Your the one son being rebellious little darlings here comes
the sun drenching delicious but wait those cloudy days
watch out the hunters run ducking our heads like babies
wetting and water squirting beds getting too saucy
  ten O clock playpen the daring duck gourmet sauce
Orange you glad all her rich creme spread across
her penpals
Do you trust those gals too country slick on Newsweek

Getting paid he is the longest laid egg all grilled we are
not thrilled here is the "Chuckie Duckie" doll those *****
barbie collectors they are sitting duck Graphic Artist
Not one quack doll plastic surgeon duck lips she thinks
shes the hot stuff romantic "French" lips up the
"Eiffel Tower" splash splash she is out of cash
Those hot items presidential poll what a lost soul

Too much blue yes attention swan dancers Springtime
Not  the red attention yellow instead ****** please
I need a  journey not the "Attorney" such a ****** case
When you need them they always duck
When they have a new quack case they are ruining
my image
Duck tapesty Carol Kings youve got a friend

I'm feeling yellow homesick on your feather duck pillow
The same yellow tie a different atmosphere Go- Spa
She's flirting do you know where your going how is
life treating you he's giggling way too wild on her
goose chase
  Losing our grip down to her chicken bone hip
Duck season not much time for love being hunted

The Spa  la la ha have Merci' oh la la 'Disco Duck"
The wild ones the only ones quack- quack the
lonely ones
At the waterfront trip to "Chinatown" they let
them hang to dry but why Dad? They are better
like the delicacy shark finn soup we need a Spa
lucky green group Irish eyes are smiling stories
of ducks

I am  not buying do you see duck climb the
          "Eiffel Tower" yellow as a canary
All talk-talk is cheap lets talk French Mom walks
With her pretty duck handle umbrella we waddle
The penquin what a beauty swan feather pen
  But she's the"Prima Donna" look out!

The slingshot Marilyn Monroe wiggles out
                  The "Spa- Ma"
                 Don't  Scramble me darlings
                    Breakfast eggs cagefree
                     *          *          
My little chickadees organic brown on my gown
Spa duckies traveled the whole Atlantic town
The longest pond sleeping like "Rip Van Winkle"
twinkle twinkle
doublecrossed the street you get one dermerit
Sesame street Big bird how many words in duck
vocabulary quack- quack who get's the duck star

Mars from Men women go to the Spa like the bad
omen and they don't leave tap tap chop chop
I want it now!! Its now or never why does she always
get ugly duckling book delivered
Lazy goose she is the spoiled rotten egg how
do we love those  I apples
Carrots are for the eyes Mom always gets bird eyes

My little chickadees the Alaskan cute puppies
Big salute to the cutest duck feet "God Bless America"
  Visa  American Express Daffy Duck in Disney mess
the real picture "Mona Lisa" getting the duck
         Prime  chop minister
"Parliament Spa" prices so sinister
"Eat Duck and Pray" the  southern biscuits
more recruits

My cute rookies those duckier cookies another Spa day
So prim and proper teatime with "Queen deck"
  Alice in rabbit hole-Santa candycane poles cute chick
is homesick you better sent her money quick
The ducky bib the Chinese duck soup won ton
The feather fan she loves her Sushi roll Hollywood
Style California all duck drama
The best treatment duck made carpet

On the "Disney Hollywood" deck "Epcot"
On the futon what diction for a duck "My Fair lady"
Got the whole fortunes bed
The duck on the hill what a fool but the monk
Is the whole spiritual existence
The peacock's longest wait for lobster tails
centerpieces red bird Robin fly Robin Fly

Disco ball fancy tails she ended up up up to the sky
Her duck sunglasses a dozen ***** spin's the disco
The Duck Pop singer wants him back
High price or a short mack duck shooter attack
Food for thought homesick all saucy duck tie waiter
Cinderella rags to ducklings I went to "Woodstock"
Imagine me the teenager chick the duck split

Fill wing concert sky made a hit
The blues love is strange chick-lets are yellow
Like clock work what a duck work out orange          
        Duck handle umbrella               
 Duckies I pledge to you College Preppies
The chick feeder Ain't nothing but a hound dog
      Elvis heart breaker bird-brain feeder

  Moms duck sugar cookies
******* Jack one prize quack quack
 Huckleberry Finn paper boat old billy goat
  In the drowned mans eye holy ducks he delivered
I will blow you down duck horn the day you
were born
Having a third eye one duck Wendy 4 for a 4

