Disappearing Birds
All about disparity coming together unexpectedly because it just doesn’t make sense the way things scream into the scene in flames then bust out again like nothing happened but you know it did like the raindrop in Tibet causing my headache in Oregon how the wings are set the feet extended for landing all of this interconnectedness bullshit but I really did not get to meet Kesey or Ginsburg or Leary but I didn’t have to go to Mexico to experience life I think as I watch the sheep in the fog the rime ice building on the fence lines my best friend sucking the milk out of sixty Holsteins in the frigid hardness of a Wisconsin winter people on the television screaming to me about riots in the Ukraine I don’t wear things I don’t need to wear for fear of terrorists while eggs bubble in the pan the coffee strong filling the home with Central America please excuse me while I feed the cat who comes by twice a day water the plants that block the light from the book I am trying to read about the chemistry of cooking I walk under trees that rain ice crystals upon me cranes are dancing in the fields the days getting longer polar bears starve while Korea questions basketball Japan chops off the fins of diminishing sharks I search for a place to live in my profession a general knowledge useful in game shows and emergencies one sock not quite the same color as the other one leg shorter or longer and leopard spots on the back of my head while Jesus apparently goes on talking in the square daring power to kill him which it does as whole populations fly across a blood orange sky we feel sorry for him but not for the mothers run over in intersections or the children mangled in class the hummingbirds are huddled around the feeders my heart needs medication after years of beating after years of thinking about love the collections of everything piling up in the hallways how it all makes sense after years of watching birds.
Bio:
Brad lives and writes in the Great Northwest. He fills his home with art, music, photography, plants, rocks, bones, books and love. He has published poetry in Alchemy, Cream City Review, Front Range Review, theNewerYork, Ray’s Road Review, The Round Up, Meat for Tea, Off the Coast, Livid Squid Literary Journal, Brickplight, Shuf Poetry, Rockhurst Review, Penduline Press, Literature Today, BASED, Eunoia Review, and other quality publications. Nominee: 2013 Pushcart Prize for poem, “Where We May Be Found.”