Although I am a buck-goat

Stranded on the mountaintop

Over the lintel of the universe –

Black fog, visibility zero –

Things could be worse

As worse today they were

Down in the Georgian quarter

Where I lost my footing,

Oh these cloven flip-flops of mine,

Betwixt kerb and pavement

Outside Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud;

Two well-fed government ministers passing by,

Adjusted their sunglasses, passing on.

But now in the gutters high up

In the maelstrom of the mountain

Being ogled by flighty thunderstorms

I am safe from apparatchiks.

I am no scapegoat.

I am a survivor,

Butterfly fragile,

But my horns are not for sale:

Each is a sickle

Which I propose

Only to daughters of high birth

No matter how low

Their station on the mountain.

On a bad day on top of the world

I flash my eye-lashes

Back down the corrie

At the she-goat princesses of my day-dreams.

PS: If you – dear passer by –

Happen to be a well-fed government minister –

And you’re IN THE MOOD

Throw a black, white and gold rug over me –

That one.

I am proud of my glacier.

That will do. Merci.

2 July, 2014