The Big Bang and how it amused my relatives, Xanax, exotic birds & other
by Audrey Ogilvie
[ poetry - july 06 ]
The Big Bang and how it amused my relatives
A closed head wound is not something to covet.
Mistaking salt for rain can be entertaining for a while
As can glances in a mirror
At wild eyes that
Move independently like a rabbit's.
For months I insisted on staggering to
The salvage yard to see the vaguely familiar
Blue sculpture on a mound of earth.
A car that had taken only a second to morph
Into a neverland work of art.
The happy passengers had long-since left
And, again, the music died.
A stage career had always escaped me
But recovery created an hilarity
That seemed to soak up pain.
The full spectrum of the blood-related
Settled into the spectacle of
What once had been an academic child.
You take laughs where you can get them
Even if they gurgle up from embarrassment and
Sadness.
Xanax, exotic birds & other forms of crisis management
When I caught the news flash that an orchard filled with
Vampire Parrots had been discovered by a nun
I got through on the jungle telegraph and ordered a pair.
Fed-Ex packed them appropriately and
A box wrapped in gray canvas came to my verandah
Quickly and in perfect condition.
Jet-lagged I suppose, the birds
With their pale Martha Stewart pallet plumage
Wiggled neatly into a standard fishing net
And took up residence in the Purple Martin hotel
At the foot of the garden.
I cruised on the high of new responsibility
And feigned calmness when I suddenly saw their distinctive profiles
On the edge of a basket of a low flying hot air balloon.
Together they glanced downward at my frantic semaphore
Conducted with clenched fists
And they dive bombed into a patch of poppies
Where they whiled away the afternoon.
I nibbled a palm-full of pharmaceuticals
And gave up on trying to secure some deadly nightshade
The dietary staple of my unusual twins.
A neighbour, Daisy Lamb, delivered a casserole of
Sweetbreads steeped in port
The birds perched on a black rococo table
And ate in the melon light of sundown.
It seemed their taste for blood had temporarily receded
As had my own.
Terminally rapacious
A permanently blotted copy book
Is reviewed by the world on a daily basis.
The sophisticated accept that death
In the mean streets of Delhi
Is more honourable than
Grasping for a Hummer filled with diamonds.
Vacant eyes scan the landscape
Of endless parking lots.
Life crushed and discouraged
In the scramble to numb another hunger pang.
Flung far to the sidelines are the manicured bones and stones
Our forefathers shout through.
But their voices are drowned
By the shrieks of the flawed, slick
Carpetbaggers in Armani suits
Making the murderous case for
More.
Eons ago
This planet was molten lava and
Now it sings opera.
With impunity we
Belly up to buffet tables
And select a sweet songbird
Skewered to a piece of toast.
