XIV

S.D. Mullaney

A man and a man and a woman and a woman
And a poem and an automatic rifle
And a bullet and a blackbird
Are one.

 

XV
I'm totally beaking
Out my own eye
After tomorrow.

After tomorrow,
I'll never ogle
The eye of another
Blackbird.

 

XVI
Sex sells.
Sex sells poetry.
Blackbirds sell poetry.
I've sold poetry
for sex.

 

XVII
Blackbirds
Are considered sexy
Wherever pigeons
Are ugly.

 

XVIII
O, glutted citizen
Of this city Square,

Evacuate your squishy
Coils. How absently

You out-produce
The most beloved

Blackbird. Bestow
Your pearls where

I just this moment wished
To walk,

Or on my forehead,
Which counts as a sign

Of Grace in certain
European countries.

 

XIX
Pigeon biographies
Always end

With protagonist crushed
By a crowd at a ballgame,

Or conscientiously
Poisoned.

 

XX
Did you know
The abridged pigeon
Beak bites with the strength
Of a baker's dozen?

 

XXI
Please do something
With your blackbird:
Stuff it

And serve it on
Thanksgiving.
I'd be thankful.
I love blackbird.

 

XXII
I'll take my tuxedo
With a soft pretzel;
I wear my cowboy
Hat with pigeon feathers.

 

XXIII
Wallace Stevens is the answer
To tonight's Daily Double:

What is the sound
Of one pigeon clapping.

for Kevin

S.D. Mullaney earned his MFA in Poetry/Creative Writing from the UMass Boston. This is his first appearance in Anomalous Press; other poems have appeared in Hanging Loose, Pemmican, Breakwater Review, Hoi Polloi, and The New York Review. His work has been heard on WERS 88.9 FM Boston and WOMR 92.1 FM Provincetown. His first collection of poetry, Follow the Wolf Moon, is available from MJS Publishing, and he's working on subsequent collections and projects. A Plymouth native, Mullaney recently co-edited the first edition "Common Threads: seven poems and a wealth of readers" for the Mass Poetry Outreach Project, available at www.masspoetry.org. He's taught creative writing at the Walter Denney Youth Center in Dorchester and at Renewal House, a Boston-area shelter for victims of domestic violence. He currently works as a critical writing instructor at UMass Boston's College of Nursing and Health Sciences and is at work on his second collection.