He dared the lightning,
carrying clamped between
teeth large metal poles.
The first bolt burst a tree
before him. He hooted. The
second scorched the fields.
The third struck the metal
directly. Goat swallowed
the pole, bit it in half.
He stumbled into the overflowing
canal & drowned.
Bathrooms never change. His
mother always sprayed Lysol
in it, three times a day.
Goat has an allergic reaction.
Father leaves him the classified
by his coffee each morning.
Mother keeps quiet, makes biscuits.
Goat stews.
He dreams he is a ram, his head
caught in thorns.
The sun rises like music
every morning. Wind goes
around the world and comes
back in a week or two. Goat
waits on top of a hill, judging
the wind for weeks, waiting for
one that looks to be heading
home. Then he cries lonely into it;
it comes back, unchanged. The sun
sets like a flat tambourine.
Goat was counting stars one night
when he sees the man on the moon.
He is standing, way up there, derby
hat angled on his chalk head.
Can you hear me? Goat shrills.
The man waves. Goat asks him many
questions. The man on the moon
answers all of them by waving.
Goat digs a hole in the earth
and buries his head in it.
Goat watches TV incognito.
The President is talking
about him. Johnny Carson
is talking about him.
Psychics everywhere contact
Elvis and ask about him.
Where is Goat? Why did
he do this? Where are
his manners? Everyone
expected something big & final.
Before spring came that year
Goat had locked up all the hills.
The grass would not come up; plants
were all trapped below. The water
table rose to drastic levels.
The animals had to go to grocery stores.
The sky became arid, a sick green brown
color. Goat leveled April and May beneath
thrashing rocks. A turtle finally found
the key in a brackish pond. Goat crept away.
Celebrity Goat goes on a rampage
and has many children. He tells
no one anything, he tells tabloids
the world is black and white,
if they can’t see that it is their
problem. Meanwhile the colors in
his head swirl. He commits himself.
He writes the names of his kids
on the Mexican postcards and drops
them in the mail, bleating.
He at first believed the man
was a distant relative: blonde
almost white hair, big teeth,
dumb, vacant eyes.
I’ve discovered the pulse of
the sixties, Warhol tells Goat.
Goat enters his private studio,
picks up a six-string, bites it.
I eat guitars till I bleed, he says.
Of course, says Andy, nothing’s permanent.
from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.
Goat, disguised as a pick-up,
carries illegal aliens across
the border. His eyes are blank
headlights, his beard a New York
license plate, his matted coat
the bad paint job most Ford trucks
have. He becomes a legend in the
Mexican underground. Songs are sung
about him, whole bottles of wine
lifted in his name. He collects
postcards.
His teacher taped a brush
to his nose. Goat works
gently, carefully for hours.
The result is startling.
All are impressed.
It’s like looking in a mirror,
someone says. Goat drops his palette,
kicks through the canvas, shreds
the frame between his teeth.
He wants no one else to look.
from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.
Translations from the English 