I’m afraid and I’m depressed
As if hiding in a bunker after forsaking my friends
I frankly envy your stalwart guardianship

For you were there again today little phoebe
And well might you protest that you are not the same
That I encountered years ago in this my own backyard

But the glower I beheld this passing morning
Was witnessed in ancient days by mineowner and janitor
The same you fixed upon locomotive and data center

Back then I was hanging laundry on the line innocuous task
After seething in chemicals in the electromechanical machine
The cottons and the polyesters with their sweat dirt and dung

Feeling rather superior for declining to employ
The tumble dryer which still stood ready for rainy days
And enjoying the suburban breeze and sun and scents

And you flew full into my face
Beating your wings ferociously as if to claw my eyes
Luckily defended behind my spectacles

And for days thereafter you scowlingly perched
Upon side mirror fencepost and patio furniture
And the selfsame plastic chair as this morning

And this morning you also perched on one bamboo log
Cut to regulation size and protruding like its brethren
From the garbage can lacking one of its handles

For I had sallied forth armed with reciprocating saw
And machete and big paper bags from The Home Depot
And Levis and Toyota adjustable cap and T from a volunteer event

To do battle against the patch of bamboo
Which in its subterfuge sends rhizomes afar
And cull the standing dead

And like a seaman I heavehoed a great vine of wisteria
As if hoisting the sail on a voyage to new land
New to me and my governors

Wisteria like bamboo a hardy exotic
Irrepressible having been imported as decoration
Flowers clustered like grapes but empty and dry

And as I coiled the line I saw you
And I knew that like a colonial adventurer
I had disturbed your home

And I reached for a bag resting on the chair
Beneath your unwavering gaze and you gave no ground
Until my hand was close enough to touch you

And you flew away returning to the bamboo and invisibility
But when I looked up there you were again
Having resumed your post on the barrel and the logs

And bourgeois life is an iron cage
Not alone for fat beneficiaries like me
But for all who drudge in meek obeisance

For we have dulled our human brains so versatile and strong
And cloyed with sugar salt and fat
And sports and trends and media media media media media

The puppet shows
The puppet armies
The puppet regimes

Six kilos of salty snacks
That’s a bad start to your summer
Synthetic blend chafes and burns
And traps the sweat
A package of beers in various styles
While washing the aphids’ ooze
From roof and hood and trunk lid
The image of an animal
Generated by machine
A grinning emblem
That issues an invitation
Forcing the decision to accept or decline
A two-stroke engine announces the time
To wake and face the day
That’s a pretty low bar
In the kingdom of noise and faulty connections
I’m not accusing anybody
Just crying out in desperation
Maybe you think that’s something
A person should not do
The empties skitter toward the exit

The old horseman drops his lance
Undone by the garish displays
Of passionate intensity

The banners pennants shibboleths prayers and invocations
The bellowing orators
The audiences chanting their adoration

Partisan without portfolio
Withholding participation
In the drawing up of lines

Falls perforce willy-nilly
On the side where he’s been all along
Slack with melancholia

Ashamed of his impotence
Too sad to be powerful
Too weak to be gay

Why beloved don’t you find me
As fascinating as I find myself

I saw my father in the house of the dead
Who grieved for the loss of the living world

Overcoming my demurrals
Marian drove me to the hospital
Where the first doctor we saw said
If you had waited you’d be dead
And I thought for the first time ever
It’s not so bad the thought of death
Ignoring for the moment that they would grieve
Those I love
I’d had my three score and ten
And Socrates was right it seemed
Who knows but that being dead is not so bad
And maybe better than grubby life
But still I cannot bear the thought
Literally can’t lift it
That a child anywhere should die
And though my parents predeceased me long ago
I still grieve for them as they would me their child

Some neighbors paid to have their home improved
And a sign sprang up in the yard near the curb
The image of a window with sparkling eyes
And a smile that spanned a couple of panes
An arm raised in friendly greeting
Up the road jocular Royal Flush
Displays its mascot a toilet
Also smiling expansively
Who wears gloves and ballcap
Who wields a plunger and drives a backhoe
And then there’s Bib the Man of Tires
What was his childhood like
Who were his parents
Sprung fully armed
From the brow of that corporate committee
Charged with putting faces to brands
Visages begotten not made
Mulciber Moloch or Beelzebub
Who gain identity only upon their fall
Or oppositely Rumplestiltskin supernatural foe
Who disappointed stamps himself to nothing
At least HAL 9000 learned to sing at school
And my walk takes me past another neighbor
Garbed like me with sunglasses and ballcap
Presumably like me seeking
The salutary payoff of a morning constitutional
Returns not my salutation

