"Cockatoo" by William J. Barnum

Photo by Bill Perrault


A Cockatoo of rare design
                  perched
                                  on an awning over a bazaar
                                                  outside the
                                                  palace.

Vendors hawk wares along wharves and banks
                  where goldfinches and river trout
                                  disport themselves in the sun.

Spanish gentlemen
                  recline on benches.

Senoritas
                  promenade.
                                  Castanets in daylight—
                                  rivers flash and tremble.
                                  Laughter fills a bowl of lilacs.

Precious gems rain tears from all the petals.
Darkness presides among daylight mourners
at the Sun Hotel.
         Eiderown on ancient mattress, supporting
         the supine form of Hungarian breasts
         on a cello named “Irene.”

                  Outside, snowflakes whirl.
                  Irresponsible glass toy ball.
                  Christmas city on the mantelpiece of time.

This lap for golden coins on an altar built with fear.
Men spill sperm through same door’s
rust, unhinged down vacant halls, retreating feet.
disclaimed bottles, gutter-rolled
under shadows in the doorway’s lurch.

                                  A leaf,
                                                  a stone,
and rivers endlessly returning
upon seas to roll again.

Misnamed adventure in the
nave of darkness.
Jewels and minutes break
all clocked hands upon the sundial.

                                  madness
                                  clover
                                  hair
                                  hair
                                  hair and meadows
                                  lips
                                  teeth open pomegranates
                                  spill bleeding stones.

Madame, on twilight’s porch,
drinks a toast to Lochinvar,
shattering the night with broken glass!

                  Mannequins pastel
                  a ballet fresco.
                  Death’s museum
                  house window blinded,
                  light stream shuttered!
                  glass-blown flowers.

Phalanges pluck old harp vines
in the junkyard’s orchard.
Scabrous tunes harmonica’d
in drain pipe dazzle.

                              Fire escapes burn with sun fire
                              in the marijuana sky.
                              Dance on a bathtub’s broken rim!

                  Spectacled minotaurs
                  transfigured children prepare this
                  evening’s wind for old men with bottled sores,
                  while flower trumpets sing oblivion grass
                  to an empty sky.