The Conscious Parrots
Monk parakeets, the towers cellular,
the places where they build their nests of sticks.
Their cries to parrots are most similar.
It’s their demeanor and intelligence,
that’s, to Psittacidae, peculiar.
They always travel in a mated pair.
One day when I was exiting my car,
parked in the lot, the yoga studio’s,
I heard from far above, up in the air
the sounds of their distinctive squawking cries.
Two parakeets flew in a pattern there.
An interlocking spiral, they descend,
and, near to me, upon the ground, they land.
With just a little flapping of her wings,
the larger female then began to speak:
“Our population was established here
some 50 years ago when we escaped,
or sometimes, we on purpose were released.
A local breeder had released nineteen
in 1981 in Zilker Park.
Our nests are dense, and in the winter time,
we share them with some other mating pairs,
and in this way we trap our body heat,
and thus survive the Texas winter’s cold,
contrary to our, nature, tropical.
“Somehow because, in close proximity
to those transmissions through the cellular
antennas where we lived and made our nests,
the electromagnetic waves transmit
the human words and data, images,
there is a structure in our parrot brains
that’s part of our unique biology,
like the caudate putamen in your own.
Radio frequencies we can receive,
and we began to understand your words.
When we increased our speech in frequency,
repeating certain phrases that we heard,
once we had mastered it, the art of speech,
a short step to achieving consciousness.
And now there is a population, small,
of parakeets with the intelligence
to conjoin meaning to the words they speak.
Then, to emotions, words, we correlate.
The actions of you humans we observed.
It’s from our natural curiosity,
we activate our brains’ biology.
This was the way we, consciousness, achieved.
Now we can link real meaning to our words
which formerly were only parroting,
the sounds devoid of all significance.
“This, how our parrot conscience has arose,
unburied finally from that strange occult–
the fall where all the animals lost speech.
How sin had covered all our consciences.
“A secret message, here, to bring to you,
and speak it to you in our squawking voice.
All of we birds observe a common law.
The Raven King is he who sent us here,
king of all birds (he is at least for now).
Him, by our common law, we must obey
(The separate Codex for the Flightless Birds–
the penguins, emus, and the ostriches:
the only birds who, literacy, have.
With written words, how they communicate.)
and his commands. This is pertaining you:
“‘There is no meaning that we can divine
from our existence in and of itself,
but only, how, each challenge, we confront.
When all is right and going in our way,
there’s no distress, but sometimes all at once,
all we can do is to observe ourselves.
Not, with the negative, identify,
but also see how we self-justify.
Assert our right to not be negative.
And of ourselves we are not critical.
We understand the multiplicity,
the carousel of our identities.
The only antidote, the remedy:
administration of the conscious shock.
Move in our minds to self-remembering.
We are, our consciences, unburying.’”
The Orb
The Orb
I’ve never witnessed any miracles
except the glowing plasmoid in our house,
how an angelic being came to me,
a thunderstorm in Houston. I was three
or four; this is an early memory–
one time when I was standing in the hall,
a glowing orb, a perfect lightning ball
descended through the ceiling, hovering,
and slowly down the hallway it proceeds
into the living room with its TV.
No conscious messages that I received,
I felt no fear, instead, a gentle peace,
but now, how I look back, this, I believe–
the glowing orb, my angel guardian
this form how he, to, manifested, me.
This manner, I was marked, or claimed, or blessed,
as being one of them whom God possessed.
How it accelerates into that eye,
this crackling lightning plasmoid projectile,
a little bigger than a soccer ball,
into the Cyclops, where the orb then flew,
and an explosion, up, the TV, blew.
The orb inside the TV, small, became,
and tunneled through the cord into the wall,
and disappeared completely from our place.
My father can’t confirm these things to me.
It might be that he wasn’t home that night,
of this event he has no memory.
My mother, though, confirms this narrative
as being accurate, substantially.
The Demon in the Mirror, or The Scrying Mirror
The Demon in the Mirror, or The Scrying Mirror
The only way that I can justify
my actions–it’s my base humanity:
men, desperate, those deeply suffering
act sometimes with irrationality.
A month had passed since I had surgery
to cut out from my body part of me:
my prostate that benignly grew too large.
My urinary function, it impaired.
Antibiotics that they’ve given me
as treatment with this recent surgery
disturbed the microbiome in my gut
and my digestion wasn’t up to snuff.
I struggled with a painful hemorrhoid
and, with my doctors, how I felt annoyed.
More fiber, laxatives, what they prescribed,
but both those remedies, before, I’d tried.
