Mamma found him in his cage while I was away
At Jordan Ray’s
Talons up, feathers flat

.

Dearest neglect of Joey the bird
Lived in a pink cage,
Grew bright green feathers with a light blue spot on his shoulder.
Sister bought him at a mall cart,
Saved him, it seemed,
But now it’s clear that his fate was condemned
A live heart beat quick in hollow bones

.

From Jordan’s I rushed,
Hurried to confirm the news of my mother’s text:
“Joey died. You need to come home and clean your room”
Warm hearts beat cold in the blaze of August morning

Mamma, I found, she put him in the trash
Like a piece of pie with one bite taken
I found him lain upon heaps of pear peelings
Doomed in line to decompose
Among the **** and waste of the world

I picked him up

Placed him into a small shoe box

“Come on, Joey bird, lay in here”

It’s warm and dry and safe

Joey lay there, patient and dead
I took him in the yard
Out of the room he’d been in
Since sister brought him home

I found him a tree to chirp in, great oak

I placed his box on the grass and dug
Dug
Dug until I went beneath some roots
…
Kept digging
Unearthing pebbles and insect homes
Disheveling years of dirt and order

.

The heat of the day was boiling on my swelling soul
How could mother throw him in the trash?
Was he not alive; a thing? As much a miracle as you or me?
And my sister, his keeper, was not there to witness

Finally joey fit right
Fit just where he needed to be
The base of a great oak tree

Whose roots would **** him in
Like the lump in my heart did
With every scoop of soil
Like the love missed in life that joey died without

.

That was the first day I hated my mother
That was the first time I missed my sister
That was the only life I’ve ever mourned

I should not have blamed only my father, but,
he was the first to introduce me to
raw and stupid hatred.
he was really best at it: anything and everything made him
mad-things of the slightest consequence brought his hatred quickly
to the surface
and I seemed to be the main source of his
irritation.
I did not fear him
but his rages made me ill at heart
for he was most of my world then
and it was a world of horror but I should not have blamed only
my father
for when I left that... home... I found his counterparts
everywhere: my father was only a small part of the
whole, though he was the best at hatred
I was ever to meet.
but others were very good at it too: some of the
foremen, some of the street bums, some of the women
I was to live with,
most of the women, were gifted at
hating-blaming my voice, my actions, my presence
blaming me
for what they, in retrospect, had failed
at.
I was simply the target of their discontent
and in some real sense
they blamed me
for not being able to rouse them
out of a failed past; what they didn't consider was
that I had my troubles too-most of them caused by
simply living with them.

I am a dolt of a man, easily made happy or even
stupidly happy almost without cause
and left alone I am mostly content.

but I've lived so often and so long with this hatred
that
my only freedom, my only peace is when I am away from
them, when I am anywhere else, no matter where-
some fat old waitress bringing me a cup of coffee
is in comparison
like a fresh wild wind blowing.

if I suffer at this
typewriter
think how I'd feel
among the lettuce-
pickers of Salinas?
I think of the men
I've known in
factories
with no way to
get out-
choking while living
choking while laughing
at Bob Hope or Lucille
Ball while
2 or 3 children beat
tennis ***** against
the wall.
some suicides are never
recorded.

some dogs who sleep ay night
must dream of bones
and I remember your bones
in flesh
and best
in that dark green dress
and those high-heeled bright
black shoes,
you always cursed when you drank,
your hair coimng down you
wanted to explode out of
what was holding you:
rotten memories of a
rotten
past, and
you finally got
out
by dying,
leaving me with the
rotten
present;
you've been dead
28 years
yet I remember you
better than any of
the rest;
you were the only one
who understood
the futility of the
arrangement of
life;
all the others were only
displeased with
trivial segments,
carped
nonsensically about
nonsense;
Jane, you were
killed by
knowing too much.
here's a drink
to your bones
that
this dog
still
dreams about.

the ground war began today
at dawn
in a desert land
far from here.
the U.S. ground troops were
largely
made up of
Blacks, Mexicans and poor
whites
most of whom had joined
the military
because it was the only job
they could find.

the ground war began today
at dawn
in a desert land
far from here
and the Blacks, Mexicans
and poor whites
were sent there
to fight and win
as on tv
and on the radio
the fat white rich newscasters
first told us all about
it
and then the fat rich white
analysts
told us
why
again
and again
and again
on almost every
tv and radio station
almost every minute
day and night
because
the Blacks, Mexicans
and poor whites
were sent there
to fight and win
at dawn
in a desert land
far enough away from
here.

I always thought
You’d see the flame
I hold for you
One day.

But now I know
That flames are pale
In the bolder light
Of day.

And colder winds
Will threaten them,
Will pull their course
Awry.

The heat they lend
Is not enough
To warm the heart’s
Cold lie.

Everyone is isolated, if only they
would stop to think about it.
Because regardless of the battles
we fight, the wars we wage or
the love we spread, the love we make,
we walk through our dreams, and our
world with only one voice in our head.

It is not always a pleasant voice, and it does
not always ask of us the things we would
like to believe we are capable of.
Sometimes it will say “run.” when we always
thought we were the type to stand.
Sometimes it will say “yes” when we know
that the occasion calls for no.
Sometimes it will tell us to hate even when
it understands that the intentions were good.

It does not speak in hollow platitudes.
It does not spare feelings.
It does not care that a world exists beyond
the frame it is concealed within.
It is small, weak, self serving, and scared.

My god! Where is the animal confidence?
Here at the top of the food chain of countless
ecosystems, it's secret ambition is to make us think
like prey. Ever watching the ground, the corners the sky
for the predators it knows are coming.

And in the moment, when a plan goes south,
when, looking back at you with boredom glazed eyes,
she says that this was not what she expected, when
you wake from your lonely dreams to an unexpected
noise from a distant room, the clenching of your
bowels screaming terror unimagined.
In the moment when it is right about the
hostile world you inhabit
It doesn't even have the courtesy not to
scream that it told you so.

We are all isolated, with an animal fear
screaming against a civilization it doesn't understand.
We are all lost in a spinning ball of predictable yet
frightening chaos, trying not to listen
to the part of us that wants only our safety.

Cowardice is a word that crawls inside of us.
Digs out a pit in the stomach, and lives there
surrounded in your shame and your guilt
and grows fat.
Because it's easy to listen, to accept
the single minded voice. It is so hard,
so damnably difficult, to aspire toward
a loftier goal, to ignore the voice.
We are all Isolated, if we think about it.