Summer ebbs and I haven't any plans. I am like the flotsam and jetsam on the tide. Perhaps I am saving up my resources for something that has not yet become conscious. More likely, though, it is a mental/spiritual disorder.
The time I should be in deepest sleep has become haunted again by that empty nothingness into which one can fall when things are darkest. This is not a call for succoring, just a detail. I am blaming it on my binge watching of "Breaking Bad." I hate that show but keep watching nonetheless. I think it disturbs my sleep.
I no longer envy animals. They have no lessons to teach me any more. They can neither help nor save themselves. Their condition is more horrible than ours. I watched a mockingbird nest for several days in a small tree just outside the window in front of a row of treadmills at the gym. The mother would fly off to get a bug and fly back. There were three offspring. I watched the mother, watched the chicks, and knew right away that only one would survive. It was larger than the others and had the widest mouth, the loudest cry, and she kept feeding it. A woman next to me marveled to me upon observing the scene. It is not something you often get to watch. "See the big one," I said. "He's getting all the food. I think the others are going to starve to death." She looked at me with a mixture mild horror and disgust. Why couldn't I be nice, I wondered? Why do I have to be both observant and vocal.
Two days later, there was only one chick in the nest. I want to go up in a week or so and see if there are tiny skeletons I can steal. Certainly they would come in handy.
I read somewhere that a certain type of bird will lay an egg in the nest of a weaker species. Then the "native" babies are pushed out by the stronger, larger interloper.
ReplyDeleteOh, I do like the lighting and the composition of today's photo. Lots of room for the title against the green, and a space across the bottom for the author's name.
It's the cuckoo. I forget which bird's nest they lay it in, but the eggs look identical. The cuckoo once hatched, though, grows twice as fast.
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ReplyDeleteYour "posters for crime novels" reminded of a poem.
Lily Carson
The crystal ashtray is full,
the coffee reheated
the roaches bored;
she had had someone else’s motion
in her mind,
naked as she was on the white soiled sheets
that’s the bang in last week’s beat
her ass grey in the white neon.
John slid thru
in elegant suede, midnight shoes,
his cock enhanced by suicide jacks
elongated by complex meditations,
a hidden concoction of contortion.
Same girl. They wanted her to be a whore,
but she was too fast for that,
slipping through the door
with her panties still on the floor.
“evidence”, the big guy said
stabbing them with his pen,
“somebody jacking off at the thought of them.”
she was sweet,
dusting the china
in the old woman’s flat,
holding vigils by the liquor store,
or rolling in the old man’s fat
his farts constant
underneath the roll of the storm,
his small eyes blinking back tears.
The city stared lewdly,
blinking through the smog caked
windows
her thigh was very soft
some say still crusted with lust.
A tin jazz was lonely in the hall,
the horns thin against the white plaster walls,
the old urine smells had their own stall,
looking on the city.
footsteps were loud on the wooden floor.
John walked on the gravel path
his midnight shoes
slick on the damp stones
while his new cane
whirled and tapped
between the rain soaked leaves
It was cold;
left too long alone.
there was an absence in the room,
a staleness,
she had left
abruptly
without goodbyes.
by Thomas E. Brady
Oh that man was lucky :)
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