I stab my beak in cactus flesh
My eyes press into spine
Small price to pay to make a nest
To bear the avian line

(”The Song of the Gilded Flicker”)

—

She has a clockwork man
A genius set in stone
Push a button
Hear him sing
Trala-lala lala-lala till he stops
Now her robot's broken
She snapped him in a rage
For he sang
From delight
At other life’s great joys
Cries the girl at nighttime
Cries her eye all day
Breaks him more
To blame him more
But broken he must lie
For a singing man's no clockwork
He's a heart in beaten time
In stopping
Of his voice
Becomes a mere mechanical

—

Rocky soil
The simple grass I grow is unworth labor
The cattle maw chokes the browning blades
Mewling bloody mouths
Eyes grey sagging tears pearling
A dim sullient pool
And, my shins are cut up
Feet hurt

—

Why must sages live in mountain caves?
It is to quiet the memories of the hundred heartbreaks below.
Is to let the tiniest natal light burn every fuel the person can provide.
To seek a friend’s eyes full of will and wit sharp and strong.
Seek a friend within, for the mazes crawl with scapegoats.

—

To a Friend
There are still some times when I see something so beautiful that I wish you could be near to me
A leaf eddy, hidden in a cactus mitt fallen to the ground and skeletal
A stump cradling spiderwebs letting eager shoots break forth to try to be
And I pity us who tangled up in my wife’s jealousy
When the moon rises synchronizing with the setting sun
As if to let us know that ever shines a light
And that within it we spin, and that we all continually spin as one
I must hesitantly venture counter-motion, or else give up the right
For though there may have been more than a fingerprick of feeling within my heart
And bidden by my blood’s boil to increase, my thoughts reddened with the sunrise
Never did my will direct intentions but holiest and most in keeping with our nature’s part
And never once, perhaps but once, did I show myself a victim to your eyes
And yes but once, and so but once, but once I held your gaze
But you, but you then loved me too, a moment reeling in the days