ALPHA THE ROOSTER

Keeper of the Coop

Little feather footed warrior,

little speck of heated red,

your plumage is bright again,

face down in your dish

on a nest of wood chips.

That raccoon that almost

tore your head off

left your beak battered

and your tongue swollen.

Food could barely catch your smell,

much less your taste.

You survived for a week

on the water that I used

to bathe your wounds

plus whatever I could pour

down your throat.

And you were thirsty.

One day you choked

and I turned you upside down,

pouring the water out of your little body.

You fluffed your neck feathers

and emitted two little croaks.

I tried to feed you figs,

I peeled them first,

I brought you a dish of fish

crushed into paste.  But by then

all that was left of you

was will and water.

So that in the end, in the morning

when your body was rigid with death,

there were few flies and no feces.

You were purified, clean,

ready for deep, rich sleep in the earth

where you defended your coop.

Oh my brave little bantam,

these forests will remember your fury

and your sterling cry.

MIDDLE AGE

I'm done trying to figure it out.

I know the maze leads

to another maze.

I'm going anyway.

I want to know just how much more

I cannot really know.

I want to see its mystery unfurl.

I'll sing it a song: it might

be an ax, it might be a lullaby.

Either one is right.  I love them both.

Time has forgotten me.  I've been quoting

things that someone never said,

and yet it fits.

Time has remembered my best bits,

said a doll on a dashboard.

That was in a foreign car, that

was in a foreign year.

Some in mid way say

let somebody else steer, let go,

relax.  I'm getting off

before their naps attack.

The bus chugs on its river of tar

the street is going elsewhere

I no longer need imagine it is mine.

Into the glories of the netherworld.

Into the astral blossoms of the void

that pop like rice paper walls

in another realm

while this one remains almost

soundless, and red.

Galactic amber spilling into bed.

The threads of space

are pulling many webs.

The shutters bled before:

they are painted in such

slow drips.

ALPHA

Alpha, our little feather footed

bantam rooster, is the only one

in the hen pen.

Most of the old hens

are four times his size.

He lives to defend and fight.

When I bring a saucepan full

of chicken feed

he attacks in a red blaze.

I dump the food quick

for the hens, turn the rear of the pan

towards him as a shield: he bounces

off the thing like a dragonfly

or a hummingbird,

but when I close the pen

and look at the pan

his beak has left a scar

on the copper bottom.

This morning, Alpha's head and tail

were mangled, he was blind and covered

in blood, but still he stood.

His crow was silent: he had fought something

bigger and stronger than himself,

in the night.  The oblivious hens

strut back and forth, nobody

else was touched.

Now we keep him

alone in the smaller chick hatch coop,

with some fresh grubs and feed

and torn figs.  We wash his injuries in a pool

and leave him with fresh water.

Chickens don't like to move

in the dark, and he is blind.

His tongue is swollen in his mouth

from the wounds of his battle,

but his tough little feet

are strong and sure,

gripping the edge of his dish.

His pride is quieter than his crow

but his pride is not broken.

EXPLICIT LUCIDITY

You were programmed for death,

not for transcendent grandeur.

The dreams of your forefathers

were linked to an encompassing cancer:

and only the cancer has grown.

Their descendants dream of renewal,

but they are not willing

to die to themselves.

Thus their dreams are futile:

they dream of rebirth

from outside themselves,

and allow their souls to become helpless,

assigned to imprisoned flesh,

just barely kept alive

for the annihilating hive

in its escape from reality.

And where does their escape lead?

To darkness, to the void, to withering

depravity: all the torments

they threaten to inflict on solitude,

and they suffer them all

in an oblivious mass,

unable to withstand

what they've become.

UGLY AMERICA

Your women are not beautiful to me.

Your streets of filth lead nowhere at all.

Your money is nothing: you have

nothing to offer.

You bet everything on a disgusting

social illusion: now you have

no reality left.  Everyone sane

has deserted you by following

a higher spirit from within.

Your beauties talk nonsense

until they turn everything stale

including themselves.

They eat drugs from shiny vials

and fall down in sleepy rows.

Then you wonder why they're ugly.

They were never beautiful enough

for you anyway.

Everyone must be sliced into pieces

and put back together in a shape

that your dullness can deal with.

YELLOW JASPER

Yellow jasper stone,

I found you in a pile of likeness.

I picked you for the indent

you gave my thumb.

Your quiet caramel light

will not go out.

Coins disappear around you

like dying stars announced.

My palm needs your rough edge

and your smooth pocket.

We both come from a natural rocket

in the swift alchemical slums of space.

I put you on my belly and wait

for you to melt into me.

I dream without my mouth

of your river taste,

of your imperturbable place.

And slowly you bring

sweat to my tongue.

My body's been absorbing bug fragments,

lumps of alcoholic psychosis,

ghosts of dead friends,

diseases of queens that I'm

honored to have as one of the last

fallen princes of the sexual revolution,

thank you ladies, spirit's

growing finally to tow

this physical fragment along...

I used to think of Allen Ginsberg,

now I think of Gary Snyder,

maybe I should study those

notebooks on nature.

But the two in one

could be this creature.

It needn't be either/or,

and Ginsberg assents.

We're all getting fucked

in our tents.