POPPY

 

 

That first bullet was finding its mark;

the shot and cry met each other.

Buildings, cars responded.

 

And so the negotiators snapped shut

black briefcases, their voices gone,

and the last flights home leaving.

 

All language then was of blame,

and all the mouths hungry.

All strategy was of limitation;

 

and all further reasoning blasted deaf

by a military staccato

against a bomb back-beat.

 

The swell and unfurling bloom

of that first blood

grew in all our houses

 

on the frontiers of revenge,

on the doorsteps of denial,

and of the indifferent.

 

PIGEON-FANCIER RECORDS: ROBESPIERRE

The beating of a strong heart in his hand.

His other cupped then lifted the body, the feet

for a moment sprung, then relaxed, as he turned it;

the feathers fitting perfectly together, creating

one marvelous creature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His probationary year wished the dullards of that town

forced by law to this, tend and practice with birds,

learn sufferance.  This need to make lives better –

and the expense asking more and more.

 

He watched his birds taken by hawks, dropped on

from a height: necks broke under that relentless yoke.

Many secrets make a man mysterious –

and mystery dangerous.

A prize bird,

to what height can this gale take him?

 

 

Looked down, saw his own birds fly

then another and another flock,

and his own birds lost direction – the dangers

where hawks still lingered, or birds became new masters

learned for themselves, as if in mockery,

a taste for lark, songbird, swan.

 

Were his own birds hawks now?

The angle of sight could make it so.

 

 

His last view: one of them, or two surely,

safely flew beyond that lifted blade?