Notre Dame church tragic but saved
   The  Easter yellow chicks
To Rome lend me your feathers no secret ears
Sticky Fingers she lost her writing finger in the
pond  OH! look whats beyond so kind
With her duckling apron dress he ducked
The chatty cat "City Dr Seuss"

Wearing duck boots those duck lips played her
like the fancy feast
The teachers pet the ducklings cute darlings
Spa cream she quite the flabber belly dancer
The ballet swan achiever "Spa One Day tripper"
The ugly duckling changed to beauty witch
Holy-land or duck pond Mickey's ears
                   Disneyland

Stand up daffy duck comedian Las Vegas
Godiva Peking duck soup flapping swishing
mess
The Big Ben red whose been sleeping in my
duck wing bed
The car stops he hiccups cute bebops
The guardian angel quack quack any luck
Yummy raspberry pie someone delivered

Christmas Scrooge all tears
New York lights camera I love my
        Serendipity chandeliers
Those duck tear drops last stop
Or you die__your still quacking
       Just in time said I
           Fly Robin Fly

     Saved my baby chick lovely
     Cradled her to love her
          Dr Seuss read

"Worthless waste of space!"
"You thief of my fresh air!"
Useless to the entire world.
Drop dead! No one will care!

Can you feel the hatred baby?
The heated ache inside?
The pulse that beats incessantly?
The disgust I do not hide?

A soul that's non-existent.
No conscience left inside.
If not for jail time, baby,
I'd **** you for my pride!

Imagine an enduring torture,
And the pain that will ensue,
Cause Karma's got a lovely way,
Of catching right up with you.

Summer morning -
pink jets of clouds
splash out
from the golden well of the east
falling just short
of an ebbing moon.

Streams of swallows
flutter and glide
over the garden -
they are all flying
in the same direction
as if erupting

from the sun’s waking pulse.
Just for a moment
one of the birds hangs
perfectly still -
like the top-most drop of water
from a fountain before it turns

to face the glittering pool.
Beneath them all
the hummingbird
makes her rounds
and a dove scratches the earth
below the feeder

keeping an wary eye
on the scribbling intruder.
So many summer mornings -
too many summer mornings
I have wasted
worrying about the world

and my place in it –
absent from my own body
and breath
the cage of my ribs
rising, falling, and pausing
without me. Meanwhile,

another swallow
stills her wings.
Buoyed by an unseen breeze
she is both feathered sail
and cresting wave as she slices
over my shoulder bearing west.


Tom Spencer © 2015

Walking into a party filled with beautiful people
who say the ugliest things.
glancing around the commotion
I start to become sea sick by looking at all the motions
made by guys looking for a freaky chick
the ugly ducklings with sweet personalities don't get the time of day
wading through the egos I make my way over to
the lonely....despondent.....dismayed
like a bottom feeder I move in for my meal
like a catfish at the bottom of a fish tank is how I feel.
usually known as a sure thing
the vulture in me becomes king
circling around my dead prey
swooping down to devour
the corpse injured and still would just lay
talking to her leaving a bitter taste in my mouth,
even a bit sour
one, two , three special iced teas
this ugly duckling instantly becomes a swan
whispering in her ear persuading her to come home with me
laying in bed with her the bottom feeder in me slithers away
as the night turns to dawn

The brain is a pretty rad little doodad. Sitting atop your neck, buzzing with blood and budding thoughts like an apple tree in spring.
I think it's fascinating that we're still quire clueless as to how it really works.
There's one particular part that still fascinates me, namely, memory.

Memories are the cranial equivalent of keeping a diary or writing in a journal. a collection of feelings and happenings of days gone by and words once said.
There are a few journal entries, if you will, that stand out to me. Ones I made with a girl... let's call her B.

If B were here right now, I'd look her in her big brown eyes and ask her:

Do you remember?

Do you remember the divine way the curves of your body fit into mine was we lay in an amorous embrace amongst the blankets and downy pillows?

Do you remember the way I told you a million times that I loved your hair. Your angelic, graceful hair, even though you thought it was too long and too messy?

How we walked through the forest for hours, talking about nothing and nonsense, and how we sat on a log for what seemed like eternity until I manufactured enough courage to finally kiss you?

They say that elephants never forget, and every time you cross my mind I feel my nose getting a little longer and my skin turning a little greyer.

