Author: H.

The parrots come screeching over the back yard,

A pair of them, mates perhaps, or siblings.

I looked in Wikipedia, they are monogomous,

But like us? Highly imperfect, veering after

Another of their kind, caught in the fantasy

Of a thrill that might soar but sooner or later

Will land with a thud. They live in the

Giant fan palm down the block; the man

In the nearest house brought out his gun

And tried to shoot them; he was driven mad

By their loud shrill colloqies but his

Neighbors failed to understand, they warned him,

The police would be called if he tried again.

The man moved and the parrots stayed,

Their green feathers glossy in the sunlight,

Their cries of ecstasy or anguish or maybe

Just rote noises like the dog’s bark that

Erupts for no reason in the middle of the night.

Or no apparent reason, I should say,

Because how can we know what enters

The canine brain, the skull of the parrot

With its prehistoric beak, useful for cracking

Nuts and seeds, I learned, a fact of no

Importance, no utility in a world we believe

To be of our own making when it fact it

Belongs to the parrots that screech from

The regal heights of their lofty tree.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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I asked the dog why she barked at the moon,

And she said, because it’s the moon.

You’re begging the question, I said.

Didn’t your mother teach you anything,

When you were in the kennel?

She gave me that look I take to mean

Give me a break, will you.

Why is the moon round, she asked,

And I wondered if it was a trick question.

I said, I don’t really know, come to think of it.

Don’t know? she said. Are you kidding me?

The moon is round because it’s the moon!

She had been standing but now she sat,

Proud of herself, I suppose. Deserving a treat.

That’s another logical fallacy, I said.

Circular reasoning. Surely you learned that somewhere.

At least I had an answer, she said, sounding miffed.

You didn’t know anything.

You didn’t even try to figure it out.

Okay, I said, it’s out there spinning in space

And over millions of years all the corners

And high spots get worn off and it eventually

Becomes a sphere. How’s that?

Idiotic, she said. The moon doesn’t rotate.

That’s why the dark side is always dark.

I’m very surprised you didn’t know that.

I was certain she was wrong but I didn’t know why

So I decided to change the subject.

Why do you chase cats, I asked?

Because they’re cats, she said, and she shook her head

And went off to her favorite corner to lie down.
 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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The eucalyptus leaves twitter against

The dull, flat sky. Is the sun’s absence

Punishable? The brain awakens more slowly

Than the muscles, the bones, the tissues

All twitching with energy pent up

In the inert but harrowing night, while the brain

Lumpen and inactive in the skull,

Sends rote signals here and there,

Without reflection. Random movements

Like the cat’s prowling through the labyrinths

Of back yards. Memory, knowledge, beauty,

Truth trapped on neural roads closed for repair.

It’s like the gray nest of wasps secluded in the eaves,

Light, sound, color, movement pokes it, keeps

Poking it until tractable thought comes pouring forth,

Buzzing, swarming, an angry chaos that erupts

Into the murmur of imagination, into speech, into

The reckoning that carries the bones and tissues

And organs into the tunnels and passages

Of another gray and bewildering day.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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