{"id":328,"date":"2011-07-27T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=328"},"modified":"2012-03-31T13:24:30","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T13:24:30","slug":"john-grey-and-that-goat-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/john-grey-and-that-goat-man\/","title":{"rendered":"John Grey and ‘That Goat Man’"},"content":{"rendered":"

That Goat Man<\/span>
\u00a0<\/span>
So you have a goat do you,\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>
a strange animal that cuts your grass <\/span>
with relentless teeth <\/span>
and smells like ten goats.<\/span>
And then, when the grass can go no lower,<\/span>
he\u2019s into the purple vetch,<\/span>
and the dandelions and even the garden itself<\/span>
when he can squeeze his head<\/span>
through the protecting wire.<\/span>
And he bleats, oh how be bleats.<\/span>
With no other goats to speak to,<\/span>
he\u2019s in constant conversation<\/span>
with the maple trees, the finches,<\/span>
the back fence, the neighbor\u2019s dog.<\/span>
Odd nose, strange pale eyes,<\/span>
and a garbage disposal gut,<\/span>
he\u2019s not a creature man could easily love.<\/span>
And yet he\u2019s yours,<\/span>
his hard hoofs prancing<\/span>
on the gravel path,<\/span>
his rough beard swaying<\/span>
to the beat of his chewing,<\/span>
his prick ears listening in<\/span>
to a neighborhood of sounds.<\/span>
Everyone else has a dog or a cat.<\/span>
One even owns a bird.<\/span>
But you have to have a goat don\u2019t you.<\/span>
And only because someone has to.<\/span>
I hear they\u2019ll eat anything.<\/span>
And yet, when they\u2019re done,<\/span>
there\u2019s still everything.<\/span>


\n
*John Grey<\/span> is an Australian born poet, US resident since late seventies. Works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in <\/span>Xavier Review, White Wall Review<\/span> and <\/span>Writer\u2019s Bloc<\/span> with work upcoming in <\/span>Poem, Prism Internationa<\/span>l and the <\/span>Cider Press Review<\/span>. <\/span>
\u00a0<\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That Goat Man\u00a0So you have a goat do you,\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0a strange animal that cuts your grass with relentless teeth and smells like ten goats.And then, when the grass can go no lower,he\u2019s into the purple vetch,and the dandelions and even the garden itselfwhen he can squeeze his headthrough the protecting wire.And he bleats, oh how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}