Don't Listen To Those Voices

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For Captain Beefheart

444

Wild birds still stop here
free to cover any distance
they, too, stagger and drop
from the swollen sky
or collide with their monstrous cousins
the manmade damage done,
smoking,
shot through the night
a slow shockwave rattles a window
as engine and wheel, lacking air
approach
they, too, passed through the steel organs
what would they give
to relive these minutes?

445

listening to the nearby gulls
calling for the rain
our bones murmur with the cold
as we unroll our easy brutes
and let them trace the movement of our spines
our hands full of silence
and uncertainty
they are caught in the act
of doing good to others
all the while growing smaller
and filling with wasted regret.