Sign of the Red Pelican


I must  respond to some aspect of today’s prompt so I can say I faithfully discharged my lyrical duty.

Our resource today is Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, where you can find
smug ceramic pelican, a samurai’s ceremonial suit of armor,
and a photograph of the French impressionist painter Camille Pissarro
dressed as a Venezuelan herdsman.

Must we dwell on French impressionist painters dressed as a Venezuelan herdsmen to get in a poetic mood for this, this PELICAN??  This feathered postmodern freak, this strutting usurper, this oppressor of . . . FISH ?

Stylized fowl, this avian emissary, this BEAST;
does it consume, offer, or regurgitate
the pathetic little fish ?

Hieroglyph of hell—
Perfect poetic cipher:
smug ceramic pelican
(someone else’s words)

Yet, despite well-feathered conceit,
a fragile bird . . .
Easily shattered; nothing to say.
Nothing in its oversized beak
but one small fish.

This clumsy waddler
thinks itself a swan
or an eagle;
thinks it has something to tell us—

But in the end, this waterfowl,
Modernism,
only vomits a sad little fish
named Poetry.

 

 

 

Two for Maine

Poultry in Motion

The dawn is nigh at hand. The clouds
begin to lift above the grange.
Arise, O Phoebus, bless the crowds –
let poultry roam the range.

I’ll bind a broom of gathered hay
to sweep the hen-house free of hate.
Let roosters hail the crack of day
and chicks with cocks tempt fate.

A fractured self and a challenge hurled:
they left the shell – but found it rough
because our bigoted barnyard world
cannot get queer enough fast enough.

They flutter through the breeder’s farm
subverting gender’s useless role.
We feel their pain, and mean no harm –
yet question this progressive goal.

They cluck a brand-new barnyard song:
Gender Identity Obsolete!
(As long as they claim God hatched them wrong,
biology signals their defeat.)

While poultry scratches rhymes for “hen”
and chicks are combing crests for cocks
let’s ring the dinner bell and then
we’ll synchronize the global clocks.

Let Mankind’s unmanned race delight
at Jesus’ gender-free return.
Soon Africa shall see the light
and Araby’s sun more brightly burn.

Then dawn shall break o’er Russian plains
to liberate the Tartar races;
loose their limbs from Gender’s chains
to stride with polymorphous paces.

China too, and Southeast Asia
swift shall follow in their train
celebrating sex-aphasia
joining in the West’s refrain.

Hindu multitudes will rise
to vanquish gender, caste aside
and shake the slumber from their eyes
with metro-ambisexual pride.

Carib isles, with Latin kingdoms
From the tropics to the mountains
Shall announce they too are Wisdom’s,
drinking from de-gendered fountains.

Juveniles, raised to simply be
shall pioneer new modes of life;
explore horizons happily
set free from biologic strife.

Then shall our earth, in glad array
spade dirt upon Tradition’s tomb;
unshackled from that dark dismay
to grieve – but nevermore exhume.

Alas, the global dreams descend.
We’re back in the barnyard, gender-queer…
where hens have cocks and eggshells bend
transcending Nature’s reign of fear.

The henhouse still votes hetero –
their eggless chickens cluck for rights
biologists, ex utero
are born to further futile flights.

 

 

The Fowl is Fair

We live in times of innovation. PHX 2
Winds of change affront the nation;
wind most welcome—by a few
(the masses know not what to do
with engineered progressive change,
their morals slow to rearrange).
And thus, in ornithology
we find an apt analogy…

Phoenix-like the vulture rose
in rainbow raiment, from repose
Its plumage all askew, a freak:
a mutant with a painted beak
borne of winds but lately blown.
This strange new hybrid (yet unflown)
did twitter forth an avian boon.
It preened its plumes and croaked a tune:

I represent that rarest fowl,
far wiser than outmoded owl…Phx rising
A dazzling swan of change am I
brought forth to liberate the sky!

(Yet more appeared a fractured emu;
fair is fowl post-op… they tried to
cross said emu with an ostrich!
(What the hell—the surgeon got rich
changing apples into mangos;
altering the twos to tangos…)

Fresh from gender suicide
he moulted into she. Beside
herself (itself?) with grief, regarded
previous selves as false: discarded
Sir for Madam overnight;PHX 3
fixed it, mixed it, made it right.
Since God was wrong the first time ‘round,
Man (or something) thus is bound
hormonally to tweak and mutate,
hastening rebirth’s freakish due-date.

A manly bass—and yet the face
was poorly paired in his/her case
Soprano ought to have resounded;
yet the voice left one confounded.

Rainbow bracelets notwithstanding
this was clearly modern branding
(on the forehead—like a beast?)
well, Jesus told the truth at least:
that angels are of neither gender
(hence no need to check the member.)

Lest we offend endangered species
I commend transgendered theses—
paired with warning and a fable
as they turn the feathered table:

We may nurture fair to foul
while nature shrieks a hideous howl
but foul to fair cannot return;
thus trapped, both Eve and Adam burn.

 

Garden of Musical Harlots

Take a harp, go about the city,
You forgotten harlot;
Make sweet melody, sing many songs,
That you may be remembered.
Isaiah 23:16

In the boogie-woogie brothel
The clients enjoy
A devilish syncopation
Wherein ragtime revel
(hops/barley/sugarcane/rye/ginever)
Reveals base barbecue of bestial beats:
Dixieland, jazz blues, doo-wop, tinpan cakewalk,
psychobilly, funkafied filth, the Charleston . . .

Smoke-filled music overflows the saloon;
(tobacco/cannabis/poppy/psilocybin/crystallized coca rock)
brings a sparkle to the eyes
and red laser pointers
to the PowerPoint™ screen
of Lucifer’s marketing and sales division:

murmur murmur how can we market
this damn tree in the middle of the garden, huh?
what, the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
people don’t need trees like that anymore;
they want extreme trees—
they want thug, they want antisocial . . . 
—yeah but how are we gonna SELL it?
  —well, were there not TWO trees ?
cut one down and sell the other!

murmur murmur murmur 

The marketing minions wrangle
over Satan’s next big thing.
The ebony Tree of Life sits sullen and angry.
Her regal Afrolinguistic foliage be like:

Ima git PAID fo MY hustle—
cuz girls is playaz too.

 


PROMPT #16:  write a poem that imposes a particular song on a place.

Describe the interaction between the place and the music using references to a plant
and, if possible, incorporate a quotation – bonus points for using a piece of everyday, overheard language.

Boom, Baby, Boom

Yeah! Whoooooooo-HOO ! (big drum splash) Detroit— are you ready to ROOOOCK?

How many of you are HIIiiiiiiGH tonite? (drum splash, crowd roars, lighters in air)

Mitch got that mike on (massive feedback squawk) ALL RIGHT !

(speaks to crowd): Mitch and Elon looking for their groupies already… well COME ON Detroit it’s time to get DOWN!

We know you love it cause we came to PARTY tonight. Can I hear you say ‘Yeah’ !?

We’re gonna start off with one from our Orange Oligarchy album,
it’s called Donald TRUUUUUUUUMP ! (crowd goes wild screaming)


PROMPT #15

Your challenge is to write a six-line poem that has these qualities:
repetition, simple language, enthusiasm, then end with a bang.