And,
in the end,
are we all
not flawed,
careworn,
&
sacred?
— C.Birde, 9/19
Hol(e)y — An Image
Wait — A Poem
Count
the pinholes in
the ceiling
tiles.
Breathe
the static anti-
septic
air.
Patient
or impatient,
the wait remains,
unknowing
contracts and
expands,
while outside
the world turns,
scratches,
taps
at the door.
Every moment
waits upon
another,
eager
to get
in.
— C.Birde, 9/19
Onward — An Image
Around
over
under
through…
But ever,
always
onward.
— C.Birde, 9/19
Confession — An Image
She confessed
her love
to the wide open
sky,
&
the sky
— humbled —
blushed.
— C.Birde, 9/19
Three Seconds — A Poem
Soft blue August, sundered.
Thunder in collision and impact.
Red strikes black strikes white.
Picket gate disintegrates,
yields to entry.
Wood & plastic, metal & glass –
into arc & orbit, cast.
Hundred-year hedge’s roots
from earthen beds wrested.
Eupatorium, liatris, bronze fennel,
tender pink anemone
bend and break and bow
to churning wheels’ authority.
Incongruous scent of mint.
Propelled within the yards’
green grass,
the battered black pick-up
rests, at last –
unexpected ornament;
astounding, idling.
Three seconds.
Split. Smashed. Bisected. Dashed.
The space between breaths,
from start to finish.
Ends and beginnings and ends,
meeting.
OneTwoThree
— C.Birde, 8/19
Percussion — An Image
Castanet
R a T t L e..
Dash
& dart…
Chipmunk
departs,
cheeks full
of
peanuts.
— C.Birde, 8/19
Dissonance — A Poem
Mumps
at seven;
chronic
childhood
ear infections;
concussions,
(three)
ages eleven, twelve,
and eighteen
(vault,
softball,
and fist,
respectively.)
A head that
brightly rings
in ceaseless,
multi-tiered,
soprano chorus
similar to
(utterly
different
than)
the pulsing
insect trill
of fading
August.
— C.Birde, 8/19
Sip — An Image
Those
slender tubes
that no lips
redden,
tempt &
sweeten
the slim,
forked tongues
of visiting
sprites.
— C.Birde, 8/19
Eidolon — A Poem
I knew
you were there
for the air
parted
at my ear,
unzipped at
fifty-three strokes
per second;
for the hum and
echo
of absence
when I turned
to look
and saw only
honey-
suckle.
— C.Birde, 8/19
Haunts — A Dream
The night is longest when it is sleepless,
the mind crowded with haunts and fury
draped in dark shadow and ominous
as the ghosts of futures-yet-to-be
that point bone-white fingers
from dream’s dark corner and
leave one breathless,
tongueless,
voiceless,
hopeless
to cry out at the mounting pressure
and injustice of storms and heat
and glaciers’ retreat and rising tides
and seas blooming plastic
and forests denuded and deprived
of creatures great and small,
and all all all
rewritten and twisted and undone
in service to short-term metrics
that measure life elemental
against gains —
immediate,
concrete —
of dollars and cents
as if a blue-green shiny new earth
might be bought and sold and regrown
by stocks and bonds and war and walls
and oil and coal alone. . .
The night is longest when it is sleepless,
interrupted by dreams of ink-writ
skeletal wraiths that inhale
one’s choked-silent pleas of
“There!
Right there!
Does no one
see?”
— C.Birde, 8/19