Cerebral Contents:

Update for 05.13.08:

Male Model by Phil Doran

Set to Replay by Willie Smith

Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Tree by G. David Schwartz

05.05.08:

Disintegration by Don Hucks

Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord

Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse

Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi

04.29.08:

Lookalikes by Phil Doran

Dinner by Brandi Wells

The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox

Death by Onions by Michael Frissore

04.21.08:

Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser

Identity Theft by George Anderson

The Datists by Adam Engel

A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde

04.14.08:

Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem

California by Caroline Imreibe

Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson

04.07.08:

The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch

Slideshow by Miles J. Bell

Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen

Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin

03.24.08:

The Streak by Jeremy Hendrix

Grab Your Butts by Emme Hor

Far Away by Ashok Niyogi

Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer

03.17.08:

The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy

Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley

Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson

Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney

03.10.08:

Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson

I'm Quiet in Bed by Moctezuma Johnson

Tequila Shakes by Richard Lighthouse

I'm Sick and Tired of These Motherfucking Birds in This Motherfucking Flu
(or This is No Poem and There is No Bird Flu)

by Iman Nielstroy

This is no poem and there is no bird flu.

I had it in my pack
as I walked the brisk streets.
I hated New York. It was a beast.

It was a tiny bird of an island bloated
like some flightless
extinct New Zealand
idiocy.

Yes, I had it in my pack and I
submerged into the intestines of the city

rejected myself
near the park and
my pack started dripping.

They were all here
and I told them it was true.

But I couldn't be heard and
they didn't care.
They were told, yes, no
it's true, but first listen to
this.
It's not

too often

and my speech was
the symptom they ignored.

It was fine. I stopped
at the kiosk and
took out the wet bird

handed it over and waited
as the feathers plucked off
and drifted in the wind.

One by one the bird was nude
and he lifted it in pride.

But the feathers were in the air.

He pulled a sword from his pocket
and made the dead thing swallow it.
Then began to roast it in his
yellow
artificial lights.

I waited and read the paper
as the feathers floated higher and higher
breaking apart into more feathers

I waited until they were too high to see
and I went back to the man cooking the
corpse

we bit into the dead bird ravishingly
and smiled with the juices dripping down our cheeks

we gave the bird meat away for free.

It was a feast until the feathers
began screeching their way from the heavens
in the form of airplanes

smashing into streets as people ran and screamed
and I stood there with the juice of the cooked bird
dripping down my chin
pooling at my feet.

(First Place Winner of the 2006 Bird Flu Poetry Contest)
______________________________________
posted 11.13.06.

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