Or the issuance of command
However innocuously intended

Or sumptuary display concomitant
With the demand for sacrifice

There in the middle of the road or street
Or what do you call it
Neither a country road nor a city street
The blacktop above the cul-de-sac
A fledgling lorn and stoical
In the morning sun before the sun
Had really begun to pound its anvil
I say fledgling it had feathers
But it could not fly
Else it would have flown
From its death on the scorching pavement
It bore the mottled fluff of a chick
But pinions fully formed
But tail feathers none at all
And on its wings I saw the white band
Like unto that on the wings of certain songbirds
Seen only when they take flight
Cherished for their improvisations
And I addressed the little displaced person
Are you a mockingbird
And Let’s at least get you out of the sun
For I believed then as I still believe
That the parents lacked the means
To return their child to the nest
And I cupped my hands on either side
And it peeped in alarm like any chick
Eluded my grasp however tender and ran up the gutter
Into the nearest lawn wet with dew
But still in the light of the sun
Though there was shade on every hand
And so I considered a second attempt
To give the little victim
A more comfortable death
Though sun is probably quicker than inanition
Come to think of it
To say nothing of predation
From crow raptor or fiery ants
Themselves concerned for self and progeny
When a pair of mockingbirds
From the utility line above
Buzzed me like biplanes
At the Arab encampment
In Lawrence of Arabia
And so I high-tailed it
I’ve been attacked by birds before
While hanging laundry on the line
Nonconformist ecologically superior
That salubrious stretching activity
Of fresh air and viper thoughts
For that task itself requires a little thought
But not enough to keep the mind
From drifting into grievance
There to rehearse devastating rejoinders
To put in their place those who have done one wrong
But a walk in the suburb
Before the sun beats with his fury
Requires virtually no thought at all
Of a more sapient homo erectus
The rolling gait of one overweight
Establishing the rhythmic sway
Conducive to consideration
Of the next poem or song or lecture deep
And while I hung the jeans and brassieres
A phoebe as I later learned its common name to be
Beat its wings against my face
Though mercifully reserved its claws
And when I returned to fetch the laundry now dry
Perched gloweringly on the lawn furniture
And for days took up various posts
On fence branch or side mirror
So now the avian cadre
Redoubled its attack
Upon one who means well but
And I don’t know what comes after the but
Instinct I guess
The same that makes us primates so sociable
Worry so relentlessly about how we’re coming off
And when I had completed my circuitous route
I saw no fledgling on lawn or street
And a single mockingbird
Mounted from one utility line
To slightly higher one

I have more codes to decipher
Than if I were a thousand years old
Not the matrix of the ninth century
The numquam reformata
Liturgical canonical faithful or preceptial
More the perplexity of domestic life
Appraising the velocity and spatial intervals
Of vehicles athwart the entrance ramp
Anticipating social reactions
To naive utterances
And shameful potentials

Nature acts spontaneously
To carry out protocols of motion and connection
At the cosmic ecological atomic and subatomic levels
But the levels are just taxonomy
While the sapient ones
Accomplish in their world of artifice
Real but parasitic of the really real
That second nature which they imagine
Cordoned from the first
Protocols of compliance
Protocols of debasement

Goldfinch pair depart like cicada
Chased by mockingbird in erratic course

Only when the debt comes due
Wake then to the banality of that famous bargain
Lastly with the blunt expenditure
But first
In the disillusion of attainment

Don’t move a muscle not even internal
Certainly not the complicated mechanism
Of the vocal apparatus from diaphragm
To tip of tickling tongue and shirking shank
Not if you know what’s good for you

The chief of state decreed long ago of society
There’s no such thing so what’s left
Politics
The press gang dropped a shilling in your pint
F’get about

Nah nah don’t speak to me of perfection
Perfection’s not a thing
The Ode to a Nightingale isn’t perfect
If it were it would be a total failure
Instead of the glorious triumph that it is
These faults that anyone can find
These Homer Nods
Invite our appreciation
Not our censure
Necessary for the new stage
In the new theater
On the terrible new riverbank
That is every poem

What would you
Autocorrect the seizure that announces the shaman’s enlightenment
Subtract from the burden that each one bears alone
Before the multitudinous sea of people and other things
Making the red one green
Autotune the cry of mourning for unappeasable loss
Edit the song of the mockingbird

But what about striving aspiration lust ambition
Leonardo’s ornithopter
Earhart’s media-driven quest
One small step for man
Don’t we have a duty to uplift
Sure we have duties
But what kind of uplift do you mean
The moral or the mood
Support for insensible passion
Command for affirmation
But affirmation of what

Good must be good enough
When everybody tries
Must try to cobble a platform
Not to be seen but to see
To gaze across the whole miserable affair
The stilts are too flimsy
And the edifices already extant
Rising on every hand
Conceal more than they expose
The foul rags and bones in the charnel house
Turn from your autoanatomizing
And seek the holy wicked involuted world

No matter how far back you look
You always find modernity
The old magnolia
The brutal flowers
The glossy leaves

So many undone
Their substance rendered
To the bitter dross

Take your position
Beside the river

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyisyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyeysyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeys
yesyesyesyyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyeseyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesesyesyesyesyesyesye
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
Yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesysyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesysyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesy

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeys
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyisyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyeysyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeys
yesyesyesyyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyeseyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesesyesyesyesyesyesye
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyeesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
Yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesysyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesysyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesy

