Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

****** universal ****, as if the sun
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

Fat!  Fat!  Fat!  Fat!  I am the personal.
Your world is you.  I am my world.

You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.

In spring
the birds converged upon a tree,
filling, brimming, bustling,
with tiny jaunty jovial bodies, and
wings, legs, beaks, and eyes
all peered onto
the world from skies
so high, so high
the giant tree, that blocked the sun and
forged the wind and
forged the rain and
forged the clouds and
forged the shade and
forged the dirt and
forged the grass and
forged the snow and
they amassed,
branch by branch,
limb by limb,
stick by stick,
twig by twig.

Pygmy bantams
leapt, hopped, skipped, popped,
grew
in volume enormously
until the tree, being just a tree,
only a tree,
could only hold
so much and
when they amassed
branch by branch,
limb by limb,
stick by stick,
twig by twig,
it happened to crack
break, dissolve, fall, and die
into hard ground
under weight of flightless
little bodies.

Wood Pigeons make perfect sense,
when they scatter through my hair,
sometimes the image is wavered,
but there's a certain glow of pride
that enfolds within this short life.
For my best laid plans
I'll re-thatch my roof,
to shelter my bantams
lulled into the truism
of the gilded cage.