Islamophobic phoebes and big-breastedkiskadees starring in Ed Wood’sTechnicolor adaptation of theDance of the Seven Army Surplus Veils

Tyrant flycatchers of a craven new world:
zebra-crested yellow-breasted keskidees
white-winged becards and westwood pewees
grey and tan phoebes tailing
Couch’s mitey kingbird with his
little sliver of a beak and
silver-grey head of hair

Scramble off purple-eyed grass
somewhere east of cascading
mountains and take flight
at the first symphonic strains of
an algorithmically prescient
early warning system

Soar high into an obsidian sky
darkened by terror and
fear of mindless fundo
mentalistic coups de main

Await the signal from Bird King
to swoop down and discharge
their partially digested payload
upon hydroponic hillsides
infested with enemy outposts

Some of the native birds
cower under sagelike brush, while the
air-raid-drilled hold up cocktail
umbrellas on the one hand
and their noses down
on the other
in anticipation of the impending assault
on their quaint sensibilities

(minos – january 2007)