Land Singing

I

That is no forest. The leafless trees
Sleek varnished poles
Rising like capitals
From the sludge of language.

No birds sing from them, lest
Their nests decrease
The aerodynamics
Of the fall.

Less interference is
A positive goal,
Pursued by men in
White suits

Who have never seen the inside of a dying horse,
Or felt the maggots strip
The flesh from
Its carcass.

Yet they have stripped the undergrowth from the wood,
Robbed the leaves of morning, trodden black
By boots for mass-market paperbacks, full of
Made-up words.

The birds they evicted circle the horse
That lies abandoned in the field,
Flies screaming round its injury.
And the men look away.

They keep their mind on the road and the
Volume up and the window shut and the door
Locked and safe.
At bay.

Where are the trees they set their eyes on?
Only limbless replicas
And the electric line
Mirroring the horizon.

But that is no home for birds.
Perhaps a spot to practice acrobatics,
The remnants of slow static, quietening
Through their claws.

Where is the static flowing?
The same direction as the cars are going.
Everything is moving towards the tunnels,
Towards home.  

II

Home is where the side holds unwashed dishes, moulds expanding
Slowly from the centres of unfinished mugs of coffee,
Spreading white ambition to an edge
They cannot reach.

From above,
Their spread recalls
That of the forest
Before its fall.

And yet
What bird can shelter
In an imaginary forest
Made of mould?

What bird can find in words that fill
The books that line the shelves, the shapely
Carvings from the self-same wood
That used to harbour owls, a home?

And so the owls are driven to the tunnels,
The only darkness in a constant day.
And other birds disappear up buildings
Out the way.

You do not see them as you enter the tunnel,
Your eyes on the road and your hands
On the wheel and language
Washing round your head.

You are heading home.
Where the only horse is starring glassy-eyed and seizures
From the faux-Picasso there behind the futon.
Home.

Where no horse or bird finishes its dying.
Where no mould reaches its goal.
And the grip of a tree stirs no neurons –
You only know them holding up electrons.