This mourning

mind spinning like a broken record

pied shag, pied shag, pied shag

It’s a bird 

When the finger points to the sky, the fool looks at the finger 

Plain

Beatles

Bananas

Sweat 

and ice storm screams 

Emerged from an echo chamber 

With a decidedly leaky valve 

Frozen pipes

Drip

hard to stay warm

When it’s been cold for

So long…

Woke knowing I’d heard it before

a bird called by a different name

Fly

No doll chicken 

Anything but that

A choking messenger of obstacles 

Why pied 

Sighed eyed 

It’s not why the addiction 

But why the pain

Radical compassion always feels undeserved 

That’s why it nearly killed him in the kitchen 

But on the third day

He rose again 

In fulfillment of 

The stripped shirt

Showered in soot shamed corners 

Where light once slowly burned 

Lonely orange 

Shag 

Where I squatted over sushi 

attempting to understand 

How even an artichoke had a heart 

Despite ample 

Possibility 

Of being devoured 

By a hunger which had previously been buried under what felt like an insurmountable mountain of work 

Still I rise 

It’s painted all over the unfinished bathroom walls 

Mixed media lines 

of wings 

Fapping inside a self imposed cage

L is silent 

Beat till its 

Dancing off the edge of a cliff 

And fell 

Like a sour lullaby 

To its death ~

Once, upon another time…spirit said x3…we just pray this was it.

 PIED: messenger of making obstacles visible so they can be fished out from our path. I had a close and personal encounter with one. We danced on the shores of gator infested waters. Despite ample probability of being devoured, I surfaced, emerging with renewed desire for something which had previously been buried under what felt like an insurmountable mountain of work.

It’s clear now, the work is done and half begun. xo

Original piece: Pied Shag