The Migration of the Cuckoo

The Dutch talked of Antilles
As if it was Atlantis
Lonely & constant
Have you had your fill of this?

Sing the Northwest Passage
The tidepools and the tundra
Feel your way through the darkness
Take wing, take cover

The Cape of Good Hope to the point of no return
River-blind & sunburned
Dream all night of beauty
Never wake up beauti-
Full up on all-night diner food
Just keeping cool

Stalk these streets
Shimmering & bloodless & happy
Call cops cowboys, & cowboys cops
Take capsules of jungle weeds
Processed for purity

The tide approaches & the tide recedes
Bake the coral & drown the weeds
Hide the bodies & count your beads
Drop the anchor, chart your deeds

I will follow wherever you go
Diamond lanes and levee roads
Past the green-dot sunset
On the Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad

The cuckoo is a pretty bird, warbles as she flies
Bar your windows to her
Hide your eyes
Let nothing come between you
Hold her in your sights
Keep a close watch
Don’t turn out the lights
The fishing bird makes a dome with his wings
Shelter from the sun for the shiny things
Who take his good graces, then are speared where they sit
Sic semper fidelis

The buffalo herd make a run for the hills
Fresh kills, common law
Nature red in tooth and claw
Thus spake the faithless

Faded foam filling that was gnawed by the crow
Bluebells bloom in the barn below
Drain the egg, drop the shells in the snow
Some stories are endless

I will follow wherever you go
Diamond lanes and levee roads
Past the green-dot sunset
On the Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad