Steve McQueen Fights the Birds

1. the truth feels like Alka-Seltzer

Alligator, you wouldn't believe what the liars
are calling me now. They say I'm an export.
That I'm soft, leather-clad, a knock-off
channeling the bars' songs through
hip. But that just isn't true.
I fell out of the nest early.
I was on the street with my quick feathers;
they were working. Jackhammers
letting us know that the people were up,
cars in a parade down the street.
There was a long line of birds
outside the studio when I ducked in.

It was quiet.
I drank until 6 and then I exploded.

I pulled my guts behind me.

2. what matters to them is the blinds are drawn

pigeons must be engrossed
chammering at the bars
outside the windows
when the shops open with fell swoops
they flex their wings

it's time
it's time

they settle with unusual hunger
others repent
it's not easy for them to utter
their (-tails-- easily injured)
which don't grow back

but consider the history
of the bird sciences:

ornithology
oology
(caliology)
neossology
pterylology
bioacoustics

and augury
made famous by a death

wherefore, the sidewalks are covered with shit/
their tendencies

3. birds are first metaphorical, then banded

birds' suffering is not normally recognized by humanity
but birds suffer from a multitude of diseases
(that was almost sins)
they suffer from

Airsack Mites Allergic Alveolitis Aspergillosis Avian Brain Disease Avian Goiter Avian Gout Bacterial Infections Breeders Lungs Blepharitis Bordetella Botulism Broken Legs/Toes Candidiasis Cancer Cryptosporidium Coccidiosis Diabetes Egg Binding Egg Peritonitis Emphysema Eye Problems Feather Lice Feather Plucking/Chewing Fowl Cholera French Molt Giardia Hemochromatosis Herpes Kidney Disease Laryngotracheitis Lymphoid Leukosis Marek's Disease Myialges Nudus Mycoplasmosis Necrotic Enteritis Newcastles Disease Pasteurella Papilloma Pneumonia Psittacosis Pseudomonas Polyoma Salmonella Scaly Face & Scaly Feet Skin-Mutilation Tuberculosis Trichomonas West Nile Wet Vents

and influenza

or perhaps they suffer from melancholy
we really don't know

yesterday a man was hanged 49 times
in 49 places
with 49 touches of his wing
the poison
and we can't figure out why he went on dropping, why
not once, but 49 times
he wanted to flinch, jerk, remember, reposition, try it

(why can't you, reader, relate, too)

the quote-unquote miracle seems to be
that they wouldn't let him dive

wherefore, it was cold when they pushed him from the cliff

wherefore
(you see James Joyce first
you see James Joyce
and a peregrine)

4. two in the bush, with salt

Alligator, I'm sick of this hiding,
clenched
aren't you, for the water?
                                                   yellow-choke
                                                   para-disal
                                                   a-sitic

breathing through a tube

it's because we forget
the birds were not meant for an audience
they were mechanical
yet they went on bickering and fighting
background noise to the archipelago

Dear fan:
it isn't time you wore the #1 fan shirt
you're smart, and you've got to get your glandular
magazine rack fodder, yardstick passion
together, under the cloak-image. Passion,
where the innards
"dovetail" (as John Keats would say)
heaven is seething

with innards
wherefore we fly--wherefore the lizard-skin feathers--
surface along whose surface (the elephant)
explodes
it is passionate, it is willful, it explodes

wherefore they will all do:
archaeopteryx, diatryma, ichthyornis, and others such
that we already know about

the bluer heron
green tufted          flamingo
redcrest, little robin

tearing up the worms and exploding

5. tastes like chicken

Police blotters roped up on such high stuff

jackdaw and emu, po'ouli, black-faced spoon bill
crested ibis, black stilt
blue crane

one in there for
one in there for

and the seasoned veterans of slingshot wars

accosted
freaked out
hungry
admitted

well to poke at them

Elizabeth they have small electric brains

they are thin-boned

60 or 70 in an omelet

given a skillet

smack someone in the face