A Fable (The Proud Eagle)

An eagle, famous, glorious and proud,
majestically descended down toward
the water, caught a common carp, between
colossal claws, but then before it climbed
toward its kingly nest high on the peak,
a voice had spoke, “Sad you’ve settled for me.
You whose dignified name would chill the sharks.”
Offended now but not finding the carp
worthy of answer, thus choosing instead
to drop the carp, go on seeking to find
a carp worthy of filling such gizzard.
It circled ‘round a few times till it found
a bigger carp, and caught it in its claws,
just perfect for a proud respected king.
But soon the mumbles came, “Consume me fast,
you bird whose name had truly scared me once,
so others won’t witness such disgrace,
ruler of skies once now here eating this!”
And so the bald eagle circled again,
and struggling harder with the latest one,
each bigger and heavier than the last,
while growing hungrier, and much fatigued.
At last in picking up the biggest carp,
it lost control and sank into the sea,
unwilling to let go and so became
a mess of rotting fat without a name,
and food for worms that laughed at vanity.
There’s lesson in this if you want to hear:
Let go of pride that weighs you down to death.

Black Waters

River run
Down the mount
Let diamonds pour
Cleanse the fetid pipes
Where black waters roar
Past the ponds
Where mallards glide
Forgotten mounds of rocks
That fade in the sun
Purge this human waste
Chase the swell of rats
The jellied fats
Of nameless fish
Feces and filth
roaches and tortured ants
Evil and pestilent guilt
River run
Into the night
Of my days
Erase
All this

Rain

The rain must pour, the windows fogged; 
The gurgling cyclone spits and gongs
inside the bone-spring of acid 
where mucus seesaws up and down

The selfsame fountain feeds my eyes 
Aboil as conscience of a saint; 
or fish soup that prolongs the strain 
of homeless underneath the rain. 

The Little Mermaid

The dripping black descends her back.
The blue lips (painted onyx black)
against her battered knees they rub—
But who is babbling in the tub? 
I don't recall the drowning but 
the ocean raging flaming red.

I hovered high above the flesh. 
The sirens; flash; then silence 'gain.  
That scent of skin, dissected fresh.   
The little mermaid...living dead.