It was a chip. A simple french-fry
spread in ketchup and mayonnaise,
revealing itself on a traffic-island
opposite the dry-cleaners. Wings pulled -
lowering to ground, it assessed
a simple strip of potato.
I have never liked gulls. Wing-span
the length of seizing arms;
looping the circumference of my
scalp. It would take what it wanted:
a chip; my mind. Poker-face -
it circled for death.
Be cruel to me,
I'll make my heart kind.
Make me fall again,
I'll get up to rise.
Take away my freedom,
I'll free my soul.
Set the evil traps,
I'll make myself bold.
Cut my wings,
I'll fly on my visions.
You think you're killing a bird
But I'm a raging Dragon
I was a boy when I first climbed the Oak,
Whose branches were so vast
They seemed to stretch out for hundreds
Of feet in all directions
Whose limbs reached and searched,
Groping for the touch of the other trees
Even though the other trees shrank away from it's majestic size
There was a barrier that I wanted to tear down
So that I might see why the other trees
Would want to withhold their leaves from the Oak
And as I struggled to climb,
Scraping my shins and tearing away the skin
From the tips of my fingers
I also found that I could dissolve my self-doubt
I reached the top at sunset
And I discovered not God
Birds fly south across the barnyard:
an omen. pig thinks & wishes
he had a shotgun. Birds
flying in all directions
and everywhere. Ugh, says Pig--
so many ladders, black cats, strange smells, there
are omens and dreams . black wings and tusks
O when
and will the birds come down.
they will
from everywhere. and do
build a nest in the dead pig/s nostrils.
When I read them I'm obliged to project myself
the original author's thrill writing and
the expanse: trees, sky, tremendous dogs fighting:
for me this is to read. There exists no best
translation, however one admires the vain effort
none makes to make it all the same, somehow authentic if not
perfect (meanwhile sickening of the original!).
Oh yucky repetitious pretensions of mind! move outside,
out of sight! get your jaws wide! eat
Mother Nature! Know the ways of the city drag.
Contemplate a while cigarettes and boiling coffee.
Dig cold air! Shut down contraptions (like radio)
and ramble determinedly about — out! Time comes
your guilt will crack, eyes see nameless birds,
it's when reading them, I just have to imagine
the excited writing of the one author
and its openness (streams, thickets, wrestling dogs) -
that's reading - there is no right translation,
just absurd efforts to make it the same in main
respects - oh noble boring iconoclast! get
to the country, open mouthed, chew on miles of hay!
don't you know as long as you're among these
people of cities you'll smoke and burn coffee?
the air is cold! we hate radio. turn it off
and march outside at your leisure, sooner or later
you'll break that guilt, look at rooks and starlings,
stop trying to crease the grass so much in your fingers,
they are not machines! just eat, open your mouth, eat!
under falling water
lies a bird
with a broken wing.
near a lake
that is blue
from a sky
that is blue.
on a green bed
it flops
& seeks the source
of the rain;
into the rain
it flops
seeking the source.
other birds
pay no attention
wall of remote
heights & bends
of listless fields
turn savagely
to the river
where the trees
snap in the snow
a bird watches
the frozen mice
deer
i am sick
of talking about
vietnam
these bridges:
stringent iron
under which
i lie long mornings
and sample the bird roosting in my tangle
called hair
left there by hands
to confuse my awaking
i am reminded of your pillow and the smell
it caught from you
After long delay I have entered
the room of the starving birds.
I bought a machine selling squirrels
and placed it in my room with
pigeons on porches
(their gentle, multicolored wings!),
little birds in cages asking to be fed,
a great black raven, and,
beyond my sight, another
Larger bird.
Then I chanced them;
journeyed, left the room,
but I worried,
and soon I came back to feed them.
A sense of urgency has driven me
to take my plate of omelet upstairs.
Dawn spills out of
slate sky. But It's a dawn of moldy words, old
fingers: colors of knives and concrete.
My skin waits
for an orangejuice sun, to be struck alive by
different weather.
Still the room drowns. He said, Baby you'd better
choose now.
Beating, beating. Under the mountain of grey
sheets, no answer.
Verbs of dust
hurt my eye. But I don't see how to
go with him.
Or how to stay in these walls I can't live in
where everything
falls with the frostbrown apples, where an
Screeching NYC
macaws
clothesline to oblivion
Move to Hollywood
get up in the morning
jump into your overalls
chop down your own fruit trees