Thursday, October 19, 2017

The Invisible Goat

The Invisible Goat

            We were visiting some sort of historical farming re-enactment with our granddaughters. Kim had wandered off with the girls while I leaned on the wooden fence of an empty pen. Soon a little boy joined me.

            “What are you doing?”

            “I’m watching the invisible goat.”

            He nodded and came over to stand next to me. Soon he pointed and said, “Look, there’s another one.”

            “Thanks, I didn’t notice that one before.”

            Our pointing attracted several more kids. One of them said, “I don’t see any goats.”

            “That’s because they are invisible,” my new friend explained to him.

            The parents soon appeared, gathered up their kids, and hustled them away, some with worried looks over their shoulders.

            Then it was just me and the goat.



No Rules Chess

        i.
No Rules Chess we call it
my young son and I frowning
across the board like
his big brother and me
sliding our men in turn
anywhere
lining up captives
at the edge but not too
often or the game ends
too soon.

        ii.
He joins the class, uninvited,
after lurking outside the door
for a week in ill-fitting
clothes then appearing sudden
as a bounced check.  He struggles
with his chair to join us then
mutters and proclaims with wild
hands and troubled skin.
He apes us all.
help me I can help you
inside my poems are so
lovely like mushrooms
in rhyme I want you all
to hear my orphan poems
help me let you hear them
or I will shoot you I
awoke and was no longer
one of the patients I
was in a nightmare
surrounded by 30 screaming
inmates here I am home
We applaud, nod, thank him.
We ask him not to come back, saying
Come back.



I’m not sure how the story and the poem fit together, or even how the two parts of the poem fit together. If anyone can up with a profound explanation, I’d be delighted to hear it at dstring@ix.netcom.com.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you. I was a little confused in the end as well because the story and poem do not seem to coincide with each other.

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