Somnambluebirds

OK, let me explain.  This is a poem that refuses to lay down and die.  It won't resolve itself - it's been in my 'to redraft' pile for about eight years now.  About four years ago I made the mistake of thinking that it was resolved and got a version of it published in "The Delinquent" magazine, but despite their seal of approval I still wasn't convinced.  So I reworked it again.  And again.  And again.


The version you can see below is the latest version, and whilst I feel that my mind is far too weary of the whole idea to really do anything better with it now, there's no guarantee that I won't come back to this again at some point in the not-too-distant future.  In the meantime, this is probably as good as it gets.

Those colourful talking birds,

they come to you in the middle of the

night, fly through the open

sash window like mis-fired

darts from the street corner pub,

scuffle and scrape beaks and

claws across skirting boards like

finger bones on wood.

They murmur their

demands in voices like a

choir of schoolgirls

humming the national anthem

slowly, out of tune

with each other, plead with

trembling beaks like

tweezers delicately gripping at

the splinter of a truth.

They bother like all beasts

bother, climb to kick at the

ghosted screenburn of

bad old ideas, tug the

sheets in the compass

direction of your last lover,

morbidly mutter the

name your parents would

have called you had you

been deemed worthy of it.

They stole your instinct

at birth, and are now

acting on it, indefinitely,

reaching for a conclusion

you have been denied.