Bratya Raisu
The Goat

It is a quadruped. Because it has four feet. Feet, with hoofs made of alloys. Because it has to tread the earth surface. And when it does so, it makes sound. This sound, as termed by the phonologists, is soft sound.

What is goat is a noun, is a pronoun, is an adjective, is a conjunction and is a verb. And the verb, its action, again, is an interjection.

And why is it such that it has no home? That no home is its? O the overlord of geometry, you are the traveler of an endless cosmic circle. The universal goats are bleating this day. In Gobi, Sahara, Siberia...

And it is that very conjunction that keeps you perpetually linked with your ancestors’ idiocy—that is, knowledge—that is, doubt. O the generalization, the glaring problems of linguistics—it’s crying out repeatedly. Ah! you are the full stop of the entire creature community; the mother of wail-ology. O the sovereign, tertiary offspring.

You are moving on round and round. In which direction? And where are those goats today that ate up their own ropes? And you, the goat, the innate affability, the monsoon of personality! O the castrated roly-poly holy goat of God—you the concept of ultimate liberty, you the hyper-human, the personal creature of God, now open your mouth—

O the Ba, O the speechless community!

Translated from the Bengali by Luna Zubeira Rushdi.