Oh, the songs of old
Pioneered by the youth
Breathe life anew
With their own truths.
And we find might
Still doesn’t make right
So the cycling of light
Continues.
Unbroken
Is the chain.
Sanctioned
Is our pain.
Songs of our foundation
Are lullabies abed…
Earworms in my head…
Songs of old sound red.
Songs of old
Sound red.
Earworms
In our heads….
Who are you?
What are you?
Where are you?
When are you?
Why are you?
And when asked where you find yourself when finding the truth of who and why
(Concerned, as always, with the inside of what–)
How you are dictates whether you begin your search
Or not.
You wouldn’t even be surprised to see
All the strange things that appear to be
Fascinating enough to assassinate… one’s ring.
Oh, you know what I mean!
I work behind the booth, first one to hear, and
I’ve lost count of everytime it’s mumbled or jeered:
“Is that a… [INSERT TOTALLY BENIGN OBJECT HERE]?”
(Yes. It is. The X-Ray was all too clear.)
Somehow their friends always find out, laying in, and
Laughing away at all their fetishized sin.
“What made you think it would make a good fuck?!”
“Well, frankly, it doesn’t normally get stuck.”
Bloodless, keepers?
What did you honestly expect?
You can put a cage around animals
But–and no disrespect–
They aren’t obliged to remain unnatural.
I imagine people who play with their cake
Can appreciate that sentiment at least.
Because what you did was prepare a two-legged feast
For the beasties you like to think you can crate.
And with so much real estate?!
Oooooo.
They found out you got sold stolen land, didn’t they?
They always do.
Boohoo.
Anyway
Before I preach about the ethics of such a breach
(In sanctity, sanctuary, humanity, and otherwise…)
You’d best get wise.
You thought you pulled a fast one.
Donating all this–pretty, endangered bison an’ all–
For a good cause, to a good people; for hope in the great Yellowstone…!
But all I fucking hear is,
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
“buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.”
Passing through the brush
Its aim is not invisibility but mistake.
A flicker of movement, a rush
Then only stalks, grass, and thrush.
Untamed, unnamed, yet mained
Our king watches over the brood.
His savanna wasn’t always so pained.
Once, Acacia was short, less strained.
Then the fangs and long necks came.
King’s camouflage stretched to escape.
Being Acacian meant being named.
To survive, they gave up the claim.
He watches now, for any telling sign.
His ears swivel when the grass sways.
His feet dance with the earthly sighs.
Even the flies aid their clever disguise.
But the king’s herd are never still.
Stillness is the betrayer, their death.
The fanged pounce, seeking a thrill
And lack any mercy tied to their kill.
So, the king and his never hold back.
And watch sunsets on their old trees.
If they cannot hide, they can attack
And their angry braying reminds the fangs of a nightdog’s laugh:
An Acacian
All painted white and black.
“You’re no whisper, trickster,” I spat before I did entreat: “These are tests… Or is this all a sun-blind dream?”
But the shade could not create, could only dare repeat: “Too much so. I will not stay.” She wavered in the heat.
My mind still stuck fast between bare confusion and fear, my body split free and flew toward the call: KpliKpliKpli!
Testsfaithmemories all collided as I drew ever near. Not-Ajand made no sound, but I knew her by her leave.
The red sand met my hand and spilled into my soul. Relief and panic hit me, my heart breaking as if brandished.
She was waiting for me at the top, hand outstretched, cold. She smiled when I tepidly took it, then she simply
vanished.
I took my place among my brothers that day.
I remember that sunrise, it’s truest song.
Just as after I had asked Ajand, “Why won’t you stay?”
I awoke to the dunes of Kpli
and she was gone.
The third test loomed like the crimson horizon swelled. My trepidation solidified like a stone in my person.
Not-Ajand limped as if weak, but founded me a well. Her echo bounced back: “Intense… I think I will worsen.”
I could not tell if the shade really was only a mirror, or if it was whole and used Ajand’s voice like as a record
As we neared Kpli, I vied to know the truth clearer: Could my shame, this shade, and Faith be but a ripcord?
“What would you have of me, Spector?” demanded I. Long suffered, my patience and politeness frayed.
Not-Ajand tilted her head. “Intense… Look me in the eye.” They were old words old Ajand had already made.
I looked in her scarlet eyes anyway
and I saw the truth in those rolling dunes.
A reflection? Yes, but also, in some way…
The red devil animating her could not be rebuked.
In the valley of lovers, I ventured only under starry night. The cacti were my cups, their spines stabbing my palms.
Of my truths, I had not thought, but brooded in dull fright. Kpli deserved my respect; it’s ghosts, my psalms.
The sand clung to my face, scouring me red under-hood. If other travelers were to pass me, would they see me?
Or would they know me as one of their own understood–another shade in the land of shades, drowned in dry sea?
This, my second test, as the land of Kpli still called: My feet and my eyes betrayed me as they settled on a road.
Not-Ajand asked from whence, an echo of recalled: “Why would you ask me that? What are you owed?”
I did not know how to answer her before.
I did not know how to answer her in the wind.
I could only keep trudging ever more…
my heart still as sore as it had been back then.
“Intense,” she said, insisting I was neither good, nor bad. She left soon after, but I never forgot Ajand.
Kpli called me, as it calls us all, and I went glad. Grown apart from child-things, I sought truth in sand.
Coiling together as continent-sized lovers, the red grains waxed and waned as a great wave.
Ajand in the daydream, beckoned as another. Said she, “Intense… Too much so. I will not stay.”
An illusion, it was. Her lines called up as flesh. When the whisper faded, so too did the shade’s shape.
Kpli’s secrets required more than professed. Banishing a shadow of my past would be the first test of faith.
Do you believe those things you read?
I concede your hesitation, your need.
Even I question the strange things I have seen
and, moreover
I question my own sanity…
The Bluejay Nest 