2019-10-10


Geep
--Sidney Wade
     
The music
of the sleepy 
day was
ravagingly 
dull until
Michael reeled 
up a geep
from the depths 
of his considerable
intelligence 
a geep !
a wonky blend 
of goat and sheep
a medical medley 
genetic fugue
they call chimera 
another wholly
enthralling sound 
we found
when googling geep 
whose enharmonic
bleating in the end 
rings oh so
sad the photo 
on the screen
reveals a downcast 
baby creature
neither here 
nor there
two bold 
and mordant
sets of chromosomes 
whistling fortissimo
through its patch-work 
hide a botched-up
map of silken hair 
and wooly yellow
fur its forlorn 
droopy ears
a study 
in radical
embarrassment 
I feel profoundly
sorry for this 
border folly
this lonely little 
instrument
of the ever- 
expanding notion
of what's possible 
but then I see
we're kin 
the little geep and me
we're marginal 
ephemera
intoning low 
invisible messages
at the edges 
of the known
to who knows 
whom
the difference 
between us
a matter of degree 
the poet of course
a hybrid creature 
of transport and remorse
an over-reacher 
in semaphore
who knows that sound's 
the gold in the ore
whose pleasure-ground 
is linguistic welter
who rides like ice 
on its own melting
to paradise 
or to a stranger land
we don't yet understand

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