The birds are singing, or asleep
Light-hearted birdsong does not know this glue trap:
the way we jerk and mumble endlessly while dreaming,
and how a mouth moves lonely, like a person down a street;
a bulldozer against a sea of etherized white.
The oncoming palsy of quickened heartbeats
stolen guilty from our promise to be good
lies back, smiles and pushes greenly
through the office paper
where our heads rest as on sidewalks
(tread space for a thousand feet of shuffling,
busy newcomers who never get to know your name, save one)–
…forgive me for I am tired, have drowsed off
to dream of where I may actually be,
whose face caressing blamelessly,
what songs other I hear
than those whose noises pollute me,
pressing themselves in my ear-space;
the last tiny buffer between
this whistling tin shell of a plan
and my inner broadening.
Yet looking out, I do believe
that crocodiles secretly purr to one another
in the dark and dream
of crows;
that they move the evolutionary organs of their minds
to want to fly
one millimeter at a time,
and some day with all the hope
of new strain
a feather will emerge from some hatchling's shoulder-blade.
Natalie Easton is a free-verse poet whose tools of choice are an old typewriter and a kerosene lamp. She believes poetry should be written the hard way: any way you can manage. She has appeared in Penny Ante Feud, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Calliope Nerve.
Light-hearted birdsong does not know this glue trap:
the way we jerk and mumble endlessly while dreaming,
and how a mouth moves lonely, like a person down a street;
a bulldozer against a sea of etherized white.
The oncoming palsy of quickened heartbeats
stolen guilty from our promise to be good
lies back, smiles and pushes greenly
through the office paper
where our heads rest as on sidewalks
(tread space for a thousand feet of shuffling,
busy newcomers who never get to know your name, save one)–
…forgive me for I am tired, have drowsed off
to dream of where I may actually be,
whose face caressing blamelessly,
what songs other I hear
than those whose noises pollute me,
pressing themselves in my ear-space;
the last tiny buffer between
this whistling tin shell of a plan
and my inner broadening.
Yet looking out, I do believe
that crocodiles secretly purr to one another
in the dark and dream
of crows;
that they move the evolutionary organs of their minds
to want to fly
one millimeter at a time,
and some day with all the hope
of new strain
a feather will emerge from some hatchling's shoulder-blade.
Natalie Easton is a free-verse poet whose tools of choice are an old typewriter and a kerosene lamp. She believes poetry should be written the hard way: any way you can manage. She has appeared in Penny Ante Feud, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Calliope Nerve.