Do you remember? Because I sure as hell do.

Do you remember how adorable you looked in those pajama pants of mine that were about a foot too long for you because you forgot to bring your own?

Do you remember how we sat on a bench and watched the birds flit from feeder to feeder as the sun waved us a crimson farewell?

Do you remember the feeling of your lips upon my lips, and the simple fact that it is impossible to properly describe that in any banal combination of 26 tired characters?

Do you remember the bittersweet intermingling of the smells of my eighty dollar cologne and your forty dollar shampoo?

Do you remember the way we looked into each other’s eyes? The vast universes of possibilities leaping from neuron to neuron behind those irises?

Wonderful memories. Pleasant memories. You couldn’t ask for anything better than these kind of memories. But there’s more. And there’s a reason why they’re just memories.

I remember the way the blood drained from my face like your used bath water circled the drain in my bathtub, and how my heart went on strike and stopped beating when you told me we couldn’t be together.

I remember how similar the crunch of the leaves and twigs under our booted feet sounded to the cracking and shattering of my sanity as you drove away on that sombre day.

I remember all of the dreams my brain pumped out of its pitiful pineal gland in a futile attempt to travel back in time.

I remember the empty spot in my bed and the gaping and gushing hole in my heart that still exists
To
This
Day.

But for all of these melancholy memories, these rotten ruminations, the beast of anger has yet to rear its matted mane.

In fact,

I thank you.

I thank you for this sadness, this regret, this longing, and this acute absence of rage,

For it is proof that I am alive.

I thank you for this sorrow, for this awful ammunition, for inspiration to machine masterpieces from the melancholy.

For what is light without darkness?

What is life without death, and love without loss?

So thank you.

I look back on our shared seconds not with eyes full of misplaced malice and fury,

But with gratitude.

Because even through tragedy

The heart survives.

Did some indulgent, rodent grandparent,
with patience, show the way
to race across the snow and climb the pole
and make the jump and hang there upside down,
and grasp one black shell (while the feeder spins around)
and split and spit the shell to drop below
as he consumes or stores the seed and stares at me?

Or is it not a patient thing at all
but only some strong, urgent force takes hold
and makes the young one bold enough to face
in foolish confidence
whatever risk might lie ahead
in the space between
his greed and quaking fear?

And why do I, on my side the glass,
wonder whether I should be afraid?

Nine years and still
we cradle our grief
carefully close,
like groceries
in paper bags.

Eventually the milk
will make its way
into the refrigerator;
the canned goods
will find their home
on pantry shelves.

Most things find
their proper place.

Eventually the hummingbirds
will ricochet against scorched air,
their delicate beaks stabbing
like needles into the feeder filled
with red nectar on the back porch.

Eventually our child
will make her way
back to us. Perhaps.

But I’ve heard
that shooting
****** feels
like being
buried under
an avalanche
of cotton *****.

For now it’s another
week, another month,
another trip to Safeway.

We drive home and wonder
why it is always snowing.
Behind a curtain of snow,
brake lights pulse, turning
the color of cotton candy,
dissolving into ghosts.

And with each turn,
the groceries shift
in the seat behind us.
From the spot where
our daughter used to sit,
there is a rustling sound—

a murmur of words
crossed off yet another list,
a language we’ve budgeted
for but cannot afford to hear.

The Humming Bird feeder is full to the top.
Do they not come around any more?
The tree is bare of its sheltering leaves
So it’s not out of sight like before.

In this Winter of feeling afraid and alone
The tiniest bird can bring joy
And hope that tomorrow will come as a gift
That we can unwrap like a toy.

The days have drug by at a crippling pace;
People have gone by the wayside.
It seemed like eternity marched on ahead
And life was just one frozen sleigh ride.

As we slowly awake from a desperate sleep
It’s clear we’re not out of the woods,
But at last in front of us there is a path
That will lead us from evil to good.

A light has come on in our government’s home;
The dark specter’s been wafted away.
A promise of better times floats on the breeze
With the chance for a sunnier day.

