All About Goats

GOATHERD CONTESTANTS both

—Why do we not oh Mopsy you and I good fellows both convene together, you to blow the reeds and I to beat the verses: here in the mixed grove to sit between hazels and elms recording the cruel extinction of Daphnis that the nymphs enact weeping the various mourners’ rites with hazels and brooklets bearing testimonial witness?

—and what do you bet, which do you wager, how much can you offer, if you’re insane enough to launch off into another contest. I put down this darling kid whose fore-skull you see tumescent with new (baah) budding nubs of horn, preluding love and battle. He frisks and sports with those springy sprightly goat-leaps (boing). In addition to this, a free basket, a horn of plenty, stuffed full of autumn products grapes and apples and chestnuts et cetera strung in clusters of garland overflowing past the lip.

—and I raise you this work of art, my lips never touched it, carven goathorn cup with relief engraving for the surface of the drinking-horn vista scrolled with incised acanthus (I put them aside and never used them) ivy vine and grape in Capricorn glory; on one side three figures, in the center a nexus of foliage a nymph named Sylvia, her hair branching the vine and climber and her limbs cradling the fields.

—that is a pretty prize: I see two contenders, youths in splendor, emerge from the same jubilee of frond and trunk on either side, bearing each a staff and mouth open with frozen voice; on the opposite face of the drinking horn (reserved, my lips never touched it) a boy on a crumbling stone wall overlooking vineyards and making snares for grasshoppers or crickets or scarab beetles out of twig-bark, while a crafty fox creeps up from behind him, skulking in wait to take the youngster’s wallet. Who could resist?

—Agreed my good lad, as worthy as are the prizes, as worthy has been your song: so as I heard you singing in strains of sheep-swath of wool, whole reams of it: livestock dilemma or didactic hexameters expounding the terror of canines. I will follow through with your theme in a word

The Common Goat CAPRA AEGAGRUS HIRCUS

of course it’s capricorned and o so horny for it, nannies billies and kids (less so the castrate wethers)

HOW NOW ANTONIO?

[moo]

FOOD CHAIN the lion eats the antelope and the antelope chews the grass, the grass itself feeds on our graves so follow it on through Beyond Predator and Prey for how to paraphrase this Human prowling; all the old prejudices for example that the ones being top dogs the others must be mere grazers—but you build your underdog identity on theories of shifting sands.

The Frisky Goat. It was GAITS in GOTHIC

Modern German readers recognize Geiss for goat while Dutchmen and Icelanders say geit; in Old English we used to say gāt—or else bucca which is why the word Buck of the Bucolics is so often on our lips; all up till Middle English hegote or hegoote, same difference.

This is not a pedigree of individuation; it belongs to the

KINGDOM: Animalia

PHYLUM: Chordata (by the axis of anus and mouth, chord down the middle, tail appendage)

CLASS: Mammalia

ORDER: Artiodactyla (even ungulates are odd too)

FAMILY: Bovidae (Bovids)

SUB FAMILY: Caprinae (Ovinae too)

GENUS: Capra

SPECIES: Capra Aegagrus

SUB SPECIES: Capra Aegagrus Hircus

Down from the Hilltop,

Bucks and Does,

Across the bridge,

Billy-Goats Gruff

Nanny-Goat caprice—

Jump leap hop:

Capricious Caprine Capers

[Do they get your goat?]

CAPER/CAPRA

(the Latin Etymon is embedded) bond to their Gemini

Cabro/Cabra

Chèvre

BICORNIS

and two-teated

only some have wattles

but all have beards [including nanny-goats]

MALE LACTATION OCCURS AT TIMES did you know

ESTRUS for feminine mating heat

masculine RUT

entails a Decrease of Appetite

Obsession in the Doe

/does that get your goat?

Faunus the Goat-God, Pan-Hellenic?

and all the lil Fauni et cetera in the ancient cameos? The Strangler?

Does He get your Goats?

Goats usually birth twins whereas freshening occurs at kidding with single and triplet births also being frequent: and if we drink now from a goatskin of wine?

Pass the goatskin and drink on,

unless you brought your drinking horn.

—Mopsy I feed into your riff and the skid of your scatter: you bring up ideas for me. Freshening indeed occurs at kidding. Do you mind if I follow through?

