Throw the counsel
to the primates,
the primitive speculative
kind of people
that would lean to a window
and spew all their feelings
like bleating little lambs.
Have a porta john
installed in your backyard
as a prank against the logic
of a man askew from wisdom.
Put the plank of a parrot
in your hair to see if you care
enough to try on a golf glove
while you commemorate
the skies of the burgundy chipmunk.
Give them all a nice hand.
The robin sits on the branch,
perfectly still. It’s puffed up,
conserving its energy
on the chilled November afternoon,
contemplating the stars
that it can’t yet see.
Then it takes off for another tree,
to continue its watch
from a different vantage,
perhaps triangulating its experience
as nearby squirrels chirp and scratch
at each other by the trunk.
Nothing is keeping itself at bay,
a cold breeze tells us all
that winter approaches.
We must stomp on the negatives
before they build up through doubt,
a smile necessary to complete the circuit.
Before nightfall, gather wood
for, at the very least,
a rip-roarin’ fire
that will last through daybreak.
No sense in freezing
if we still have blood
flowing through our veins.
Just don’t get anything too green,
or the smoke will howl
with the dying breaths
of those we burn tonight.
Bent over the hovering stairway’s landing,
I crawl through my own ignorance
just to convince myself
that stairs are meant for climbing.
I go one step at a time,
a novice unsure of proper footing
and without a handrail.
I dare not look behind me
at the infinite darkness
beckoning me, “Just fall,
I’ll catch you eventually–
or so you think.”
Being in the glen
of otherworldly struggle
boggles the mind
to new heights
never explored by our kind.
Maybe other peoples have raced
to these fresh conclusions
before us, but
that’s just fancy thinking
at this point.
“Marry me,” is all she ever said
to the rock next to a hard place.
She didn’t actually
want to exchange vows
with a boulder, she just felt
like expressing herself to someone
who wouldn’t get carried away
with reception planning
and chicken dancing,
like the traditions of her mother
and mother’s mother (you get the picture).
She sat upon the boulder,
palms down to the cold stone,
completing a kind of silent prayer
that would, in her mind,
infuse this lifeless mass with personality.
Stem the flow of tawdry shipmates
until someone is drowning
in a case of PBR, unaware
that they could have just had water instead.
Hobbling through a brook of crystal clarity
can only unveil so much character
within a single person,
especially if they’re alone
and it’s dark outside.
There could be a little cliché moon glow
on the water’s surface to create a texture
for the story line, but
it’s definitely not necessary for our purposes here.
The visual would be somewhat stunning,
and it would be easier to see
the shadows of deer in the forest,
but again, we don’t need to rely on such claptrap.
WHARVED 