COCKIES
for forty five years this big monstrous bird had sat in
a cage/ betrayed by wing muscles turned to jelly/ had
not stretched its body/ had developed diabetes as its
bowel dropped down to hang over the perch/ yet the
seed dish & water bowl kept its clock-work ticking/
throughout the city/ caged cockatoos squawk around
sunset/ the time when wild flocks move up from the
ground into trees for the night/ angry naughty birds/
big-troubled-biters/ peopled-to-death/ unrelated to a
natural habitat/ yet entire continents are in the eyes of
cockatoos/ power-birds & when they have gone mad
enough to speak the human language/ to swear or call
themselves pretty boys/ or to say: hello fuck off (wolf
whistle)/ then the dark black eye is an abyss/ of crazy-
cross-wiring & a tin seed dish/ the big land that travels
as flocks is reduced to this boxed-idiot/ this old caged
australian/ from the place where civilization runs out/
trapped in a twilight of instinct/ it's about sixty years
old & quite mad/ a head-bobber & chuckler/ its huge
grey beak grimy & weatherworn like sandpaper/ wind
blasted as if the bird had created its looks by its own
dreaming/ as if the australian deserts had reached in
& touched its great old beak to comfort it | 