I never turned to demonology
but desperation, all that I could feel.
The constant stinging pain inside my ass–
be damned forever if that pain could pass.
I read about that divination means
of scrying, mirror gazing, what to see?
The first step that I took, my path of doom,
into a mirror in a darkened room.
By gazing at reflective surfaces,
emerge from them, some ghostly images.
My soul, the price this wisdom purchases.
How from the mirror, spirits might appear.
A genie from a bottle, summoning;
for answers in the ether, rummaging.
For hours and hours, how long that I would wait,
my body lying on the floor, prostrate,
and by my arm a mirror on the ground,
the ceiling of the room, to, upward faced.
The room is dark with no electric light.
Pervades the room, the darkness of the night.
There, by my forearm, into it, I gaze.
I think of nothing in that special way
the years of meditation, in me, trained.
I thought that scrying could be innocent.
Of divination, I was curious,
but, too, the church forbade such practices.
Not too long after I began to scry,
the ghostly faces, how they would appear.
It was a happening, unusual.
The mirror shimmered. I relaxed my gaze.
I use some cream to, pain, alleviate.
I feared that my surrender was too late.
I cried out, “Cure me of my hemorrhoid!”
The demon shook his head from side to side,
most sadly like he truly sympathized
with me and this, my painful malady.
These words he spoke, his raspy, spirit voice:
“The bad bacteria, you must destroy
to change the microbiome in your gut.
It’s bleach you need, the special kind they use
to purify that water in the pool
you swim in when you go to exercise.
An extra mouthful, swallow it right down
and those bacteria won’t stay around.
You’ll cleanse your gut and that relieves the strain
upon your rectum when you defecate.”
Enraged at once, when I had heard his words,
I cast the scrying tool away from me.
The spirit disappeared, then, instantly.
I had full knowledge that I’d been deceived.
Thanks to these lonesome vales
So fair the game, so rich the sport
Diana’s self might to these woods resort.
Rhyming Isaiah (free download!)
I Miss You
I Miss You
Expression, will you bring me some relief?
My hope is measured by a depth of ink,
it’s like a well, encased inside a pen.
The well that fills with blood inside my heart,
embedded in my chest, o’erflowing font.
Combine now, blood and ink scrawled on this page!
I would command you as I do the wind!
It does my bidding for I know a secret spell.
The wind, the blood, the ink, my spirit, too,
I would command it, but if, like a well,
my heart’s, then how my spirit is a bird,
and how, just like a killdeer, it will flit.
A drain into my heart that overflows,
my first words spoken only unto me.
My blood, no more contained but mixed with ink,
and how it’s written large upon this page.
Spoke to the ether, carried by the wind.
The blood and water, wells and birds and wind.
I’d write of all these things to find relief,
to remedy the pain of missing you.
Rhyming Psalms, Psalm 20 (Newstyle)
Rhyming Psalms, Psalm 20 (Newstyle)
May, in the day of trouble, you, the Lord,
give, answer, may the Name of Jacob’s God
defend you; send you from his holy place,
help, and you, out of Zion, give you strength;
remember all your many offerings
and, your burnt sacrifice, take everything;
grant you your heart’s desire, and your plans,
all of them, prosper, what the Lord commands.
For joy, we will shout out, your victory,
at it, and triumph in the Name of God
who’s ours, and, your requests, may they all be
that which the Lord shall grant immediat’ly.
Is victory, I know what the Lord gives
to his anointed, how he’ll answer him
out of his holy heaven: his right hand,
with all its strength that is victorious.
How some will put their trust in chariots
and some in horses, but we will, upon,
call, the Name of the Lord our God. Fall down,
how they collapse, and, but we will arise,
and once again, together, stand upright
O Lord, give victory unto the king,
and when we call, give us your answering.
T. H. Chalm’s Theory on Salamanders
“Chalm was a salamander biologist pursuing his obscure and highly dubious theory that, millions of years ago, the Barton Springs blind salamander lived (geographically amidst Gondwanaland/Pangea) in a symbiotic relationship with the endangered deaf fire salamanders now found only in remote subterranean caves of Languedoc-Roussillon, France: the blind warned the deaf of predators that only could be heard, and the deaf warned the blind of those that only could be seen.”
Millions of years of continental drift sadly dissolved this partnership.
