Tag Archives: troll

The last word on the GOAT poems, by A.R. Ammons

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For those who’ve followed the adventures of my old friend Goat over the last few weeks as I’ve posted them, many thanks.

For anyone interested in the entire collection, I’ll put together a PDF of this work and have it on this site for download before the New Year. There is still a print version of the book available through Amazon with black and white versions of Tom Williams’s great linocut art,  but no copies of the original letterpress are available (at least not that I know of!)

Finally, for the last word on this sequence, I’ll hand it off to National Book Award winning poet A.R. Ammons, who wrote this about the Goat poems:

“A sequence in which the imagination is marvelously free to leap, convert, disjoint, dispose re-dispose as the moment prompts, but a sequence in which restraint, compression, intention, craft are all alive and conscious in a fine discipline. The rambunctious is made sadly tame, sulled, schooled in ‘Goat’s Style is Cramped’  so naturally and with such apparent ease and one is so caught up in the poem itself that one has to break away to become aware of how flawlessly the poem’s made. I like these poems very much and consider them a rare achievement. Though energetic and almost dismissively swift, they startle one with sharp loneliness, compassion, loss. I’m afraid I cannot find anything wrong with them.”

On to new stuff! Happy holidays to all.

GOAT’S ANSWERING MACHINE [45]

GOAT’S ANSWERING MACHINE

If you ever call, there is always
this: the grumble or tremble in
your voice is mine. I have gone
out to something, am not available

now. As a rule, I am never home.
I do the goose dance, i do the
state of the art. This is my
answer then, my message. Listen:

the hill is full of rocks
the wood is green with beasts

The last poem from the sequence GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.

OUT THERE [44]

OUT THERE

Goat watches the sky bruise
with approaching day. He is old,
he can hardly walk. One day

Troll lifts him, carries him
to the city and drops him in
the middle of Broadway. Traffic

stops for miles. Goat is constantly
mumbling something. Someone in a car
gets out and shoots him. Goat is dead.

Goat is never dead.

 

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.

GOAT CRIPPLES CHICKEN LITTLE [43]

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GOAT CRIPPLES CHICKEN LITTLE

On the train, Goat sits
on Chicken Little. At first
he is unaware, but then Troll

ties up its beak with masking
tape. The sky stops falling.

Goat decides never to speak
again.

Goat scares the conductor
with his bloody teeth.

It’s only chicken blood, says Troll.

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.
Lino-block art by Tom Williams.

THE SKY FALLS [42]

THE SKY FALLS

Troll tells Goat that the sky
is scheduled to fall today:
he read it in the Post.

It starts: Goat kicks back clouds

while Troll keeps the blue above
by force of sheer ugliness.
All over, people carry umbrellas.

They think it is only raining.

When they can do no more, they find
a subway entrance, catch a train.

 

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.

GOAT INGESTS SARTRE [41]

GOAT INGESTS SARTRE

Goat sees Troll at MOMA.
They eat the contents
of the room they are in,
then head for the library.

Later, they break up a
softball game: Troll eats
third base, Goat kicks

the umpire out of the game,
offers to sub, having read

the rules. “It’s only reasonable,”
he reminds Troll.

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.

THE KICK [10]

THE KICK

Why do you walk, Troll asks.
Why can’t you live under a bridge.
Goat gets up, straw mouth, blocks
thin path. His hooves strike
dry dirt, buck tooth bite, moot
argument. Troll climbs

under a bush. God picks Goat
up by his scruff. You should
hear yourself speak, He says,
boots him, perfectly, Goat lands
like bread.

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.

TROLL & GOAT CREATE MANY WORLDS LIKE BRIDGES [9]

TROLL & GOAT CREATE MANY WORLDS LIKE BRIDGES

Troll: Wet moss.
Goat: Tree algae.

Troll: Dead leaves.
Goat: Rocks in Water.

Troll: Nuts on ground.
Goat: Roses in thorns.

Troll: Farm.
Goat: Whorehouse in Gibraltar.

No one’s too strong, Goat;
Nothing useful is saved.

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.

CONFRONTATION AT THE BRIDGE WITH TROLL [8]

GOAT_TomWilliamslino5

CONFRONTATION AT THE BRIDGE WITH TROLL

Bones stick out his fingers.
I got this from climbing, he said,
I play the guitar till I bleed.

Goat lifts his cartilage hoof,
worn, ground. Accordion, he said,
I eat anything.

He showed his yarn scars.
Troll brought him pieces
of the toll booth he had eaten.

They waited in the dark for rabbits.

 

from GOAT lies down on Broadway. For more info see here.
Lino-cut by Tom Williams.