tigering blues & lament VII: flowers 2 by Ruby Constance
tigering blues
1
garden scene, it is open season in the
garden. it is time to kill. it is well
documented that most things occur in gardens, in back yards, or
front yards, or on front porches, for in these places the
human impulse grows like wild rocket. yes
it is here the fat birds sing together chords
like stained glass while the tigers only
dance, but the tigers often mistake love for
lust and today they are feeling
promiscuous.
2
a soft paw here, a left boot there,
ambiguously...it is well documented that
the distinction between native and non-
native birds is only a matter of patri- and
semiotics, but by the fire the tigers sit now
for their hands are soiled. their thighs are
as thick as mountains. they sit with their
wet mouths open, yes they are only
hopeless romantics but they often mistake
lust for bloodlust.
3
it was open season and the birds have
fallen quietly apart from love. for in these
places the human impulse grows mad, and
old, and turns to seed quickly and softly
like wild rocket. because the tigers do not
care about the distinction between native
and non-native birds. they do not care
because they are not patriots, they are not
linguists, they are only delinquents. they
are only pirates of love.
4
and there is nothing to dance along to now
for only shards of purple glass are left, and
these deadening birds. but we must all lie
in the beds we have made around which
we bury our dead. and so the tigers do not
move now, they lie down forever in the
garden, turning only their great piss-yellow
eyes like empty satellites, sadly, towards
the darkening sky.
lament VII: flowers 2
i carry a flower with me everywhere for, reasons
dependant on mood:
sometimes out in front; hanging from limp fist
bending from mouth; like cool and pretty cowboy
leaning from breast pocket; gay, frivolous
poking from ear; modernist, mechanistic
bowing from garter belt; suggestive, sepulchral
my reasons include:
pathos
kitsch
drama
my reasons do not include:
romance
often i am mistaken for
a girl
do i look like i am doing this
for fun?
