New Poems by Al Maginnes

Birds, In Fact and Theory

It has to happen: the bird becomes
                                                        metaphor
for the idea. The fact of bird, tendon
and feather wrapped around a dollop
of fear,
             falls away.
                                 I can empty
an afternoon watching
                                     their patterned flight,
the randomness with which they arrive
and depart,
                     always bound somewhere better,
their songs a tangle of notes I have no need to learn.

This late in my career
                                    as cloud-watcher, bird listener,
the main fact I want from their existence is joy,
not the catastrophic math
                                          awaiting us all,
their species or song,
                                     not the ontological
or metaphysical calculations
that subtract the bird until it embodies
the absence we feel when they vanish
at once.
              Another absence that carves itself
into the body of physics that claim
a wing flutter
                        might stir a hurricane.
Make of the birds what you will. I hope
            to walk outside tomorrow and find
the accustomed tempest.

Historic Analysis

Atomic weapons knew each others’ names         
when I was born. I was among the last
to scrunch under my desk, its wood one more
layer that would crumble on top of my
small and still-ignorant frame. Waiting for
the sky to explode, I heard songs that screamed
the screams I was forbidden to utter.
The blocked screams became protests, campaigns,
then driving too fast, whiskey and needles.
Learning to make guitars scream out loud for us.
Running until blood blocks the hearing. Sometimes
we need silence. Today, there is more news
and more music than anyone can take in.
As far as we know we only get one life.

Transition

The day we got wings was a disaster.
Unable to navigate, we swerved
into power lines, spiky limbs, hit others
as clumsy as we were. There were casualties—
the power lines or sailing full speed
into windows or brick walls. A few might have
tangled with low flying planes. Medics took
a long time responding because they had
no control over their wings, over this
new power some already questioned.
Most of us learned to fly well enough,
to fold our wings for sleep and to keep them clean.
But a few hollow-boned rose from among us
and sailed into the lives they were meant for.