words toward Darren C. Demaree’s ‘in defense of the goat that continues to wander towards the certain doom of the cliff’

In Defense Of The Goat That Continues To Wander Towards The Certain Doom Of The Cliff
poems, Darren. C. Demaree
April Gloaming, 2024

I was a pastoral infant. What a ridiculous opening. I only say that because I live in an Ohio where meaning came before utterance. I always thought deer were just lost horses. I was right. I only start this response and or AND reflection this way because of where I am and because of how Darren C. Demaree’s cries and silences of hope, confusion, guilt, and unknowing intelligences, versed as they are in the work In Defense Of The Goat That Continues To Wander Towards The Certain Doom Of The Cliff, have left me where I am which means they’ve left me seen in a place I don’t know how to get to. There is a gasp here that does not mean awe and a prayer here that does not mean worship. Gentleness is all seed, and dreaming a holy unthinking. I say horse. More often, I say deer. And now, this goat, this thing that is what it is, that is not creature any more than animal, not animal any more than beast, not human any less than god, wants me to say anything but goat. This is a fucking lovely book but even more it is a mirror subconsciously trolling beauty for the ugliness of its restraint. It has a music to it that knows song comes first. Demaree’s writing is a writing you miss in the reading. Doom is doomed. Art is a pause in the nil of pause. I’ve been reading Demaree for awhile now, and this work makes my reading feel brief. And human. And ongoing. Saying goat doesn’t still the goat. Said goat is already still. It breathes in the suddenness and in the longevity of our nostalgic selflessness. The end is near the end, and stops at the unsame time.

~

reflection by Barton Smock