so this is recovery, you claim (unfinished business)
January 26, 2008 by rick mobbs
So this is recovery, you claim
you found something new today to name
but all I hear is birds, birds, birds. Last week’s New York Times
sits still unopened. You were interested, you said.
The schizophrenics you have known all led front page lives. The one
or two you tried to reach succumbed
to misery, or death, or sleep.
TEACH ME DEATH you say they dreamed, yet
you dreamed of fish. Now it’s birds.
Birds, birds, birds. All I ever hear is birds. Ain’t
you got no sense? Sometimes Frankie I think the Devil got you.
I think you think too much or not at all. How come
Frankie all this talk of names? EVERYTHING HAS DONE BEEN NAMED
already, Frankie. We both know that, except these damn
birds your house is full of. It ain’t enough to name them Zimri
as a bunch like that. How they tell themselves apart? That’s how
schizophrenics get their start, end up calling theirselves us. How you think
that feel, a whole damn flock within one skull and furthermore, Frankie
I have to disagree. Zimri seems to avoid many potential problems. Perhaps I am schizophrenic?
Since I was Frankie, I’d have to agree. As to schizophrenia, I doubt it. You live so openly.
My god, this is brilliant….brilliant.
A delightful poem, really gets inside the character’s head, and the sound, the repetition… great stuff.