formed a sky a courtyard and x-y-z axis

Hear the voices of my kith and kins

In the radio that you brought on my birthday

 

I wake up in the middle of the night

And you know what happens

A star descends from the sky

And stopping near the mosquito net

Turns into the cane of the blind

Like a shimmering firefly

Indulges in such a long conversation with me

Dimming light

Do deep

(2)

Zelenskyy and Putinology

Shot 1

 

Sesame blooms

 

Not a single penny

Heart beats hard

 

Suddenly

I venture outside home

No not found yet

My own self

 

Be it Ukraine or Russia

In the call of a hungry insect

The sky is filled with smoke

The parched earth cracks

In the whimpers of a child

 

Shot 2

 

Sky is parted

Water is parted

Air is parted

Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Or is it

Vladimir Putin

 

Shot 3

 

I stay transfixed

gazing at the river outside

In the ruins of the fighter plane

The large fleshfly

Buzzes

Buzzes

 

To cry considering to be one’s own

To consider something to be one’s own

To laugh considering to be one’s own

 

O nature

 

Natural

Natural

Natural

 

(3)

Kakuma

The address of

Terrorism civil war political repression retribution hunger sleeplessness is

Kakuma

There is no moon no star

In the sky of Kakuma

There is no dream of green

In the cornfields of Kakuma

The rivers of Kakuma

Do not understand love

Neither the story of rocks

 

Sparks of fire wafts in the dust of Kakuma’s childhood

They hear at the time they are yet to understand sorrow and agony

That they are not even citizens of the third world

Their education is just a symbolic song

Their clothes are just a history of sorrow

Their food is a manifesto of hunger

 

The childhood human bomb of Kakuma is an element of terrorism

Religious jihad heroin opium smoke wafting from terra cotta tobacco pipes

Sexual exploitation of teenaged girls of Kakuma

A vehicle carrying capitalism AIDS Syphilis

 

Elegy of innumerable Kakumas at every corner of Earth

Kakuma is a problem of every country on Earth

Only carrier of problems

A mere political agenda of United Nations

From country to country

As if many a Kakuma are born

Just to provide economic aid

Nobel for Kakuma

So many movies are produced - paintings are made on Kakuma

So many poems stories drama novels

So long the foundry of humanity would live on

As the Kakuma like life gets longer

 

Be it country

Be it song of a country

Be it life of a country

Be it rights

Be it hunger

Be it happiness

Be it moon

Be it sun

Be it identity

Be it citizen

Be it constitution

Be it justice

 

So many days

Along the rivers

Across the seas

Over the ice and snow

Through the jungles

 

One cannot identify the borders

One cannot understand the language

It is an epic of sufferings

Kakuma only Kakuma

 

 

Kakuma – a refugee camp in Kenya

 

 

(4)

Magic

One day by magic of the sorcerer

The stone starts melting

 

One part- stone water

The other -stone sand

 

On whose command

A river of blood gushes down

Piercing through the tunnel

Waves from the sea washes the front-yard

 

In another return journey

Theh singing bird flies away at the sound

Of drums created by the fire

 

As the fish lashes its tail

The moon gets it in to the centre of the garland

 

Fables of the deep earth

Twinkling of the stars

In the ocean of crimson blooms

The rays of the sun remains hidden in the

Voice of cricket

Seeds brood in prayer in the fields

At the command of the sorcerer

 

Life of beings engaged in the battles

Only for the shake of faith

Non violence for non violence

Violence for violence

 

So many roads lead to the abode of magic

Truth remains eclipsed by untruth at the border of the

Great path

 

So

Every word is a poem

Who is the creator of the first line of the poem

Who will pen down the last line of the poem

O sorcerer

 

(5)

Fear

A tune in the hues of the rainbow

Uninterrupted

Prayer dance for blooming of flower of the fire

 

Universe piercing

Deep

Serene

 

Pristine room of fear

In the heart of the stone

 

Procession

From

One body to another

One heart to another

What an inferno

At the heart of the one making up the rear

 

Stomping the stallion rider

Screech of an unknown bird

In the deep forest of mind

In the stillness of the night

 

Many cities

Many ports

 

Temples

Monasteries

Churches

Mosques

Gurudwaras

Break down sobbing

 

Shall the starry night

Be able to sleep through

Between the fingers

Someday

 

Body meditating in yogic postures

Abused in the five type of water

 

Is

The endless fear

That traversed thousands of miles of beaten tracks

The mantra of nirvana

 

All poems of been translated from original Assamese into English by Bibekananda Choudhury

About the poet

Chandan Goswami (1976) is an eminent poet in Assam. Two of his poetry collections include: Ekhon Chotal Nothoka Manuhor Proti (2012) and Janantik (2017). His edited books include: Noni Borpujari: Shilpa Beekshan (2019), and Kabitar Lota Kota Baat (2023)

He is actively associated in editing little magazines like Sonai, Xobdo (now defunct), and the poetry magazine Jatra, which continues to be published. He is also actively involved in editing the annual journal Lokasamskriti, and souvenirs of Axam Xatra Mahasabha and the Asam Sahitya Sabha. His poems have been translated into English, Bengali, and Hindi, appearing in various national and international periodicals.

All India Radio (AIR) Guwahati granted Chandan Goswami the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive interview with the eminent visual artist Noni Borpujari. Broadcast in eight parts, this interview continues to be re-aired today and is archived at All India Radio in New Delhi.