BLUEBIRD
Pfieffer Beach Big Sur California
IF YOU MEET THE BLUEBIRD OF HAPPINESS
ON THE ROAD DON’T KILL HER
Contemplating a tattoo under or near her mastectomied
breast Maybe a bird with a heart on its chest 2 birds with
1 stone His quadruple bypass not far from her scar Set us 3 free
Birds can travel between the realms it is said
In the days before his death a colony of wrens gathered to
whisk him away They returned daily thereafter raising a
cacophony on the balcony where he sat Ticker time-bomb ticking
like the croc who swallowed the clock in Peter Pan
At night the little bluebird tatt will fly off of my chest not a prisoner
of the rib cage unlike my heart No escape without a cardiovascular
surgeon an Egyptian high priest for weighing against a feather A
taxidermist or undertaker
Blue will flitter above me +rise up through the skylight And like the Reaper
in A Christmas Carol walk me through the life that might have been: You
may still be here tomorrow but your dreams may not (Cat Stevens)
So many things I’d wanted to be: rodeo queen missionary in Africa rock star
rebel jezebel And there still may be time
But wait! Bluebird veering west +flying via the prairie provinces to the land of
grapes+honey (+the Beats) It was 30 yrs. ago today young self condoms in
zippered pouch boarded a plane to the sounds of Count Basie with Ella crooning:
April in Paris Raggedy parents waved goodbye Ticker time-bomb 675 more days
alive tic toc tic toc tic ti t
Flew to San Fransisco Big Sur wanderings Medical LSD psychiatrist boyfriend
mailed regularly Broke up with him abruptly during a Marcel Marceau show They
had pay phones back then: It’s not you It’s me
Each morning the bluebird of happiness will return to my chest scented with the
African savannah +California coast all salty+redwoodsey One night many of its
brethren will gather + this time deposit me at Pfieffer Beach Permanently
Back in my bed a warm indent where I used to be Ribcage+caged heart breathe
a sigh of relief on way to the beach What a wondrous thing! And all for $89.99
The tattoo special at: Pearl Harbour Gift Shop Kensington Market Xmas 2017
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History will make this poem prophetic and its awful silliness a spiritual music
I have the moan of doves and the feather of ecstasy (Allen Ginsberg 1961 Kaddish)
Fall 2017 for M.bird + D.bird +Rachel Tyler Atkins
songanddancegirl 