by Brendan Winnans
I have inexhaustible cravings
For adventure for wanton vices that I have canoodled with in the dark.
And sometimes I find myself alone and bored
I wonder if I should open a fortune cookie, base my whole life around it,
and if it will then excite me, forcing me to destiny.
And I sometimes
wonder if ripened plums wonder why they share such alikeness
To sunsets.
And I wonder if the juices of the self same plums can make up for nights
of gambling given up, fag ends gone unsmoked,
Because alongside the plums I too have wondered.
And I have wondered,
Because after longnights counting strokes with vices
Like unbridled lovers I have woken to morning
And in the morning
I have seen burning parrots
And I have seen where burning parrots go to lay their eggs.
I have climbed the branches of sleepy trees.
And sometimes I wonder where the wild birds go to fix their broken wings,
And whether birds in plum sauce taste different when they had no place to go.
I have had my tarot read and come up with
I have sold a bit of cocaine or rather split the bag.
I have dug into the mud expecting to get dirt under my fingernails,
And I bite them sometimes just to taste.
I listen to the radio when I am sad and walk around the changing world I keep in my head,
I wonder if I can be happy without a queen, without foghorns and fog.
I wonder if in a year I will reach across a table for some ketchup and put it on
Some chitinous bugs or some strange new concoction of taste I have never dared to yet try.
And I dare to ponder on this thing called hope, call myself a man
And let it grow.
Forum Literary Magazine 