Birds

 Birds

 

Hey, Ma, do birds feel the rain?

Because here it comes again

like arrows right through me,

all these clothes I’m wearing,

cling in a soupy second skin,

hassling my wandering -

I’ve taken to wearing bustles.

No, I think they float above it

undiluted - it drips in quills

that write illegible things

on these cobble manuscripts.

Here’s one now, flicking fish,

up to its webbed feet in river,

intent on lunch, doesn’t quiver,

look Ma, the neck is full of fins,

gills, scales and other things.

 

No, wretched, obdurate child,

it’s the sky is full of stars,

you saw in that overlong flick,

auteured by Stanley Kubrick,

an ice-cream scoop starship,

why, Johann Strauss scored it,

plucked his fiddle, sawed hard,

and we shoved you in our car,

along with your two mutts,

ostentatious four wheeled truck

a cool-box full of cold cuts,

stopped for a quick one at Spar,

cotton buds and a pack of four.

We’re migrating like swallows,

easy riders, duelling banjos,

to trudge towns under cloud.

Why we bother, I cannot grasp,

your father swearing in my ear,

went to soak himself in beer,

pissing rain that’s going to last

all day - and your mutt has shit

the pavement - don’t step in it,

ignore them and just walk away -

pray tomorrow is on holiday.