Come through, there’s
a gnat has jiggered across my nose,
an aeronautic whirligig – a tiny door.
Beware the flying dervish, my friends,
gyre and gimble in the wabe.
With a Jump and a jive and a heave.
“Wilderness is not a luxury…” *
This Tao Way, a wild walk – all mimsy were the tumbles-in,
all lunatic and pickled, these sapiens in the soup.
The tires that squish, the guns that splatter!
Beware the galumphing gentry.
And what a virtual parody, flattening
rain forests into 2D screens.
“Granma said they was dead people walking around.” **
Three times a day, an orangutan stepped
from its cage into the limelight,
costumed as a clown. Ridiculous the tuxedo
to cover his bruises – the cheers to drown his despair.
Which is stronger faith or fear?
Oh shun, the dunderhead delight chasers.
“And we stand somewhere between the mountain and the Ant.” - ***
Come through, shame has sullied her shadows,
she folds apology into paper cranes,
melts bittersweet across their wings.
Now rests she by the witch hazel,
anonymous among the tweets and twitters,
her regret naked in the feed. This is a true story.
“Flying insect population in trouble.” ****
You heard about the bull elephant
sentenced to life in chains? Nepal.
No plea of self-defense heard, his crime
laced in ivory. Oh, pachyderm with eyes of flame.
Honest anger to milk your life.
No one mapped his calamity,
“A scar is what happens when a word is made flesh.” *****
We wrap our troubles in plastic,
and oceans stretch downstream like souse meat.
What matters less - to fail or to die?
Give me a loose scarf of squid, alive and breathing,
Give me days to shape us in story arc,
hubris, blunder, crisis, eureka, humility.
“Superman don’t need no seatbelt.” ******
There’s a Colorado warehouse - 1.3 million
seized body parts – rhino feet, polar bear rugs,
leopard heads, bucket of dried seahorses.
it’s a tip of the iceberg, bridge to nowhere!
One, two! One two! And through and through…
What matters more - to run or to stand?
“The heart … broken open …the whole universe.” *******
Here is a robe of Indian Summer.
Here, a hijab of forest song.
The refuge, simple - a scent of cedar, a raven muse.
ball point and paper. Vitality lives here -
the congress of simians, a vestige of frogs.
Every vanished species – an amputation, a ghost limb.
“Praise the bridge that
carried you over." ********
Consider how essential, the gnat and the spider,
then look into the eyes of a kit, fennec fox,
on a short rope, busy market, freshly nabbed –
nay, I stand tongue tied, my dissent tangled in fleas and fur.
“a war against nature … a war against himself.” *********
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
…and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!"
* Edward Abbey
** Forrest Carter
*** Oren Lyons
**** David Haskell
***** Leonard Cohen
****** Muhammad Ali
******* Joanna Macy
******** George Coleman
********* Rachel Carson
Other obvious lines borrowed from The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
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