Bird Song #2 Passerine birds have perching feet, all songbirds are passerines– I was unsure at first, feeling more a tinamou, penguin, or skua in worst moods, but having lit upon this branch and begun to sing, I would now need a beak to hide this grin, even in flight I am calling, look, look just what the years have taught me after all, three toes forward one toe back–
Everywhere, now, I see reaching– the maple branches under summer’s half -done sun, the sun’s rays themselves, every airy exhalation, the personified breeze, all momentous acts, or acts of momentum– of course this isn’t what Heisenberg meant when he wrote about uncertainty but I could be anywhere, I wouldn’t care, the principle stands– I know where I am going, now, if not just how to get there
What’s in a name– ownership, or creation? When my friends say yours it makes me blush– On my tongue it’s like a river or a question, gently, but heard it is still a shock, que existes! The way they say it, the yours is implicit, but from me the yours is more an entreaty– contestalo pronto, por favor
A night wide open like eyes. The way a pupil seems to fill an iris but is actually a hole. A gate draws open in advance of an arrival. The capacity for delivery. Nothing so sure.
Bird song #1 On land I have the upright stance of an Auk, even at a standstill I am charging with abandon– this new happiness is about as blatant as Puffin during breeding season, ornately beaked, comic, bumbling, but hopefully, endearing.
A tenuous rain, or maybe it’s terse— nuance is giving me grief today. I feel empty, in both the sense of hollow and hungry— and contain enough hard reversals that I am as much a contronym as refrain, or apology— persistently ceasing, sorry I’m not sorry–
A thick wasp waits inside on thick plate glass its painted abdomen still drying while just beyond two hummingbirds get violent over the butterfly bush but I only see beauty now even when there’s danger it heightens it somehow I forgot how much this world is alive so thanks for reminding me and everything else–
Deaf from the show collapsing into sleep you are always in my dreams now felt if unseen like a baseline or reverb or the two words I now hear over and over tú sólo tú sólo tú sólo tú
Another night like drowning– sometimes a tide comes up further than expected and lacking air a body cannot perform voluntary efforts to seek attention– I sink into a drink knowing day will rise again from this watery dark– less phoenix, more albatross, but, any port in storm–
Should I speak of you in hushed tones? When I say your name it is citrus-bright– people I don’t know are happy for me. My heart is a grove, orange blossoms at night– giddy in the dark, small, but how we betray ourselves, always reaching out to close a distance, to fill the air with scented prayer, first to make time speed by, second, to linger in your arms, I’ll gladly share the space, if […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 