As I look out the window, my heart skips a beat
The sun glances off glistening wings
I see not one, but two humming birds
At the feeder, and now my heart sings.
   ljm

The human mind is an interesting thing
Mine is very
As it tends to wander
I mean
Explore

I have been told by an authority
My wife
That she's never seen one like it
Although how she can see a mind
I don't know

She has seen a lot in her life
Both with and before me
She was a Travel Agent
She's been to Turkey
I like turkey

I made an interesting stuffing for turkey once
It was during my time in the seafood retail business
In a fish market
It, the stuffing I mean, had shrimp, scallops and crayfish in it
My wife didn't like it much, she's of Irish heritage

She's been to Ireland too
Twice
Once in college and once with her family
Ireland is where Delorian made his cars in the 1980s
Before he was arrested for trafficking in *******

I have not been to Ireland
I have been to France, Belgium and England
I stayed in Waterloo Belgium for two weeks
In the 80's
When I was 25

Waterloo is where Napoleon was finally vanquished
Beaten by an Englishman
They have a monument, the lion, on top of a big hill there
I had to climb it twice
The first time I forgot my camera

I got a new camera recently
A Pentax
I have had several since Waterloo
The camera hasn't been anywhere interesting
Just my back yard

I use it to take pictures of birds
At our feeder
In the big maple tree
On the ground
There is even a turkey that comes in our yard

My wife's been to Turkey
She was a Travel Agent

High Noon at the Bird Feeder

A little dog, a streak of dachshund red,
Across the grass speeds to a squirrel’s doom
She wants its blood, she wants its flesh, she wants it dead;
Ripped, shredded, and torn; it will need no tomb.

The fat old squirrel, a fluff of forest grey,
Is unimpressed by doggie dementia;
To Liesl’s grief he leaps and climbs away -
Never underestimate the Order Rodentia!

Liesl’s squirrel clings to a low-hanging limb
And rattles abuse at the angry pup
Who spins and barks and spins and barks at him
Laughing among the leaves, and climbing higher up.

So Liesl snorts and sneers, and marks the ground;
She accepts not defeat, nor lingers in sorrow;
For Liesl and squirrel it’s their daily round;
They’ll go it again, same time tomorrow.

That climbing ratitude
In nightly interlude
And moral turpitude
Eats all the birdy-food

(I haven’t thought up an appropriate amphimacer [yes, I had to look that up] “ude” rhyme for the destruction of a bird feeder, but if I do it will go here)

Thus shows his gratitude
Oh! What an attitude!
I speak with acritude
Thus ends this platitude





For the true adventures of Billy Possum, see Thornton W. Burgess’ wonderful Mother West Wind stories.

Thanks to L.B. for a correction - Mr. B's possum is Billy, not Johnny.  No wonder Billy sometimes hisses!

Praying on still more
of the man-made nectar,
it's a hooded monk on the wing
and it kneels at the bright
blood-red throne
swaying just shy of heaven,
genuflects several times
while vocalizing its disdain,
sips hurriedly of my offering
and then scuds away without
so much as a blessing save
for the assurance of its
repeated appearances.

--

Blue ****, sparrows and some rather pretty birds indeed
Gathering around their special wooden box of feed
Respectfully waiting for their turns to pick a seed
Then they fly away and I'm thrilled about my good deed

For I'm the supplier - in their eyes the Mighty Lord
I know a few things but mainly where the food is stored
Feeling a little superior is my reward
Though most times they believe I deserve to be ignored

Through the bars a world outside
A prisoner to your own desire
You gave the gaoler lock and key
Gaze upon what he wants you to see
Other birds may sing their song
But not with you your voice has gone
So you put yourself in his cage
The world outside has gone away
You're fed what he seems fit
Not to nurture but to keep
So look outside the garrets bars
See the world for it has gone
Perhaps thats what you should do
Good luck with that he's killing you

I believe that I hold quite the odd point of view
A skewed portrait that depicts economic conspiracy
Religious beliefs are delightfully delirious
To seek inner peace by a supernatural relief
Entertainers and politicians are elite due to masses of followers
Society's slaves to the system hustling for dollars
Only to pay their leaders

On the first day when I lost my mind to the cosmos.
I found myself in the body of a pig. With other happy fat hairy pigs around me.
Being naked felt natural. I did not feel the need to clothe myself.
I layed in the mud all day long, letting it harden on my skin; god did it feel good, like a spa treatment except I didn't need to pay a penny. I would come out of my mud hole during meal time, when food was dumped into the feeder. I did not care what it was, hell, it didn't smell that good, but I ate it all up anyway. It could have been **** for all I know. I was content with this simple life, until the farmer threw a rope around my neck, pulling me into a freaky looking house with sharp objects hanging from the ceiling.
He tied me to a pole, making me feel nice a comfortable, treating me like a family member, only then to shoot me by surprise. To him I was just a big fat sack of meat.

