of tuneless anti-notes

these braided harps have strung

from post to post to post,

dividing fenced-in dogs

from lucky ones on walks

and Barbie-trapping bogs

of grass from sidewalks.

And when stray branches beckon

like wishbones from a shrub

I wish for one good weapon

and break off a billy club

with which I investigate

a picket fence’s gaps;

with which I decapitate

the weed between each slat.

And when the fence is iron

I clang my club across

its bars the way a warden

patrols his problem blocks.

But when these fences give

way to boundless lawns

my hand becomes the sieve

that can’t contain my yawns.

Only Sunday strollers and bicycle riders will notice

the strange facility concealed among vines and fields —

a long barracks surrounded by barbed wire, a guard stationed

at the electric gate.

It’s late.  The second night watch.

The villagers sleep. Only a few small foxes

and nocturnal birds to witness the sight.

The lord of the eggs rechecks the voltage

in the electrified fence.

He directs the trucks filled with cages,

hurrying the Thai workers

discharged to load the sick and the old

squeezed to lay all they can.

Hard to say when they become fowl.

This poem is not about chickens

pecking in the troughs, coxcombs trembling in light

which is neither day nor night

or birds piled one on top of another, their necks

twisting through the bars

to gasp the feathery sparks

in egg-white moonlight.

And even if it is, it doesn’t fly in the face

of the people who pass through the gate

to the factory store in the morning

under the cheery ‘Hatchery House’ sign

with the drawing of a plump brooder,

buying extra large eggs

nicely arranged in a carton.

on the trees

leaking their slow

reds and golds

the workers

sluggish in the fields

who are you

that I don’t know

how to look away

don’t want to    your eyes

entering mine

the day is short

the night

long the Master near

is to love. Such love is not enough! –

the heart needs a little foolishness!
So I fold the newspaper, make a hat.Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.

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