Member Poem

I hear trapped flutterings all night.

The sound of fear and inconsequential life 

and hopeless thrashing.

No lift off, or soaring, or free falling rush.

Just crumpled wings and heaving breast pressed into spaces.

Last week, I remember their children taunting in a southern drawl, "Sing pretty! Talk pretty! Hey, sing pretty for me!".

pretty pretty pretty bird

 

During the day, I imagine a different struggle.

Manic preening and removing new-capped growth (some residue of hope?).

Pointless, yet constant. 

Of missing missing missing 

Hollow tubes for flight 

useless 

against 

What used to be a cuttle bone now

monolithicly skeletal in its jutting from crap piles 

patiently quietly mocking us, in a language of 

empty, blazing-white promises.

Next to the smeary sticker,

fallen, it once resembled a mirror.

A second toy bent from its cheap chain long ago. No distractions now. No demands

other than the oppressive sound of 

emptiness 

and the remembrance of others' 

many needs.

 

The cacophony of terrified sound wakes my entire house; my would-be children get no rest.

 

I shake my head in disbelief. Those neighbors!

The smell hovering upwards to suffocate us all.

And gold turned tarnished black green

like the newspaper piled excrement.

Growing

mountains of watery birdshit. 

Growing 

ever upwards.

Panicked, you attempt to create your own Zion. 

Panic-stricken we begin to climb.