I awoke from my life as a pig and found myself sitting on a couch. I was drenched in sweat, mouth gaping like an open ******* from what I saw.
My friend tried to talk to me, but I did not understand nor know how to speak the language of humans anymore. All I could do was squeal and oink.
I stripped naked, got down on all fours and started rolling around in the garden's soil just outside my house.
I ate the flowers that stemmed out of the soil, as well as the weeds growing around them.
The neighbors reported me for public ******, so I was sent to a mental institute, where I was taught how to speak like a human again and act like one too.

I gained a new perspective that day.
I vowed to all the animals that I would never eat them again,
and begun my journey into only eating plant based foods.

Vegan food makes my poo hard!
It is so good for me!
This is the benefit of living a plant based life.
If only you wanted your poo to be hard too.

On the second day when I lost my mind to the cosmos.
I was a carrot, and I had a family of carrots.
We were all buried underground, we never saw eachother, but we felt eachother, they were all around me.
I didn't need to breathe, I didn't need to move, I just needed to sit there, absorbing the solar rays that shone upon my green leaves protruding from the earth's crust. All I saw was darkness, but all I felt was warmth. I spent a thousand happy years as a carrot, but that changed when the havesters came.
They plucked us from our homes, tore us from our families and siezed the children!
They then proceeded to chop us up into bite sized pieces and boiled us in sizziling hot water, causing our skins to peal. We would then be served to the hungry mouths of the harvester’s wife and children, crying out for mercy, but our pleas were not heard, for they only heard with their ears, not with their feelings, like us carrots.

I awoke and found myself sitting on the couch again. Suddenly I was choking. I put my hands around my neck. I had forgotten how to breathe. Spending a thousand years as a carrot would do that to you, because you don't need to breathe as a carrot. My friend rushed into the room, and showed me how to breathe again, showing me how to **** in and blow out, which I did.
I had also forgotten how to talk, and needed to go to school once again to learn, because apparently talking with feelings is not a language.

I gained a new perspective that day,
I pledged to all my carrot brethern that I would never eat another vegetable again.
From now on I would stave myself so I could return to the earth,
feeding all the plants and animals.
My body is their salvation.

By cutting that carrot you are cutting yourself.
By eating that pig you are eating yourself.
You may not look the same,
but what you all feel is the same.

---

To you this is ******, but to me this is salvation.
In order to survive, I must feed.
The life that is strongest feeds on the weakest to survive, it is how we stay alive.
Nobody says a snake is a murderer when it swallows up a mouse.
Nobody says a venus fly trap is a murderer when it devourers a fly.
So why am I labelled a murderer when I eat meat and plant life?
Life needs to eat life,
It is how we stay alive.
Life needs to eat life,
It is how we survive.

---

I passed through the knot in the infinite line of things. I passed through the biological mapping of the knot, escaping my limitations, becoming limitless.
It was here where I saw myself in the carrot and in the pig. I saw myself in everything, and I saw everything in myself.

hey, I'm
seeing spiders &
shadows & lights again &
there comes a point
in your life when
you realize
it's all this forced speech
about how
the weather is fine &
no one has died
that shouldn't have.

it's like sitting
in an unfamiliar bathtub
til the water goes cold,
knowingly just floating
in frosty clouds of your own filth,
that sick type of epiphany
that we're all just sad little
feeder fishes painted gold
that live to eat **** **** float
get old go blind become senile
then hopefully die
before anything too terrible happens.
happy ends.

unlikely.

high noon &
the horse flies are biting,
for the life of me.
if you find yourself dead
or alive.
they'll pay you for perfect timing.

so smile sunshine
the drain hasn't
swallowed you yet.

no problem no sweat.

Neither predator nor prey,
I lie here while morsels slowly filter down;
Loving every greedy minute, getting fat.

