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Poetry || SubmissionsPoems by Richard FeinLIVE FREE AND DIE Never could I win the friendship of the thing. No, he wouldn't perch on my shoulder or eat seed from my hand. That damn bird cost money, plenty too. I was his master, but he wasn't my pet. Occasionally, if I held my finger out, real close maybe, maybe he would hazard a hop like a nervous bather sticking a toe into icy waters. And talking? Polly wanna cracker, ha Polly gonna bite and he hurt. He never understood me nor I, him. Perhaps something Freudian imprinted on his brain just after hatching, or maybe he just wanted to stretch his wings in a place where they wouldn't touch iron bars. Winter the cold would have killed so I wrapped a blanket around the cage, but I opened the door trying one more time for friendship. Bolting out the cage, he flew atop the bookcase then fluttered his wings against the wall. He seized the opening above the top window and perched there for just a moment, then he spread his tropic red, green feathers wide wide into the arctic air. WRONG NUMBER Awakened and half asleep, having just dreamed of her, I reached for the phone. I heard the whirr and clicks in the receiver as almost unconsciously I started dialing my girl friend's number. The ringing, the receiver being lifted, "Hello I love you," I said. But the voice was my ex-wife's. I, she were speechless, and I could hear the whining of the telephone circuits. SQUINTING TOWARD THE LIGHT "Race faster daddy so we can meet the sun." I speed along the highway, the sun visor down. "Faster daddy, faster. Beat the sun. Ahead there must be a place to meet, where we can stop and watch the sun come down from heaven and wave goodbye to it. And we can wait all night for it to come up again, then we can yell and clap when we see it in the morning and maybe shake hands with it." This is logic of my five-year-old. "Faster daddy," but I'm at my limit now. "Faster daddy." I reply, "No one can beat the sun." "Not even a racing car, daddy?" "No." "A fire engine?" "No." "A plane?" "No." "A super big plane?" "Nothing on earth can go fast enough to meet the sun, nothing. The faster you come close, the faster it races away If you keep trying, you'll run in a big circle, ending exactly where you began. And the sun won't be any closer, though after trying so hard you'll probably make believe it's nearer." He answers with only, "But daddy, can't we just try?" LADY, look at that cattail reed, there, by the lake. Its cylindrical tip tips sideways and without underpinning its head bobs and sways when blown by every crisscross current of wind. It seems to bow before another member of its species which still stands tall and is seemingly faultless. Our broken reed tries to reach its neighbor, perhaps it will brush against it. But the same wind which blows our crooked stick so close also blows its faultless friend away, so like swaying cilia they touch only briefly at their tips. Lady my fingertips briefly brush your hair but you bob and weave away so skillfully. Lady, lady I confess love but all you do is listen so courteously. THE FIVE BILLION YEAR PLAN FAILS And God confessed, "I preordained everything, or so I thought. I set the rules, now I must abide by them. I overthrew the void. I bolted the universe together. But now the thirsty claim I bolted from it. They don't understand; they judge too harshly. My grand Eden failed in the particulars. I was too right lobed for this venture. Simply to give drink to the thirsty, I must manipulate an ordered array of causalities just to aim a rain cloud. When I succeed it's called a miracle. Miracles rarely happen, that's why they're called miracles. I can't simply extend a cupped hand full of water and say to them here, drink. They can't actually feel my hand nor I their thirsty lips. All that comes from me must flow through channels, and I have carved a spider's web of deltas. The plan was too top heavy. I am overwhelmed, but I am too far committed. Power sharing? No, they wouldn't understand. The solution, command myself to vanish. Even chaos finds a pattern, a new order must eventually settle. They'll still pray to their idols, but now, at last, all idols will really be just stone. When they thank me they'll hear their echoes and think that I've answered or cared. At last they'll become gods unto themselves. Billions of small deities commanding their own mundane miracles." Richard Fein can be reached through bardofbyte@aol.com More poems by Richard Fein at Ariga Today's Situation
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