I live in feeble attempts to make my life matter,
Every moment my wings beat against broken glass to escape
but i cannot.
Searching for a way to get out to be free to live a life of more than entrapment in a zoo of madness
My life is not lived it is recorded, chewed up, spat out, cooked, served
It's encaged by everything i could've/ should've done
my life is not lived it is not anything but...but, it matters

Of all the places
I have been
This is the strangest
That I've seen

It is called
The mixed up zoo
where the animals
Just will not do
Exactly what they're supposed to do
That's why it's called the mixed up zoo

Imagine lions in a tree
Not where they're supposed to be
A giraffe who is afraid of heigts
And bats who will not fly at night

I saw a goat who did not bleat
And then I saw a wool less sheep
A zebra who was blue and green
The strangest place I've ever been

I saw a duck who did not quack
I even met a talking yak
A turkey who could really fly
A hyena who would  only cry

Geese that croaked like giant frogs
And chickens who would bark like dogs
Elephants with ears so small
You would think they couldn't hear at all

I saw a horse who would not run
In all the day was really fun
Monkeys who could really sing
A snake who bounced just like a spring

It really was a crazy place
I laughed so much I hurt my face
If there is one thing you must do
Come and see the mixed up zoo

Snow leopard lying in the grass
pressed up against the glass
Kids fighting to get past
it's 80 degrees, open air
a look of desperation we share...

I have too much empathy to enjoy the zoo.

A man at my local zoo
Once showed me how snake venom
Effected human blood.
While dripping a drop of the acrid mess with one hand,
He held a small container of life in the other
And with a drop and a swirl of his wrist,
The blood was coagulated
And obviously unable to flow.
In that moment I knew
That love
Was the venom
And I
Was the blood,
Slowly congealing and
Falling at my only purpose:
Staying alive.

A gray hippo lived in the zoo
It was so stressful it turned him blue
The Giraffes laughed at his skin so blue
That only made him bluer times two

Now the Lion was wise but a little slow
That's why he wound up as the star of the show
He and Hippo were playing a game of solitaire
While the Lion played fleas were biting him everywhere
Hippo ate chocolate cake
That the tourist threw over the gate
Wise old Lion said ,
"You better watch your weight
Your getting a little thick in the hip ."

"Humph !" , said Hippo ,
"Why do you think they call us
Hip-po-***-a-mus ."

My father is a lion with his mane cut
                               and slicked back, learning to walk
                   on hind legs, back arched high.

                                          ~

             ­         My mother has a wolf in her chest
             howling for light, for the
                                          lantern hanging in the sky.

                                          ~

                   ­                            My brother has a cage
                                                            ­        for ribs
                                                        but so do I.

                                          ~

I am a wild safari:
             a bathing elephant, a sleeping
                                               tiger, a brilliant peacock fanning its
                                  feathers, waiting to
     **** its head and release
          a warrior cry.