Aliens, Birds, and Trouble
A poem about courage and strong girlfriends
Twelve birds on a really strong wire,
one for each month,
the first one says, “Hi,
I think you look cute.
“I’m a carnivorous bird,
twelve effing feet tall!
I took over from dinosaurs,
when they disappeared.
I’m the Terror Bird of South America!
But you know that ain’t all -
“An Alien from some other planet
grabbed me from your silly strange past,
and sent me to you,
for giggles and laughs.”
OK, boys, now this spells big trouble…
Don’t mess with Aliens
or Terror Birds, too.
Get your wits about you, John!
Stay out of that zoo!
Get help from Uncle Morris.
Get help from your Mom.
Where is my girlfriend?
I need you right now!
I know these freaking Aliens.
I know what they want!
Still…
Twelve foot tall birds,
sent from times past,
don’t scare me that much!
I’m stronger than that!
(I know I can last.)
Clear the decks, boys,
for warfare!
Aliens can’t touch me.
Past, Future, and Planets,
Hot suns and cold space,
somehow I got chosen
to stand in the ring,
wrestler defending,
laughter, my sting.
Now Blue Aliens with bad humor,
tall hungry birds with sharp giant beaks…
A girlfriend with power,
glowing behind me,
helped me stop thinking,
then made me a Sumo.
Now I have courage:
Stand fast!
Laugh, flash,
got that good zoomo -
(Remember: We invent words. They don’t invent us.)
We all see a slice
of time and of space.
You think you’re the Center
of the whole human race.
I’m the Center, too.
So are the pine trees,
Aliens on spaceships,
mountains and oceans,
The Earth spinning with us,
akin to our notions.
But, thank god, the Terror Birds
are stuck in the past.
I don’t want to meet them.
I don’t need that task…
Sex, as in Tantra,
is the best path
to Enlightenment.
Just change the subject
when Aliens show up.
They thought they could
scare you
with giant dead birds.
But guys, I’m a poet.
I’ve got my cool words,
energy meditation,
cosmical sex, twelve magic positions -
Can’t touch me, boys!
I’ll come out brand new.
The world is so strange,
my girlfriend and Uncle Morris, too, told me.
Just let Time stop on its own.
Everything, then, is Center.
Ecstasy
now defends me.
Birds and wild sex
spin their mad vortex.
Aliens look on.
They shield me
with Gore-tex!
If you think this is nonsense,
I gladly admit it.
Homer used memory and rhyme,
Shakespeare, iambic pentameter.
I’m just a nut,
in love with big words,
with Aliens and Girlfriends,
And twelve huge Big Birds.
________________________
The Terror Birds of South America are one of the stranger things I’ve encountered in evolution. It seems that, after the dinosaurs got wiped out, giant ground-living birds evolved to fill T. Rex’s ecological niche before mammals could get going. They actually survived to about two million years ago. Here’s the Wikipedia article.
And, if you do a Google image search for “Terror Birds of South America,” you’ll get some seriously cool artwork.
T. Rex, we miss you! But your little birdie cousins who survived did step up! Remember that the next time you order wings.