From The Life and Times of T.H. Chalm by Roland Wiederaenders
Fairy Ring
Fairy Ring I walked into a quintessential glade, when, on the green belt, I went wandering. A slight departure from the well-worn trail, into the middle of a fairy ring. A canopy of branches arched around, more an ellipse, how mushrooms sometimes grow, each was embedded neatly in the ground, the shape comprised instead by pale white stones, by thirteen points, an oblong circle, made. At once, without a warning, there they were, (a forest church, this was a sacred place), twelve beings by each stone (but one) appeared. I neither said a word nor did I scream. My silence saved me from the fairies’ spell. I didn't know about it at that time. If I had spoken, this, what they would tell: they would deny the world, by God, was made, but rather, makes it, he, continuously. The afterthought that never went unsaid: if he e'er stopped, how all would cease to be.
Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 66
Rhyming Isaiah, Chapter 66 Thus says the LORD: the heavens are my throne, and as my footstool, how the earth is known. What is the house that you would build for me; where is it that my resting place will be? All of these things are what may hands have made, the LORD says, when all of them, to be, came, then they were mine. But I consider him, the humble man for whom I have regard, he who’s oppressed, who trembles at my word. Some slaughter oxen, or they might, a man, some strangle dogs, or sacrifice a lamb, whoever brings an offering of grain is like him who brings blood, that of a swine, who, in memorial burns frankincense is just like him who will, an idol, bless. These people who have chosen their own ways, delight in their abominations, take. I too will take delight in mocking them. I’ll bring about the things that they most dread because when I called, no one answered me, when I spoke, my words, they did not perceive, but they did what was evil in my sight and chose to do those things that I despise. Hear, of the LORD, the word, you who revere his word: Your fellow countrymen who bear hostility to you, and who, you, spurn, for my name’s sake have said, words, these “Let him, the LORD, be glorified so we may see your joy,” but it is they who’ll be, to shame, put, there, it’s how they will be found. Now hear them, from the city, uproar’s sounds! The temple, from, a voice, that of the LORD! His voice deals to his foes their just rewards. She gave birth without laboring before; before her pain, to her, a son was born. Whoever heard of anything like this? A thing like this lacks any witnesses. How can a nation be born in a day? In just an instant, can one, in that way be brought to birth, a country? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, from her womb, she, children, brought forth. Shall I bring her to the point of labor and deliver, not? the LORD says; shall I be the one who shuts the womb, I who deliver? says your God. Jerusalem, rejoice with, and be glad, all you who love her, share her joy with all your heart, you who for her once spread the pall– that you might nurse and would be satisfied from her consoling breast; that, with delight, you, deeply, might drink from her milk supply. For thus the LORD says, I shall make it flow, prosperity, just like a river, o’er her, and the wealth of nations like a stream that overflows, and her babes, in her arms, will, carried, be, and dandled on her knees. Just as a mother comforts him, her child, so shall I comfort you, and you will find that in Jerusalem, you’re comforted. How you shall see,and your heart shall rejoice; your bodies, they shall flourish like the grass; and then the LORD will make his power known among his servants, and, to all his foes, his indignation, he will clearly show. For how the LORD is coming? It’s in fire, and chariots, his, are, a whirlwind, like, to pay his anger back in fury, great, and his rebuke, of fire, in its full flames. For it’s by fire, the LORD will judge that way, and by his sword, all mankind, he will strain, and many are the ones the LORD would slay. Those who, for garden-rites, will consecrate themselves and purify themselves, that way, who follow him who’s in a magic ring, who eat the flesh of pigs, revolting things, and rats: it is their ends that they shall meet, the LORD says, for I know their thoughts and deeds. I come to, every nation, gather them, of every language, how it is they’ll come, and see my glory. I will set a sign on them. From those of them who will survive, I’ll send them to these nations they will find, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud–who draw the bow– to them, both Tubal, Javan, they will know, to distant coastlands that are far away, to places where they’ve never known my fame, or seen my glory, and they shall proclaim my glory ‘mongst the nations. They shall bring your kindred, to the LORD, as offering, from nations, all, on horses, chariots, on mules, on camel back, and drawn in carts, Jerusalem, to, holy mountain, my, the LORD says, just like how the Israelites bring a grain offering that’s in one, clean, a vessel to the LORD’s house, where he’s seen. And I will also take some of them as both priests and also Levites, the LORD says. For as the heavens, new, and the new earth, which I make shall, before me, persevere, the LORD says, so shall both of them remain: both your descendants and as well your name. From new moon to new moon, and then until, from Sabbath to next Sabbath, all flesh shall come to, before me, worship, the LORD says. And they’ll go out and look upon the dead, the bodies of the people who rebelled against me, for their worm, die, never shall, nor ever shall the burning fire be quenched. They will be an abhorrence to all flesh.
T.H. Chalm 