Dave Bonta's "Desperate" is a short, strange poem that reads like a list of impossible jobs. The speaker announces that it's "time" to draw heads and hands on pigeons, to kill somebody for a fan, or to join in a patent "to improve the night." None of these tasks makes ordinary sense, and that seems to be the point. The title suggests the speaker is running out of options, and the odd proposals sound like the schemes of someone grasping at anything that might break a mood or fill an empty hour.
The tone swings between the playful and the unsettling. Giving pigeons faces is almost childlike, but killing someone for a fan is jarringly dark, and the poem doesn't pause to explain. The closing question, asking someone to help "improve the night," feels oddly tender. Judging by the imagery, the speaker may be restless or lonely, wanting company in dealing with darkness. The mood is eerie, dreamlike and a little funny, with real unease underneath.