100 Year Flood
A barn owl teases the bright dark,
and you are unmanageable.
The people of the area have a
standby way to talk about it,
a right to ferment content
that’s forever pushing guidelines
on how to guillotine the poor.
Buildings unhinged and running,
mud trickling through synaptic bricks.
Not sure what we can say
except repeating the obvious,
and for that some aren’t ungrateful
for an interruption. Disaster brings
lemon pepper frogs and antsy canines,
plenty of puffy men eager to drape
their hero’s pose tendons.
I feel satiated by their confidence
or at least, its familiar performance,
an elderly woman told a volunteer
fireman she was too old to care.
What happens when you
struggle for generations
and a storm ejects what you’re
still struggling for? In the end
infrastructure owned her,
as shelter remains temporary
yet seductive. She refused to patch
her excitement while she reported
on the damage. Decades of keeping
house, children, and working shit jobs
had unsettled her more than a
flood ever could.
Ø Ø Ø Ø
Freedom on Earth Ain’t Enough For Me
Two male cardinals fight
over trees for territory,
ancient story orbiting
into supernova.
“Fe-males” nowhere to
be seen, particles of a
solar system delayed,
cheer-cheer to yearlings
a new one, make a
new one, a new one
Build us a starship
before it’s too late.
In the meantime we
battle our imaginations
watch birds & Star Trek
our future looks so easy,
you get into a crisp
shuttle and off you go,
away from pretty avians
who think they own you,
fly my roots elsewhere
or nowhere
however we please.