Give the horses sugar cubes.
Give the eagle a salmon.
Give the monkey a ripe banana.
Give the donkey a carrot.
No one knows what any of this means.
Trust me, I don’t either.
You can say that these lines are deep,
you can say that these lines are shallow.
I assure you that they’re neither.  
I’m writing to understand the roar in my skull,
to quell the torrent that whips my brain.
I’m writing these words outside of myself;
if I don’t make time to write them down,
they drive me insane.
Into this notebook the ink must flow,
like blood coursing through my veins.

Without paper,
ink, and pen,
surely I’d be wracked with pain.  

I write them down onto this pulp,
I read them from this page.
For I, myself, am a Thunderbird,
I offer my life onstage.  

It is this art inside myself
that I must give away.
To everyone and nobody at all,
I give myself away.
I give everything I have
and am,
to being a storyteller,
a poet,
a husband,
a parent,
a good man,
a friend,  
or just me…

Jay

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2020