Monday, June 15, 2009

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Thus Spake the Mockingbird

 

The mockingbird says, Hallelujah, coreopsis, I make the day

      bright, I wake the night-booming jasmine. I am

the duodecimo of desperate love, the hocus-pocus passion

      flower of delirious retribution. You never saw such a bird,

such a triage of blood and feathers, tongue and bone. O the world

      is a sad address, bitterness melting the tongues of babies,

breasts full of accidental milk, but I can teach the flowers to grow,

      take their tight buds, unfurl them like flags in the morning heat,

fat banners of scent, flat platters of riot on the emerald scene.

      I am the green god of pine trees, conducting the music

of rustling needle through a harp of wind. I am the heart of men,

      the wild bird that drives their sex, forges their engines,

jimmies their shattered locks in the dark flare where midnight slinks.

      I am the careless minx in the skirts of women, the bright moon

caressing their hair, the sharp words pouring from their beautiful mouths

      in board rooms, on bar stools, in big city laundrettes. I am

Lester Young's sidewinding sax, sending that Pony Express

      message out west in the Marconi tube hidden in every torso

tied tight in the corset of do and don't, high and low, yes and no. I am

      the radio, first god of the twentieth century, broadcasting

the news, the blues, the death counts, the mothers wailing

      when everyone's gone home. I am sweeping

through the Eustachian tube of the great plains, transmitting

      through every ear of corn, shimmying down the spine

of every Bible-thumping banker and bureaucrat, relaying the anointed

      word of the shimmering world. Every dirty foot that walks

the broken streets moves on my wings. I speak from the golden

      screens. Hear the roar of my discord murdering the trees,

screaming its furious rag, the fuselage of my revival-tent brag. Open

      your windows, slip on your castanets. I am the flamenco

in the heel of desire. I am the dancer. I am the choir. Hear my wild

      throat crowd the exploding sky. O I can make a noise.

 

Barbara Hamby




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