Billy off the Grid

Jean François Millet
‘Shepherdess with her Flock’

I’d be content
I think, maybe
if I put one
of those solar
thingy’s on the roof,
and grow my own
medication
in between the
herbs and gourmet
spuds. I could
collect rain water,
filtered by cheese cloth, milk
a Capricorn goat
and call her Billy
Bold tethered
to a tree on a long
line. I would have
to buy a hammock
and mosquito net
but first I’d have
to settle it all up,
let it go
to the highest bidders, then look
around off the beaten
track for somewhere
remote, outback
with at least a wellspring for summer
when it all dies
and I’m left
looking at the goat,
licking my mutton
chops wishing
for a pork, cracking
open a Veuve. I’d do it
and serve up a concoction of hysteria
only fit for the loony
bin – laden. I would
laugh at the irony
of having nothing
and no one to
complain about, except who I was
before I decided
to go off grid, fate
leading me astray
after yet another
furious outburst of
solipsism; cynicism
better left
with no one
to witness my demise, except for
Billy Bold
in my bed
keeping me awake,
chewing the fat.

Billy Bold – Graham Brazier (Hello Sailor)

© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler & ‘Poetry Out West’. All Rights Reserved

Radiate