The Age of Ruffled Feathers
Location
I see a space
where no great thought floats among stray feathers
where loud sound chases great stings away
Pain cannot stay here in the vacuum of this tainted room
tainted minds groping numbness
great feeling no longer known
any feeling taken for pennies
the machines we’ve become saving copper for gold
reason for completion
meaning for more
Just…more
I sense fury underneath their feathers
fluffed and colored smothered feathers
wings moneyed to withstand all weather
whether or not the heart can stand the storms
Lightning catching at their metaled breasts
thunder crashing out to shatter the bent,
reaching all ears of the broken and the fixed
but quickly quieted by the syncopation of frenzied emptiness
seeking yet another flash of fear
for fear is a feeling, pennies greeting
I see a light
it blinks with every empty word spoken
broken are their means to comprehend the newness
of a growing planet; a rising and falling race
yet they communicate and feed off of the blinking lights and the radio thunder
sinking souls drowned in sorrow incompatible
nothing left of what they once were
greed the spark that charges this molded people
Metal they have, flesh they remember
Metal they possess and flesh they crave
Self-inflicted illusion mending only their eyes
while the feathers flee in a smoky breeze
I know no end to this voiceless pleading
this seizing of the weakness and words misleading
words are said, small words with much volume
in what would have been in the proudest of voices
choices seemingly a flailing, failing thing of the past
but to my ears, I hear a metallic clash
a sign that my humanity is meant to last
past the present, through the hundred storms
through the birthing of metal from flesh
through the conversion of metal from flesh
through the malfunction of metal from flesh
I fear no conversion
I seek the fallen and help the sick
My voice remains soulful and my singing brings life
my shield remains guarded by metal that breaks for itself,
metal that takes comfort in the feathers I grow
naturally, from spirit
I am earth
to them, I am pure and precious
to them, I am a soul untouched
A soul to be salvaged among scraps
a savior, possibly, if they had such thoughts