Ostrich in the Closet

Wool coats touch my feathers wrong.
Mothballs smell entirely wrong;
How did i get his legs apart?
Give me a break...I'm a bird with heart.

A heart full of vivid dreams;
Some happy few, but mostly harried.
Birds don't need luggage, so much I've carried.
I'm a bird not a boat; oh so much i've ferried!

I'd found myself a sandy hole.
It perfectly nestled my melon.
Hiding my view of this twisted,
tangled world of felons.
Then the sunbathers poked, plucked,
made callous remarks.
Now I am safe here in the dark.
As a future apallingly stark.

I ignored the sunbathers; they could never leave me be.
Scared me away from my sand and the sea;
the frothy rolling home, in which many creatures delve.
Now here I am inside, knocking against overhead shelves.
Amoungst the boots and boxes of discarded forgotten things.
Secure in this stuffy cage...
Life on hold, full of aching.
Not part of the immense, mad faking.

For mercy the cruel should beg!
The greedily intended would devour my eggs,
make drumsticks of my legs.
My neck they'd wring,
tear off my wings.
Some would even scoop out my brains,
priding their link upon the food chain.

How worrisome are all these frights to me!
So musty in here and I cannot see...
So far away from home by the turbulant sea.

I'mo terrified of how I'd be carved.
No food in here I'll surely starve.
Oh, whatever am I to do?
I desperately need to find a loo!
(So nasty to leave in someone's shoe!)

Sshhh! I hear voices near.
I'm possessed of trembling fear;
heart beating wildly in my breast...
Will they serve me to a guest?
I'm not paranooid, I've been outside;
the many forms of genocide.

Oh, who's out there with the knife?
This is no way to spend my life.



22 August 2005

7:31am