Ecstatic in the Crowd

yusuf achmad

A herd of poems, grazing like goats.
They sip gahwa together at a roadside stall,
where Ampel Kusumba spills into Sarkam—
the Goat Market, though no goat is traded.

Poems chew, drink, and chatter—
a ruckus of verses from president to stall keeper.
Leaders keep restraining,
they speak of wonder, of fate,
dangling on the horns of their goatish mate.

Of riches and death,
powerless before the virus.
Of pain and love,
softly bleating with a goat’s voice.
Of all things: past and present.

Suddenly, a poem screams—
it insults those passing by.
A jadzab poem, possessed.
“You are a dark goat,” it cries
to a veiled woman dressed in brown—
goat brown.
“It sees sorrow in her aura.”

Then a man in white-gold robes,
his hands clutching a packet of goat-branded cigarettes.
He offers the pack.
He kisses the jadzab poem’s hand.
“You will be happy,” it screams.

Other poets chant: “Mabruk!”
“It reads a bright aura.”

They sit and watch,
savoring everything,
hoping,
waiting for the next scream.

Surabaya, June 2023