—Ain’t nothing I’d rather more than for you to take over bro I’m outta breath and grasping straws. I’m gonna lean on this tree: go on.

—SO they say that curiosity kills the cat but nobody has ever said that giddiness gelded the goat

these are browsers not grazers (and very curious at that) ESCAPE ARTISTS other goats escape by observed example in the way they browse, they “test” enclosures and fences they chew on sundries to taste-test everything, but are very selective about what they actually swallow despite their predilection for unusual smells, unusual textures—escaping for a swallow search being insatiably inquisitive in mouthing their environment, but in the end rather picky about what it will in fact ingest: that’s what I mean by browser not grazer, ‘cause indeed there’s danger

for instance

nightshade is noxious to goats

(wilted fruit-tree leaves too can be deadly)

But what about trees?

Goats in Trees?

That’s the thing!—

GOATS ARE THE ONLY RUMINANTS TO REGULARLY CLIMB TREES

they form the flock but float in loose and free formation w/ less herding behavior; we as goatherds tune in to their independent streak and develop certain affinities. They do conglomerate but each one is just kind of doing its own thing side by side: even the young unweaned are left to their own devices.

but BOND FORMING

intercommunication (like sheep) this husbandry

goats like sheep are regularly tended by youngsters

castration in kidhood prevents the development of typical bucolic odor l8tr

MODE OF PROBING INQUIZITION and a capricious beast

using the prehensile lipper-up and lingua licking

he really is such a spunky little rebel

biological control agency’s eating machine

sifting unwanted weeds

escaping every enclosure but docile being led to pen;

yet meat-goats are most often pastured year-round

and they all can range in flock with sheep

(A kid’s low-fat meat toughens at high temperature

if cooked without additional moisture).

He mouths the unfamiliar with a certain relish

and is always full of frolics and cavorts

CURIOUSITY KILLED THE CAT

BUT THE GOAT, IT GELDED

most lascivious of horn-beasts, surely,

but shouldn’t you love the freedom

of the bearded jumper’s great escapes

his jaunts and japes

pen-tester, gymnast of the ruminants:

a deer might leap so gracefully, and an antelope impress even more, but can they balance on the branch of a tree? the CAPRINAE can

the softer she-goat hide the Cashmere, Angora smooth

and what about your kid-gloves, did you bring them?

Now Pan, is that the same as Faunus?

the all-lustful nymph-hunter

the head and torso all hominid,

yet the lower body and viscera of a goat.

Fauns and Satyrs glory in their goat-parts

Facial hair called the goatee

Bromos is the stench of hegotes

cloven-hooved pursuer Pan invented the pan-flute,

first joining together in sequence

the seven-piped progression

How is Man to be paraphrased?

—I’m winded, Mopsy, I need you to take over in turn: anyway I realize we’re coming to one of your favorite themes. Trill the counterpart.

—No problemo amigo, I think I can see where this is going. So let’s give a round of resounding applause for an idyllic slant on Hebrew pastoralists given that the Goat is a “clean” animal by Jewish dietary laws: por ejemplo you would slaughter one for an honored guest in Sacred Hospitality holiday visits. On the tip of my browsing tongue is also the Yom Kippur, although I don’t know much about it, I can say it involves a SCAPEGOAT: two goats by lots one is offered in sacrifice while the other is let ESCAPE into the Wilderness, a load-bearing animal carrying off with it the weighty Sins of the Community.

Further, a He-Goat leading his Flock, is Image of the Hebrew Kings

I move on, please attend me carefully.

FOR XRISTIANS Sacred Hostility

the Goat becomes Image of Satan as Image of Man or Image of Earth in Man as Monster. In the High Middle Ages it was commonly believed that goats whispered shrewd lewd sentences in the closed ears of holy Saints:

whence derives this image? mayhap ‘twas the

comportment of bucks in rut

or that sinister goatee (and those eyes)

IMAGO SATANIS (imago hominis)

Still it stuck and it was there to stay

I guess the Devil’s goatee fitted with your jet dark Bouc was used to officiate the Messe Noire. I mark the Myth of the Satanic Mass on the preening part of the pious

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In the precincts of piety percolates with pederasts the nightmare of the Other, id est,

The inverted pentagram?

