Joshua
(a German Shepherd, my wife and I are actually friends with, in Goa)
Joshua lives in a handkerchief
apartment
with master
mistress(?)
and master’s son
Joshua pants
as he sweats out the grime
of this pitiful world
lolling tongue
bored
and with his forelegs on the windowsill
he can see the sun
going down on ships at high sea
and seagulls circling a fishing boat
Joshua’s master is pot-bellied
as will his son be
because this is where
the river meets the sea
and the waters flow this way and that
to confuse
the obtuse fish
and life is rice with fish
and alcohol
from cashew in the hills
but Joshua has an urban
metro sexual problem
because he lives in an apartment
that some builder built
he goes up and down
in an escalator
so the beach front dogs
don’t think
he is a team player
they think he uses deodorant
now where the river meets the sea
just there
the water is salt and sweet
like a life that has been good
and Joshua frolics
where the water meets the sand
recedes
and prances back in
his master scolds
Joshua obeys
runs away to chase a seagull
he will never catch
Joshua comes back
looks at the incoming tide
wistfully
Joshua sits
at his master’s command
Ashok Niyogi is an Economics graduate from Presidency College, Calcutta. He made a career as an international trader and has lived and worked in the Soviet Union, Europe and South East Asia in the ‘80s and ‘90s. At 52, he has been retired for some years and has been cashew farming, writing and traveling. He divides time between California, where his daughters live, Delhi and the Indian Himalayas. He has published a book of poems, Tentatively (2005), and has been extensively published in the USA, UK, Australia and Canada.