Breadmouth is talking about the fall of the economy
while we drown in the sinking pink sunset,
letting the geese fly off and out of the crèche
we built for them on the hillside, using wicker
and wicked thoughts, for freedom is featherless.
We’ve been here every month, catching every one
with the loose crumbs of our speech, for we
are the careless talkers of the century, digging grass
angels with our lack of movement, watching a sunrise
and wishing for it to set, as we are set in resin.
The dew climbs and rests on our pale naked bodies
that we’re obsessed with tanning to the degree
that every leather sofa we pass, is jealous
and lounging around is our disrespectful game.
No longer are we baking today, we’re dining
tomorrow and the day after, without laughter
or intonation or pitch or birdsong climbing
the vapour trail ladders that descend from rescue jets.
No bread for grandmother today. It’s mouldy,
sour dough and coughing yeast, easing itself
into a shallow grave of atmosphere eaters,
no plastic containers or fridge preserves
as we are unreserved wasters, here, upon hilltop,
flocking like the wingless geese. We are
wise to the ways of addiction, plucking the fat
bread obsessed birds from the sky and making
pâté patios, for more beach loungers, so we can
fart and ignore our bed sores, argue about towels
and whose skin is getting thicker in the rising sun.
Our days as vampires have ended, blood is no longer
appropriate, it’s just a distraction, you don’t need
circulation if you’re not rising for anything
other than a waiter bringing a sandwich, and usually,
a goose will die above you, ready for rotisserie,
so here we are, waiting for our feed, while releasing
our geese so they can grow plump and pluck worthy.
Breadmouth’s economy plans are flawed; he likens them
to buoyant balls amidst an ocean of sinkers and stares
at the sun, saying that’s the biggest star we could catch
and yet, all I can offer to him is my lack of opinion.
I am dead for moving, junked up in over fed state,
eating flatbreads, wondering when I had forgotten
to put yeast in the mix, for these crumbs will attract
no foreign flyers or picnicking couples upon the hill top.
I may have to become vegetarian and eat the abundance
of green or a cannibal and over power Breadmouth,
devour his form, so full of bread and rising breaths.
Saliva is masquerading my mouth roof and tongue
eager for a taste of my dearest friend, who is now
honking for his flocking friends to return to his side,
basted with bread and yeast on a mattress of crumbs
browning well in the rising sun. I stand with a struggle,
hearing angels and devils applauding my momentum
as if this is momentous and the hills are witnessing
the death of descent, welcoming the limp body’s ascent,
timed perfect to the sink of the sun, unmotivated
by the light, daring the dark. I clamber, weak on the legs
who have forgotten emoted motion, stagger on what
could be pins propping up a boulder and I tumble
on to Breadmouth, who screams in surprise, ‘HONK!’
And I eat the goose away, the body of my friend,
cooked to perfection, tasting of everything but,
feeling nothing but hungry and lost. I ask the sky
whether or not I should be a cannibal and eat the rest
of the loungers and it doesn’t respond. I guess
that means ‘NO’ and instead, I lay on the grass again,
wishing I had not forgotten the yeast. The sun begins
its rise and it no longer welcomes me, for now
I am cold and brown, ready for migration. An allergic
reaction bristles my skin and feathers begin to puncture
underneath. Like a cocoon I am enveloped, waking
with wind in my bones, hearing the migrant call of
the geese set free. In me, there is a flight taking place,
of the rib cage parting ways with my heart, lifting
me upwards on a thermal current, that before felt
lackluster. I leave on the wings of the foreign flyers,
my brothers and sisters that rise to the sun, despite
knowing it will always descend. A trail of breadcrumbs
fall from my beak lips and I honk goodbye to the hillside,
certain that soon, someone else will be lying there,
wondering why they didn’t put yeast in their picnic bread.
Syllable Syndrome 