My absent minded eye,
turned inwards on issues
of land and place,
did not at first see your dilemma

As the bully bird towered over
you hopped in looping rolls to flee

My eye caught up
and my fat presence unnerved the bird
who flew
and though I presented a different challenge
you bounded hedgeway
pausing in front of me momentarily

Our eyes met,
your black polished buttons
spelled your youth
and redundantly I greeted you

I stepped aside
to better let you escape
to tangle green safety
and I was alone again,
grasping at thoughts

The rest of my walk was elevated:
a wind struck tree,
dry guts splintered,
said something

A lithe muntjac
rose panic in me as it sought to pass,
it’s leaping form unusual,
but there and gone
before I knew

Green woodpecker laughed
at an unknown gag
and my brow furrowed

Toward the end
the complicated wren song,
a grammar babble way beyond,
underscored my lack of comprehension
all the way home

I shot the breeze today
with crickets, beetles,
spiders and caterpillars,
we held a moot.

Each representative, a voice:
words in the clamour
to be heard

In these lands of
many common grasses,
breeze told anecdotes,
arachnid needs
and insect calls for attention
often get ignored

Stopping to sit,
look through clutches of eyes,
sing with rattled wings
and chew cud,
can help retune the din
to be cleanly heard

I get that beef fat and butter
in this day and age are a sin
and contribute to the decline
of myself and this earth

But, my lords and ladies,
I am weak
and beholden to the
grease shined smile
on stuffed chops
as my euphemistic dad ***
becomes ever more so,
ballooning to a middle age where
there be dragons

I plead mercy,
and perhaps some ice cream

TikTok comps
Russian bots
Makeup tutorials
"I'm not like other girls"

Trolls and incels
BuzzFeed articles
Gay fan fiction
Many a pun

Demonetization
Censorship
People hiring hitmen
Buy some hair clips

Twitter ramblings
Anti-vaxxers
Flat earthers
And a partridge in a pear tree

There are those
who have been blessed
with a high education
Schooled in the arts
of the finest prose

Perhaps wisdom's not found
in a storehouse of knowledge
But begins with awareness
of what one does not know

A mirror the size of the sky reveals
That I need to change
Though i was made in the image of my God
I was also made in the image of dirt
And molded by the red clay beneath it
And it stained all my clothes
And It stained in the curves of my brain
And through my fingertips
They bleed red
Cause I am *****
I could pray away the red
But it appears on my knees as I kneel
And I know what is real
But i can't hear the voice
And giving every inch of me
Of something I can't see
Is harder than giving every inch of me
To something that's bad for me