IN ABSENCE OF THE YELLOW BIRD

IN ABSENCE OF THE YELLOW BIRD
by Julianna Buckmiller
Never meant
For the nightmare to sharpen its nails
And claw into the sangria sunlight,
Clothed in tangerine monk’s robes,
Tripping over the uprooted emotions:
Dehydrated and migraine-d.
Eating away at each aging branch,
Leaving bruised bags under preschool sunrays
Hiding behind tinted lenses.
The ropes unbraided themselves—
Crimped and uncoordinated,
To the background music of garbage trucks emptying
And your faceless neighbors making love
in another language.
The Thujone ambiance hypnotizes you,
With eyelids spread
And irises shut.
Underdressed disdain and boiled resentments immunize us
Into an exhale—
Suspiro, suspiro!
Let us mourn the living!
As the clock still ticks in our deteriorating wallets:
A pocket heartbeat,
A metronome
Keeping pace with our hyperventilating cognitions.
As at the end of every line
Is a decimal point,
Begging us to
Be more specific.
But without molars,
Imagination is too bloody to savor,
Dripping from our sedated tongues
Like a promise—
and we all go colorblind.
Never meant
For it to feel this way:
Our monochromatic voices
Turn to dust,
Ashing each other out into the palms of our hands—
as poetry sobs on tattered street corners
for pocket change.
NO ONE EVER GOT ANYWHERE WITHOUT MAKING SOME NOISE,
And I have seen talent after talent
Suffocate themselves beneath layers
of toilet tissue and plaster of Paris,
In fear of breaking—
But I am going to string each one of them along
By their vocal cords
In a Dadaist display—
It is time
For the effervescence
To spasm your irises
And let the transilience through.
This is only the beginning.