31 July 2016

Poem-A-Day #153 : Dead Bird in the Garden

Am I gothic? I've been accused of being gothic.

I'm going to finish out the month of looking back with a weird poem about gardening that is not about gardening at all. It does feature two obsessions of mine: 1) Birds; and 2) Decay. So there we go.

Starting tomorrow I'm going to take a friend's advice and start a series of poems about wood. Just wood, it sounds boring right? It is going to be AMAZING though, I swear. How much wood can a Michael chuck if a Michael could chuck wood? 30 days worth, if we're lucky.


Dead Bird in the Garden (4/28/05)

The sky is a gray sweep
of clouds making their brushstrokes
a perfectly windy sky -

Here the reel will speed up
as shadows blur on the landscape
if there were sound in this movie
it would be a lone viola -

Dip your fingers in
the rust-mud colored clay
that nothing will grow in
pull the rock from the shell of earth
roll it in your palms
put it back -

The heavy rains have
cracked and broken open
the small mound
the insides glow fiercely -

A small pool of black stares up
it has feathers that fold wet velvet
they are falling away -

Here is a rib poking out
a hip-bone the tip of wing -

A sudden sweep of air
across the breaking soil
the rest falls away -

A radish beneath the skull -

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