the dry air
asphyxiated goats huddled
under the bare light bulb
rehashing their day
the dry grass
but it looked like the rain would come soon
while they drowsed in the moist meadows
the shepherd would sit under the oak tree
whistling a laconic tune. he used to have a flute
but it was used as firewood;
Small fire crackled in an unheard of melodic sweep
the goats had dropped collective tears
when the music reached them in the late night
all night long the one-eyed mutt
had howled at the dark sky
until it rained the dead music
cajoled the goats to bemoan their loss
with shepherds it is so their
self worth is measured by the flesh they bear
indigination wills art to die
goats fixated on sad tunes
are like records that skip
their eyes drooping ears upturned tails unwagging
on their stick legs they wait
for angels or flute carrying pipers
to awaken them from the land of kodak-moment sorrows
where they are stranded
one hopes to slap some sense into them
one tries until their desolation
pervading like gasoline poured on tarred roads
engulfs everything in sight. any well meaning fellow
would do what the kindly shepherd did -
he severed their catatonic necks
not for hot blood - it had coalesced
as if in mid-flow the sadness had
suddenly clotted the red thick dark blood -
but to compliment the memories of goats
that once were kicking and alive...
actually the flute was never burned
it was stolen by the fair-minded priest
who saw the impending calamity in a grain of rice
and well-meaning in his prosaic sincerity
he dared to alter the future that was already fated
even by silent eyes, do not question me
what befell the curmudgeon holy man
were it that he was still breathing
he would be as dead as the immobile goats
but the story does not end
with a bunch of stationary beings,
bedazzled by augury into still-life portraits
of their earlier happy selves
the dog stopped in mid-howl
the swallows and the phesants
covered the azure sky
brilliantly stuck in flight
as if perched in motion
on the branches of solidifed yet invisible air
which itself had died
suffocated for lack of breathing room
if only the shepherd had the nerve to
disturb the errie quietude
he sang soundless songs
in a wordless language
that the goats - twice their number,
each one being divided into heads and bodies -
did not respond to
the phesants did not dance
and the dog acted as if it could care less
about any stinking unuttered song
and as such it kept on howling silently
at the sky which had dimmed its stars
and satisfied, gone to an interminable sleep.
mG. 2/26/06