The Dark Bird

 

Behold the dark bird,

new as a fresh injury

old as antiquity

spreading its wings 

bespangled with collected eyes.

Millions cheer the dark bird.

empty sockets over their grins

like twin red suns

over a planted scythe.

Behold the dark bird

in all its majesty and power,

its feathers tipped with blades

and blades are most of what it is,

wounding all, even itself.

All hail the dark bird

whose spread tail obscures

the east, its head devouring the rest.

Kneel to the dark bird

and behold in its bones

your own grave.

_______________

Music: Cream Deserted Cities of the Heart by Jack Bruce and poet Peter Brown

Jean Pauline Sartre

I died and found myself on a quiz show.

I had led a wicked life.
I had filled the world with haiku,
and poetry so bad that it split the skulls of my victims with its very vacuity.
They moaned as I was introduced.

My two opponents were as follows:

One, an orphan, with huge eyes and belly on the tiny stalk of his body;
a paper bag with a soul in it,
waiting for a breeze.

The other, a mature woman with her hair done to within an inch of its life;
proper, pious,
a real righteous lady.

Our grinning quizmaster fired out the questions.
How did we die?

The orphan was run over by a jeep full of militia, 
waving bottles of home brew
and firing off automatic weapons at random.

The righteous dame choked on a breath mint,
and fell face first in the mah jong tiles,
so demurely that her friends thought she was only praying to skunk them.

And me?
Critics.

"And now our Final Question!" shrilled the host.
What is life?

The orphan opined that life is deprivation.
As he spoke, he slumped against the righteous dame,
who recoiled and inspected her white tailored jacket for smudges.

Then she proclaimed, from a place of unassailable certainty,
that life is values and personal responsibility.
Then she added that she was glad her tycoon father hadn't died to see this.

When it was my turn, I responded with an Oriental form:

life's tiny flower
has blooms larger than the sun
when viewed from the root.

The orphan sighed.
The righteous dame sniffed.
The host told me to Come On Down and I was made Queen of the Devils.

Now I'm back, walking up and down upon the earth,
seeking the ruin of souls, and best of all,
writing again,
one crime against poetry every day.
__________

for Kerry's existential challenge at Real Toads