“Dig in the garden with the other omnivores,
and get me some lightening, not too ripe.”

i stumble out the door with my fingers and toes
arcing against the cold metal earth.
i wear rags with Armani scrawls;
barely enough to shield my skin from the chilling heavens.

we chew out the roots of nearby trees,
moist as ***** and tough as tendon.
we gnaw and gnaw but spit out only steel
and breathe in only soot.

shrapnel finds its way beneath my fingernails, and i wince.
it's not a new Pain, but a repeated one we’re told to relish.
“When splintered, push them in and
sing a song about It.” and we do.
though the melodies vary, the lyrics say the same thing:
it Hurts to Hurt ourselves, but not enough to stop.

i sigh and sit;
are we really expected to find this lightening,
or is this just unconscious hunt She wanted to put us on?
whichever way, whichever way,
you’ll be fed at the end of the day, i instinctively hum,
as i resume ripping through petroleum roots.

plants do not require papers that state from where they came

they are caught and pulled by the bite of birds,
        seduced by the between-legs of bees,
            seized on the legs of the wind and animals by thistles and burrs

and the blessed are pollinated by the hummingbird

I do not know where I came from (really?) (really.)

or where nature and nurture intertwine within me, precarious balance from discipline and my genes

I twist bunches of grass between my fingers, feeling the good in a strain

racked on top of white bones, pushing sheets of freckled skin
out, spreading cancerous aluminums under my arms because
an artificial flower smells better during *** than human sweat,

what a pity, we are unable to reveal with the bursts of Walt Whitman (!) in
our own organic mechanism's ability to produce salt. The ultimate flavor.

I grin. Inhaling deeply while alone and unwashed, Whitman would've been into it.
Maybe I can find someone into it too. Someone who'll read me Henry Miller.

But instead I'll wear expensive perfume. I grin, again. Sardonically.

And I've been told I have a beautiful smile.
I should,
that smile cost blood and five grand for something cosmetic and quirky,
train-tracks over teeth, I now stain yellow with obsolete cigarettes.

I wait in the tropical heat, languishing while I bake, a freckle factory
and tan--adrift--awash with memories recalled by the smell of green
and the fearful hum of bees.

Why did I start smoking again?

I look at the red hummingbird feeder, and wish I could trade
          
             standing still as a hummingbird, I lie and say I cannot wait.

she writes of the falling days
- knows them well, one can tell

simple things like string
and wrappings
autumn and swallows -
hollow places she has seen
in boxes and photographs

and so it is -  the falling days
the number of birds at my feeder are fewer
no more humming, no painted buntings
-only my homies come now, my vato birds, my mijas

the cardinal, both red and green
the nuthatch and chickadee, the titmouse-
all three
the wrens and finches, too-

and the blues still like to bathe
in the pyrex baking dish sun warmed
on a sunny day-serenaded by the mocking
one hopping from grub to worm below

- my usual feathered friends
not caring about the weather-fair or foul
and in the pale blue, a gull still laughs
at the folly of it all-

leaving goes slowly-
a spiraling, a gust of wind-
days slowly graying
shorter, lightly fading
- friends, they go

the falling days, change and leavings
leave me - well, you know...

i see the simple things
that soothe, like string
and wrappings, swallows -

- autumn, you know?

r ~ 10/6/14

Sequestration by  other means
A railway line its salient  claim,
running sleepers  into the distance.
Steady  reminders -
a segment of canal
whose older self
ultimately gave birth to snaking hamlets, now mature.
A verdant nature trail coursing the disinterred bank side,
a feeder reservoir now yachting  waters
shaping the geography.

shaping the geography.

Among the swaying elm trees,
are whispers from on high;
The words are slightly garbled,
but their sweetness flows in sighs.

Each lilac touches wayward hearts,
with deepest blue and velvet glow;
The daffodils sprout yellow wings,
reaching out to join the show.

And hummingbirds sip honeyed wine,
from the feeder hanging nearby;
We watch as the finches gather,
shining golden in the clearest sky.

The lawn seems warm and supple,
as breezes blow in forest green;
Inviting us all to lie and view,
this heavenly springtime scene.

But then the sun retreats behind,
a massive wealth of clouds;
Refreshing rain falls in our midst,
cool and soft as seaside's sounds.

Enchantment is with us every day,
its essence stirs yet calms our souls;
As Gods displays His natural wonders,
life-long gifts that will never grow old.

Entertainment comes in many forms
One without Nielson ratings
presents daily shows
below the garage gutter

Weathered leather shoestring
strains under the weight
of unfilled feeder
long exposed to wind
and air until
it's original surface
contains only flecks
of it's original varnish

When filled, squares of suet cakes
fitted between wire grids
entice chickadees
early in the day
before nuthatches, wren
and downy woodpeckers
peck and feed on the
nut, corn and protein
snack.  Bluejays struggle
without success to
hang sideways and gather
specks of nuts from the tallow.