Tête de Bouc (with his goatee?)

Oh me oh my, all these inversions and conversions

but for we who know goats

TALK ABOUT A SCAPEGOAT, granted, with his share of perversions

a SCAPEGOAT being essentially what this nevermore innocent

if somewhat only raunchy animal became

horny, oh very much

horned but not therefore horrid but more the bounty’s rut of fecund caprices

still those FREAKY FREAKY EYES

Not Sheep vs. Goats, no, that will not do—

nor Papists vs. Protestants sowing seed of holy discords

but goats ‘n sheep in mingled co-herd: don’t we always let Cuddie’s sheep join in our flocks when he asks us? and ruminant on different herbs while we on different verbs folk etymologies and the science of the masses—a really laid-back sort of cohort, with no account for taste and not in competition with one another but rather affectionately ignoring one another: if only we could do the same.

—Bravo Mopsy, bravissimo. I take your point; tho the wardens of the flock only repast their youth on competition of charms, carms, known as single double or triple songs in inverse and reverse, our own innocent kinda compensatory contention. If only it could be kept to only this. If only they could do the same. In your vein I have a few closing comments about goats, they make great pets for kids.

Act-off as they might, their sporting bond with their people is so playfully deep and genuine as they will indeed consent to stable and spend a consensual portion of penned and cloistered existence but like the sheep and their wardens our neighbors they exact certain non-negotiable liberties surprising in the ranks of Sheeple: I would versify of the Capricorn’s Capricious Capers in true blue hexameters if I could get my longs and shorts straight.

Instead I do what I do best, I pantheize with verbs this florifaunal ecology of an echo-system; uselessly writing this description in the sand is another kind of creature in itself.

Nature is Becoming

Participation in future participles naturally Nature is perpetual Going-to-be-Birthed of the New Year winter waiting of the eternal child from Pan with his all-flute and his pantheism of godly goatguts...

—I know,

and you’ve taught me to do the same:

I give you the DEVIL GOAT ESCAPE

i.e.

LUCIFER appellation contrôlée du Diable as such is the abuse of a Roman star (Morning?) Lux is a noun meaning Light and Ferre is a verb meaning to bear or carry. Bringer or Bearer of light, the Morning Star, as Pomifer (said of autumn) bears Apples, so LUCIFER—light. The Morning Star, the solar system itself and possibly the chariot that vector of this luminary KING SUN (could he not be drawn forth by caprines? but that’s the bias of the lonely goatherd that we do indeed seem to see everything as goat) Lucifer as lightbearer, how do all these things become devilwords? (maybe we have been mistaken in who best might bear the Sinister Name best) so in the reproductive force is it there lies the evil in those sweet and soulful eyes of herds so prey creatures there is a deep power of contagion mankind knows all too well in the very susceptibility that that holds the sheep in a tensed-up state of constant taut awaiting [seems peaceful, huh? green fields, blue skies, but...] of natural monsters, insatiable tearing devourers of the voracious flashing fang called secretly the Strangler [will get the goat too] and with those incisors You are Devourer and Devoured, in the taut awaiting of natural monsters brewing the troll winds in perpetual cycles of fear that the calmest Idyll munching ruminating poetry digested in four or more chambers of stomach down by the pastoral peace of the bubbling brooks.

How loving are the sheep truly and how loath to be alone...

—Enough Mopsy, it’s getting dark—and I, alas, am old and weary. Basta! You sing too long. But I kept up with you there for a while, you saw. We should retreat with our flocks to the fold.

All questions for next time delayed sometime for the darkling dimmer:

let’s go.

My Bucolica is a modern reboot of the "eclogue" form originating in Classical Greece and Rome and much rehashed throughout all European literature. It usually comes in the form of a collection of shepherd's songs, dialogues, and stories featuring themes of love/desire, nature/the seasons, death/mortality, and the passing of time. It is often a playground to poeticize the animal world and humankind's relation to it, as well as particulars of the seemingly idyllic life led by simple shepherds and farmers in Arcadia. It is also referred to as bucolic literature. I wrote my Bucolica 2017-2018 in a mix of poetry and prose.