Ext. Sunrise. Two Birds in Foreground
The day beats a tattoo on my head,
Writes, with fire, a tattoo on my eyes.
There is a recurrence of light instead
Of dark; I need, not the same old, but new, lies.
I find myself wandering in and out
Of wasted hospital hallways,
Too bright and white to doubt.
If at least there were a kind of haze...
But there is only, without shadow, hard, hard
Light.
To understand, a bird does not need, want. Tarred
And feathered, it alights
On any bough without cat, snake, or [insert other predator].
But stumble I, searching for meaning, over sun-, star-flooded pavement,
and sliced neatly into white frames by sharp-scissored film editor
is my future--clarity without mercy. The denouement
Unwinds predictably along grooves of iron
To the groaning of audience and producers alike.
Coughing out, mechanically, an old song, I flutter to rest, with dull ire, on
My appointed branch: bare, bare as a life.
Next comes the snap.
2/24/99
Jim Genzano
Method and Madness Are Two Machines; One Is a Bird and the Other Is Broken: A Sonnet Song
A bird wails against this misshapen machine
That scrapes centuries ragged, but even the universe
Has this music, a crystalline gas with a sheen
Invisible. The ear only has an eye versed
Enough in intangibles to perceive this regular refrain,
A hidden repetetive movement, a frame
Of intricate, delicate wire on which, insane,
Like a haphazard skin, or a wild flame,
Human life vaguely droops or dumbly jumps.
Why not write out loud your secret song,
Bird of glass, music box? These lumps
Of blood and flesh, wandering in fog, long
To see the pattern painted on your breath.
Otherwise, we have only confusion, and death.
2/28/99
Jim Genzano
