The involved voluptuousness of the soft-footed cat
Who is like a fur folding a fur,
The cat who laps blood, and knows
The soft welling of blood invincible even beyond bone or metal of bone.
The soft, the secret, the unfathomable blood
The cat has lapped
And known it subtler than frisson-shaken nerves,
Stronger than multiplicity of bone on bone
And darker than even the arrows of violentest will
Can pierce, for that is where will gives out, like a sinking stone that can sink no further.
But he-goat,
Black procreant male of the selfish will and libidinous desire,
God in black cloud with curving horns of bronze,
Find an enemy, Egoist, and clash the cymbals in face-to-face defiance,
And let the lightning out of your smothered dusk.
Forget the female herd for a bit,
And fight to be boss of the world.
Fight, old Satan with a selfish will, fight for your selfish will;
Fight to be the devil on the tip of the peak
Overlooking the world for his own.
But bah, how can he, poor domesticated beast!
Taormina.
SHE-GOAT
Goats go past the back of the house like dry leaves in the dawn,
And up the hill like a river, if you watch.
At dusk they patter back like a bough being dragged on the ground,
Raising dusk and acridity of goats, and bleating.
Our old goat we tie up at night in the shed at the back of the broken Greek tomb in the garden,
And when the herd goes by at dawn she begins to bleat for me to come down and untie her.
Merr—err—err! Merr—er—errr! Mer! Mé!
Wait, wait a bit, I’ll come when I’ve lit the fire.
Merrr!
Exactly.
Mé! Mer! Merrrrrrr!!!
Tace, tu, crapa, bestia!
Merr-ererrr-ererrrr! Merrrr!