Other large birds, cardinal
and red-bellied woodpecker
show-up the jay as they feed
with ease at the suet rack

Each day suet sinks
slowly descending until
little is found by
winged visitors

Begrudgingly he rises
from his chair, tramps to the
garage to find a new
insert for the feed box.
Hands, weathered like the
pine of the feeder
unpack the next cake
to refresh the lure
as the scenery of wild birds
return to their feeding
and refill his soul

Today the sun stared down around me. The light I saw through wasn't of the yellowish warm kind, or the blue tinted light that speaks of summer coming, nor was it gray like those days that make me long for something else.

Today the light that I looked through was clear like mountain water. I saw the tree for what it is. A tree with hands that reach out to be touched. With leaves the air needs for breathing. A tree for perching.

Today I saw a snow-white butterfly upon a yellow daylili. The butterfly had no markings. The lili stood in the shade of my porch. I remembered that in the fall when butterflies chase each other, it will be time for the fishermen to gather their nets repaired during hot summer months and return to the sea. The white butterfly reminded me.

Today I saw a hummingbird with a ruby necklace darting around my empty feeder. The one hanging out front. I took it down and refilled it with cold sugar-water from my fridge that I keep in an old milk bottle. I refilled the one out back, too.

Today I watched a blue grosbeak splashing in a clear pyrex baking dish that I keep water for the birds in next to my feeders. The grosbeak bathed while a male cardinal watched, spitting sunflower seed hulls onto my wooden deck. A housefinch waited patiently for water and a turn at the mixed-seed feeder.

Today I saw ants crawling on the dried dead body of a wasp. This made me like the ants. They like their wasps dead. So do I. Eat up, guys, I thought.

Today I saw that the breeze had scattered petals from my rose bush across my porch. My dog dozed on the petals. That made me smile.  Reddish pink petals clinging to a black dog when she walked onto the grass. The breeze smelled of roses.

Today I saw clearly what the sun was staring down upon. Things that need watching. Remembering. Today, I saw through a light clearly.

5/25/14

Rise high
Their eyes
Scan the ground,
Spend in toil
If on the soil
A cadaver is found.

Just the other morning I watched a blackbird.
It flitted through the unexpected sunshine,
Drawn, as they are, to the feeder in my garden.
This one, though, overshot its path.
It was flying so fast,
It didn't see the glass.
Death was instantaneous.

This morning I saw death of another kind.
Ethereal, yet just as unexpected.
"Maybe I got complacent, maybe I didn't think."
And the centre of my body is flickering.
I didn't expect to find flaw,
I couldn't have seen the fall.
Death comes slowly

and now it's down to you.

— for the American Mustang



Strung up on one leg, bled dry while alive,
unloaded off trailers crammed full
of the crippled and blind —mares
giving birth on three legs, foals trampled
by stallions, and a wave of fear
hovering over tossing manes
like the sea after Moby **** surfaced
for the first time. Last year,

135,000 horses died —

rounded up in hundreds and sent
off to slaughter like feeder goldfish,
three stops from Canada
or Cabo, displaced from plains
once revered for their livelihood.

In 1969, Vonnegut
wrote, “And so it goes…”

In 2061, our children will ask about the wild
horses who used to live in their backyards
as they catch the last fireflies and bottle
them up in jars, flickering and dying
like tired bulbs giving up on electricity —

2015 sees Henderson, Nevada grasses paying tribute
to power-plant-lines and a suburb built
on Tralfamadore fiction: house-mounds
and picket fences caging domesticated dogs,
curb-lined streets and caution signs, billboard
warnings of humanity’s fixation with progression,
combined like coffee with an overabundance
of half-and-half and too much sugar — only 99 cents
at Dunkin down a little ways, and home
to the dreamers who forget the word freedom.

Sitting closely to the lavender
Who looks to the mackerel sky
Right next to the bird feeder
And has a golden twinkle in its eye
Is the tiny Forget Me Not, bluer than blue
With a tiny black dot.
Sheltering under the striped bamboo
In a cool shady spot.
She knows a thing or two
She comes back here twice a year
Its roots buried with the Yew
Where no gardener can interfere.
When the sun appears
And the clouds soften
After the rain clears
Which is not that often.
The Forget Me Not will remember
When the dark nights fall
It will be watching by the wall.
In early September