MY BLEATING BILLY GOAT

He’s a horny old goat, always whining

about wanting what he doesn’t have.

I urge him to stop kvetching and suggest

he’d feel better if he gave up eating tin cans

and ate crabgrass and chickweed instead.

I remind him that nobody

ever promised him a garden

filled with roses and petunias.

With his elongated-spiraled horns,

he thought he was so handsome

that he ought to be in pictures.

He climbed the Hollywood hills,

one four-legged step at a time

until it got him a screen test.

Auditioning for a film,

he met a slender nanny goat

and immediately fell in love.

In a traditional mating ritual,

he pissed his forelegs and dribbled

his face in the hope of attracting her.

She kept him at paws length

until he brushed his teeth, shined

his hoofs and promised to bathe

in a chlorinated swimming pool.

A devout Rosicrucian,

she insisted on marriage

before she could be humped.

He eagerly signed the contract

for a metaphysical marriage

in a Cosmic alchemical union.

When his wife’s udders began to sag,

and she grew a beard longer than his,

he lost interest and began bleating again.