Yolk and a Burnt Night (Poem)

The dawn had just cracked her egg upon the sky,

and spread its color in wide sweeping strokes

mixing yolk and burnt night,

when I heard their trill and song.

At once distant yet outside my head meters away,

they appeared as blotches of ink against a mottled tangerine sky,

hopping amongst flecks of water that took the hue of blood against the sunrise.

There existed a sense of harmony in their cacophony

as if a hand were orchestrating them like shadow puppets

dancing them along the edge of their birdbath world

whirling them in unfathomable geometric motion to the other side.

There existed in that orchestration extreme violence of sound

a staccato chirping rising and falling in excited waves,

cresting ruffled feathers and slamming into half-opened window

glazed over with my early morning breath,

watching and rubbing their song into existence with...

Mustard colored air drifted insolently above him

touching his lungs with pain

smearing his sunrise with sadness-colored dreams

while meters perhaps miles away the sound of lives popping continued.

At once distant yet directly inside his head,

cannons like rounded metal teeth blinked themselves into life

and shattered skyline with dirty streaks of smoke snaking over his way in arcs.

There existed a deathly lull within his shallow trench,

dug by his hands commanded by another

moving  him to sleep even as others and their parts

danced in different directions to a booming tempo.

There lived an ugly reminder in the muzzle's manic moan

a hush and a click rolling under  his hands

in a simple pattern

as a simple tooth sticking out of the earth

while hurt spreads across fields like swaths of old gum.