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeys
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyisyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyeysyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeys
yesyesyesyyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyeseyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesesyesyesyesyesyesye
yesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yeysyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
Yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyeysyesyesysyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesysyesyeysyesyes
yesyesyesyesyesyesys

A patch of blue amid the boughs
Of the great white oak double-boled
One stem greater than the other
And the roots they say extend just as far
As the limbs now so lush with foliage
That the sky arrives only in glimpses
And sometimes the ground becomes so sodden
That a tree topples in the gust
And the web of roots rises sadly exposed
And yet you can see the many places
Where the strands have broken
The smaller branchings perhaps still active
Collecting nutrients dissolved in water

And we have established those processes
By measurement and inference
And yet we imagine their participants
The dipole of water
The radical of phosphate or nitrate
And a genetic analysis might reveal
The separate identities of those twin trunks
But why speak of separation
For the infinite communication underground
Or for that matter in the canopy of leaves

Must I always make disclaimer
About the meaning of we
Humans a species like any other
And like every species unique
Who justly esteem our neurological prowess
But the botanists tell us how oaks reveal
In their merry promiscuity
Ambiguating the white say and the red
To say nothing of their root hairs and stomata
The clumsiness of our taxonomies
Of our distinctions even unto the living and the dead
Those things that live
And those descended to dreadful death

And hence we know the significance of shit
Or something of that significance
Proximate source of those very nutrients
Through the ministry of molds and bacteria
The mechanical industry of boring invertebrates
That return the tree to the soil
And deliver the fruit of the soil to the tree
And hence we should esteem
Those things to which we are most averse

As the child chants long pent
In school room living room or bedroom
That the rain should go away
Making the obligatory disclaimer
That it should return
In some suppositious future
So we imagine
So we delight to imagine
The magical efficacy of words and songs

And we mythologize our aversions and delights
When the scarab raises the unconquered sun
Or when Mad Dog Tannen
Gets a mouthful of road apples
Fit punishment we delight to suppose
For his cruelty a fall of man
Fruit of the tree of knowledge
Whence the sweat of our brows

And as for the pains of childbirth
They derive at least in part
From those big heads with that impressive neurology
So maybe hominids with their big heads have it worse
Than horses or other matronly mammals
For after our labor the real labor starts
For we are not as foals who stand within minutes
More like grubs
Who must creep and crawl and swink and strive

And thus do we impose upon the child
The burdens of orthodoxy
How the rain must fall to engender the flower
How we must flush away the fruit of our bowels
And with every step the child esteems its knowing
And asks for more and why
And where does the poopoo go
And we delight to explain
That the water carries it to a place
Where bacteria perform their silent ministry
That the water cleansed might return to its source

But we conceal for a time the further fact
That our brilliant technology
Exploiting creatures great and small
Leaves behind a sludge
That we don’t know what to do with
And for the moment we must accept
Those things to which we are most averse
And take delight in a patch of blue
While the clouds gather
Threatening they say
Another interval of rain

What that
Where there
When then
Why thy

I loiter in anger’s vestibule
I’m sorry I say out loud
I made a commitment a long time ago
I still think it was the right decision
And you know I’m a stickler for revision
And not because I’m committed to commitment
The great commission
The sign with letters upside down and right side up
So that the arrow can point to left or right
Wagers of sin I thought it said
Funny how you can live your whole life
Without realizing
That you’ve been a letter off the whole time
One letter too much
But I haven’t lived my whole life yet
Maybe just the troubled part I keep hoping
All those troubled memories
All those looping passageways
That get you nowhere

The skeletal remains of yesteryear’s leaf
Fairy wings that engender the flower

Three buzzards gracefully glide
In neither circles exactly nor gyres
And for long minutes never beat a wing

Mockingbird perched on utility line
Spreads wings silhouetted against the east
And flourishes the prey

You don’t need a sword
To cut and kill civilization
It only requires a connected device

And an age that prefers
Passion to truth
Affiliation to family

Our interpersonal problems we can resolve
With a little understanding
But woe the assault

That rides not in
Onboard ship or chariot grim
The ever-burgeoning abstract machine

That accumulates so gradually
Assembling out of sight
Under our beds

The impersonal system
Vast invisible
That gathers and pervades

And the harmful habit for hierarchy
Necessary perhaps to nurse the young
But gross dependency in free adults

And images arise on our screens
And we listen to the windbags depicted there
And put each other down

And we ourselves commit acts of violence
Turning weapons inward and out
Just following orders

The discontent of those
Who choose compliance
Over courtesy which requires thought

An old rock band played the blues
And Billy Preston added
A perfect organ solo

Vers tat menilci courp meam
Fur it ribe mosely sup ramane
Virc ceal mimo paca velor
Cendrebruk dicpass gats dom get
Prec grend ap feelie
Nie nie dunart
Cib metz mala kwercruz cedoc
Medias mnymono
Glice crodomo
Othas cod monaigremo
Falredel orpes creym meldes su selbt
Mak wird wrom ccressm
Daasol lalute
Crysoleblime