What Kind Of A Bird Is This?
I have this idea for a poem
I hope it’s a poem
it wants to be a poem
it’s gonna try to be a poem
but maybe it won’t be a poem
maybe it’ll just be
a hybrid with a handicap
an aspirational prose—
a bastard mixed breed
let’s see where it goes
Now comes the tricky part
How do I enter the poem?
Do I knock, pick the lock
sneak in the back door
or break a window?
I want to show you my feelings
but that’s crazy
feelings are invisible
If I frame them between brackets
and you see them
then you’re definitely nuts
Here they are. See?
{ }
I can make them bigger
but let’s face it
my feelings are NOT visible
so let’s move on to ideas
ideas are more tangible
more malleable, less sensitive & sticky
You can easily put ideas into words
and write them down like I’m doing here
give ‘em shape, character, and flavor
put some pants on ‘em
doll ‘em up in a dress
give ‘em a haircut
make ‘em look like sluts
and say things they wouldn’t ever dare say
in front of their mothers—
But where would that get us?
And now we come to the part of the poem
where it might want to say
It’s illegal to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater
but you can burn down a country with lies
for the price of a box of popcorn
or
It’s against the law to lie under oath
but you can lie over an oath
with impunity
That sounds silly
Who ever heard of having sex with impunity?
or how about
It’s forbidden to walk around naked in public
but it’s OK to lie your ass off in Congress
How is that even legal?
It’s a mystery. I guess we’ll find out when we die.
Now the wannabe poem is at a crucial juncture
where it has to make a choice
It can go high or low
It can reach for the spot on the Sistine Chapel
between the finger of God and Adam
or it can descend into a dark angry gutter
use lots of expletives, facetious insults
deeply offensive – offensive remarks
blonde jokes, obscene images
and belittling slurrrrs
that might cause a disturbance in the force
and maybe get it’s teeth kicked in
by sensitive men
who just want to make a loving point
all in good fun of course
Can you think of any?
Let’s call it problematic speech—
that’s a nicer name for profanity
and let’s not go there today
But where?
How about a safe space or a movie theater
where you can say whatever the fuck you want
without fear of recrimination, cancellation
or having to take responsibility for utterance
because you signed a waiver
so you won’t get your tit caught in a wringer?
Profanity. It used to be so simple. So genteel
There were just a few words you couldn’t say on television
but that’s all changed hasn’t it Lebowski?
Now it’s a real can of gummy worms
No one wants to get busted for being
on the other side of a gender bender
or banished for drinking the wrong brand
or jailed for exposing invisible feelings
or stampeded during a matinee movie
because some asshole wrapped in a flag starts yelling FIRE!
Some theaters in the human heart are so dark
Who wants to explore them?
Who wants to write a poem about them? I don’t.
Guy Roads is the chief executive officer at World Poetry Headquarters which is located in the heart of the Gin Mountain Range, up above the timberline overlooking a wild river that flows every direction in the free country of the mind where all are welcome. His work has appeared in other venerable publications such as The Beatnik Cowboy, Mad Swirl, Trailer Park Quarterly, The Blue Collar Review, BeatLife, and Nerve Cowboy, among others.
