Blithe nightingale, to this far shore unknown—
Who did so flit
In forest shadows knit
Of Lincoln green, in Keats’ day gone by—
Decorously, yet still as wild
As any bird could be in that domestic isle;
So sweetly singing ‘neath the rain-rinsed sky
And in the mottled shade of trees and sheepish clouds,
To conjure reminisces not my own—
Elusive creature! Present now,
Then, in one melancholy moment, gone;
Evocative, allusive and high-flown, eschewing crowds—
One glimpse of thee
I fain would see,
O bird most suitable for poetry!
II.
Here in California, meantime,
it’s the 21st century.
The crows and bluejays and us
have all been shoved
to the jagged edges
of the furthest continent from home.
Outside my door, I hear
the birds debating who’s
going to be the first
one up against the wall
1.
New rule in your city:
Everything you know about blackbirds
Is about to change.
2.
The blackbird told me
One simple trick
To get the IRS off my back.
3.
Check out these
Hilarious blackbird fails!
4.
Revealed: secrets
Of the world’s richest blackbirds.
5.
Click here to view
Celebrity nude blackbirds!!!
6.
I am Nigerian prince
Recently come to possession
Of substantial Blackbirds.
Transmission of a small sum
To pay Customs duty
Enables their release to you.
7.
Watch how this chance meeting
Between two blackbirds
Erupts into violence.
8.
The unblinking eye
Of the blackbird
Is our last bulwark
Against terrorism.
9.
Here are six wild predictions
That came true
About a blackbird.
10.
Yes! Yes!
Blackbird!
11.
Red wing; black bird;
The all-in-all.
It takes millions of colors
To make this clear
So buy a new phone now
12.
Secret brain pill blackbirds are using
May soon let them
Replace humans.
13.
True science:
This blackbird
Kept in a sealed box
Was both alive and dead
And neither.
(Being an account of the Peculiar Events leading up to the Monstrous and Notorious Tragedy of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds who were martyred by being baked into a pie; and of the Warning previously issued to all Fowl within the Royal Earshot, which these aforementioned Blackbirds roundly ignored, to their own Detriment and Ultimate Demise; written by one, Witness to the Aforesaid Events.)
Go quietly, quietly! Quell every sound,
You geese in the air and you quails on the ground!
You ducks with your querulous ducklings in tow,
You may go as you like; only quietly go.
No quacking; no quarreling; quash every cry;
Not a chirp from you blackbirds who quarter the sky!
The queen is asleep:
If you cease not to peep
She’ll awake and demand you be baked in a pie!
All righty then
so say I want an idea
you’re saying I need to
bust open a thing
and find an idea inside
maybe a bunch of them
twisting like worms
and then what?
What the hell
am I supposed to say
about all these busted things
and all these twisty ideas?
Because right now
the place is littered with things I’ve busted
that don’t work anymore
and won’t even stand up
and the ideas
have got into the floorboards
and the bag of sugar
and the mattress.
I tell you
if this is poetry
it’s nothing like what I was led to believe
back when they gave us
that wheelbarrow poem to read.
So tell me
sage of Paterson
tell me
old witch
old doctor
tell me what’s the big idea
mister thing?
Can books save us?
Chapters? Paragraphs? Words?
Is that overoptimistic?
2.
I feel perfectly engineered, marvelous,
not limited to events.
3.
Our brains, wired to the beautiful universe,
are important: a kind of glue that holds together
the world. I think, and knot together the fabric
one word at a time.
4.
There is a special kind of tool that flattens one self into another;
there are, often, beautiful universes to be found on the other side,
though this constant hopping from one to another is also exhausting.
My days are exhausting days.
5.
I exist, holding together the world.
6.
So I started making changes. Random, usually.
The shocking thing was how I didn’t have to fight time and space.
What a wonderful feeling it was!
7.
My mind, however, remains a problem.
If you have suggestions for that, please let me know.
Well, I had a little accident when I was just a lad
I burned my hand, and listen, man, it hurt real bad
A couple years later, I met Doctor McGee
He saw my thumb and he said son, I guarantee
If you just give me a chance, I’ll make it good as new
I’ll make your hand perfect, yes I swear it’s true
I’ve done it many times before, I know just what to do –
McGee, he’s gonna howl He don’t understand But the judge found it simple, so he put it on remand He said, “Son, you’ll get the damages that you demand ’cause you believed in the promised hand.”
He told me that my hand would be one hundred percent
I thought because he said it, that was just what he meant
Now I will never recover, my whole life is a wreck
When I think of that day it makes me mad as heck
He said your hand’s okay, but you deserve the best
He took a knife and then he cut this skin from my chest
Now my fingers are itching and I can’t get no rest…
McGee, he’s gonna howl He don’t understand But the judge found it simple, so he put it on remand He said, “Son, you’ll get the damages that you demand ’cause you believed in the promised hand.”
The jury monetized the difference, it was quite a lot
Between the hand that I expected and the one I got;
And I’ve come to find out that I’m a famous case
Prominently featured in The Paper Chase —
But what is all of it worth, when I can’t sleep at night?
My hand is matted and unsightly and it looks a fright
If I could take it all back, I really think that I might…
But every graduate of law school All across this land They may forget my name but they recall my hand I’m more famous than that guy who killed the fox and ran…
’cause I believed in the promised hand ’cause I believed in the promised hand Yeah I believed in the promised hand.
Also, the guy who killed the fox was Jesse Pierson (in case you’ve forgotten). The image illustrating this little fiasco is “The Beast with Five Fingers” by Dave Wild, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) license. Finally, a big if belated Thank you! to MAD Magazine for establishing legal precedent, in addition to generally sticking it to the man.
The Constitution of the United States (A Limerick Cycle)
Preamble and Article I
Preamble
The Union we hereby decree
Shall be Just, Blessed, Tranquil, and Free.
We establish, ordain it,
And herein explain it,
Presuming you all will agree.
Article I.
Section 1.
The power for all Legislating,
Resolving, and also Debating,
Inheres in the Senate
And the Representat-
ives, as we’re herein designating.
Section 2.
Representatives each State supplies
Proportionally to its size.
(There’s provision for Slaves
And for Indian braves,
But that language no longer applies.)
Representatives serve for the space
Of two years, then must run a new race.
If one of them dies
Their Governor supplies
Us another to serve in his place.
Bag of Anything 