The Billy Goat

The herd of goats passed where
the river flows.
In the sapphire pink afternoon
heavy with romantic peace,
I watch
the great billy goat.

Greetings, mute demon,
you most intense of animals,
eternal mystic
of hell
made flesh…

So many spells
in your beard,
on your broad brow,
you brute Don Juan!
Such force
in those insane
Mephistophelian eyes!

You roam the fields
with your fellows,
emasculated
when you’re really a sultan!
Your need of sex
is never satisfied.
Father Pan taught you well!

The nanny goat
follows you cautiously,
humble in her love;
but your passions have no boundaries;
Ancient Greece
would have understood.

You come from the oldest Bible tales
of withered ascetics and Satan
with black stones, rude crosses,
tame beasts, and hollow caves
where in the shadows
they watched you
fan the flames of sex!

Maleness
of wild beard and horn!
Dark emblems of the medieval world!
You were born with Philommedes
in the sea’s chaste spray
which your mouths kissed
beneath astonished stars.

You come from rose-filled woods
of hurricane-light;
from Anacreon’s fields
swamped with immortal blood.

Billy goats,
metamorphosis
of old satyrs
gone for good!
Without another animal
you spill virgin lechery.

Luminous Southern beings!
Stand still to hear the cock
in a lost field
wish you God speed!
as you pass by.