Livestock

Posted by Dave Bonta on July 15, 2009 (last modified at 10:32 pm, 7/15/09)

goat tree

Enormous oak
the daylight moon in its branches
a goat at its foot

Valentine cow

Holstein with a heart
in the middle of her forehead
loves the salt lick

horse piss

Horses in the shade
of a weeping willow
a cascade of piss

Filed in Photos, Poems & poem-like things and tagged . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.Print Print

25 Responses to Livestock

  1. Michelle Johnson says:
    July 15, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    There’s elegant haiku and then there’s piss. I couldn’t help laughing. Love the photos too. Good night~

    Reply
  2. Marvin Smith says:
    July 15, 2009 at 11:53 pm

    Enjoyed the haiku and photos.

    Reply
  3. Dana says:
    July 16, 2009 at 2:49 am

    Give a horse some privacy!

    Reply
  4. Kurt says:
    July 16, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Wonderful. But that first one looks like a unicorn to me.

    Reply
    • Dave says:
      July 16, 2009 at 1:56 pm

      Thanks. Excellent point. I think subconsiously I was responding to a certain resemblance to that famous Medieval tapestry of a unicorn.

      Reply
  5. Bluegrass Poet says:
    July 16, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    The goat does seem to be floating. But I would say more Pan than Unicorn.

    Reply
  6. Deb says:
    July 16, 2009 at 1:24 pm

    The post title is wonderfully understated — perfect for the scenes and poetry that follow.

    Reply
  7. marja-leena says:
    July 16, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    Great photos and haiku. I too thought that goat looked magical as if it were floating. Your mention of a tapestry was the Ah-ha moment!

    Reply
  8. Lucy says:
    July 16, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    I thought the goat must be a double exposure type collage thingy. I usually wait till the horses have finished their evacuations before photgraphing them, you make me feel awfully prissy and lacking in creative endeavour, it is glorious the way they stand and put their backs into it, isn’t it?

    Great stuff here, as ever,

    Reply
    • Dave says:
      July 16, 2009 at 3:58 pm

      Thanks, Lucy. No, no double exposures. I did select the dark portions of the shot and lighten them so the tree bark would be visible, and this made the goat a more uniform shade of white. The resulting otherworldly impression appealed to me, and I decided to build on it with a couple other effects, although I figured that would make it look like a bit like a collage.

      Reply
  9. Dick says:
    July 17, 2009 at 4:30 am

    Great pairings, all, but I’m particularly impressed by any verse (and versifier) that can make piss lyrical.

    Reply
  10. tammy says:
    July 18, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    I really liked the first picture — it stunned me the first time I saw it.

    Reply
  11. The year in trees | Via Negativa says:
    January 4, 2010 at 9:42 pm

    [...] more visible, but this didn’t make the goat look any less otherworldly. Commenters on “Livestock,” the post in which it appeared, likened it to Pan or a [...]

    Reply

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