1st Section/ Voice A/Poem 4 Title: Waiting for a new bird to arrive
“Waiting for a New Bird to Arrive” is Fragment 4/1st Section/ Voice A of a larger work in three voices. Following completion of the combined voice work, additional poems were created to feature each individual voice. The first two sections of this work measures approximately 120’ by 3’. Due to the difficulty of printing and publishing such a large work, approximately 75 shorter poems or fragments are being created (both single and multi-voiced).
* * *
If things had worked out any differently, we’d be covered in fur
tremble out of this heart-shaped den
eye-deep in the soft theater shape we call our own
a new blue of the same old sky-life
waiting for all the other colors to arrive
well, is this what happens when the final message gets erased from space?
when there is no one left to love you?
yes, you
tonight’s radio star
live bone of an invincible desert sky
or whatever
your final destination may be
it was you all along
waiting for a kiss
waiting for the big party
parade in the sky to begin
waiting in snail’s moist path
for a new bird to arrive
hell yeah
collect drippings from my life-like glaze
clarify this fat of early tear-light
& drizzle our birth into the first and last
best spell
any one
I mean anyone
could ever imagine
* * * * * * * * *
Jeff Russell is a poet living and working in Durham, North Carolina where he lives with his wife and daughter. He is the co-founder of icEdge, a small educational software company. Jeff studied creative writing at the University of Arizona and Classical Chinese Poetry at UNC-Chapel Hill.
featured artwork by Brad Brown
