Plumage
John Jessup Kennan 1953 (Pomona)
She's a wilderness of plumage
Posing as oasis land
You delight in feast obtrusive
Spit out the feathers and the sand
She sells passes to purgatory
She's the one that drives the bus
She wears that funny feathered hat
Flame to ash, and ash to dust
The philosophy of science
In feathers on fossils found
Evolves into language mangled
The origin of birds unwound
Moreau strangles the English
German left for Kant and Freud
Better take that jew down off that cross
It's nearly sabbath in the void
The abyss and I had a staredown
Who would be the first to blink?
I stood cool and unflappable
The abyss, it just grinned and winked
There's a living birdie singing
Outside somewhere in a living tree
No need of feathers fossilized
No plume mirages for a fee
So I asked the living birdie
Why he sings so happily
But the birdie just kept singing
Its song response enough for me
It's getting hard to smile now
The birdie sings on life's own terms
He waits for them to lower me
Whence he may feast upon the worms
So please don't waste my time with science
In philosopic words deceased
I don't care about your origin
The little jew ascends in peace
The abyss and I have a staredown
Who will be the first to blink?
Unflappable and cool is he
I grin at the abyss, and wink
© John Kennan 7-25-20
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Submitted by rankstranger7 on May 24, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:14 min read
- 5 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XAXA BXXX CDXD XEXE FGXX HBXB BBHB FIBI CXFX FGBG F |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,241 |
Words | 240 |
Stanzas | 11 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 1 |
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"Plumage" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/100851/plumage>.
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