The Rail
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers
7/23/2022 0 Comments What Birds but We Could Put Up With Perfection?, Oh, You Whose Nature It Is to Be Forgotten, I Need A Fresh Bird & Wax and Feathers Were Regrettable, Though Logical/ Metal and Fuel Illogical, Yet Fly, by Jacqueline Hughes SimonDear Readers, Please accept our apologies for the hiatus! Sometimes life gets in the way. We're back to grace your scorching weekend with a short collection of poetry from Jacqueline Simon. Read, share, and enjoy! And remember to stay hydrated. -The Derailleur Press team WHAT BIRDS BUT WE COULD PUT UP WITH PERFECTION? Red-Tailed Hawk, Briones after William Carlos Williams No feather falls unsignificantly —not from the bird off whom it has come. The hawk, burnt-sienna overhead, coast -ing on a current until there under the treacherous sun was a thrush, a solitary bird, a meal. Nothing to warn, no splash like a crane must heed. Nothing quite so obvious, just death. Unnoticed is never true. A feather [this feather], a reminder of who was lost. I hope that Icarus thought of this while drowning OH, YOU WHOSE NATURE IT IS TO BE FORGOTTEN
Cooper’s Hawk, Berkeley After W.H. Auden When I see the baby Coot and the Cooper’s Hawk nearby, the act of observing feels expensive. The Coot’s orange-tipped, delicate feathers soon to be submerged, ship- wrecked, wracked. I feel I must dissuade the hawk. Let her have me, a lesser bird. I’ve seen the role of dying. Something in the real realm of amazing-- a deer hanging nose-down, a child’s corpse—sweet baby boy. The cost is in the falling-- the deer bleeding out, the infant buried too soon—of forgetting the memory & the logic of needing birds in the sky. I NEED A FRESH BIRD Cedar Waxwing Berkeley after Rg Gregory Perhaps a Cedar Waxwing would distract, so I could make its plumage my grandeur? Though I am useless at infamy, I too might have fled to the sun. I own no deftness at bird-ness. I have a longing for wax and going where he flew. I’ve no training in soaring. All I know is—out. Bird destinations are solemn acts, and the current they follow has no boundary, no gate, only blind adherence to movement. I’m up for this feathering necessity. Preference being the downy pink-gray of Cedar Waxwing. On this street, on that wire, they pass a berry from beak to beak till one eats. Who doesn’t need bird compassion? Am I like them, a tiny dinosaur? Or am I like he who melted aping a bird? Had you thought that punishment just? Ask the birds whose abilities he coveted, like web or talon. A cheap, gaudy mock-up that fooled no one, least of all the Sun. He was daft. As I am, for thinking I’m better than Icarus. And the belief that my feathers are becoming. Before I melt, I will ask if they might pass that berry to me. WAX AND FEATHERS WERE REGRETTABLE, THOUGH LOGICAL / METAL AND FUEL ARE ILLOGICAL, YET FLY After William Carlos Williams I believe you had no sea-bright visions. The goal was molten magnificence, whol (e)- -ly convinced in waxwing logic, & pageantry upon your success. We know your notions of deification. But did you know how wetly the journey would end? That year after year Daedalus would recite how his son was guilty of being quenched? Were you awake before your plunge? Did you experience tingling? Or perhaps a gentle fluttering near your genitals? Of what use your flight and the moment of death, except to waver on the edge of sea-fire, a slippery notion of death, a too-late prescience. Soon the sweltering world will join you. The sea- wombs have placed a curse. No longer concerned with gods or humans, but stricken with a curative necessity. Its only concern, itself. Jacqueline Hughes Simon’s writing has appeared in the The Cortland Review, Okay Donkey, Boaat Journal, Pennsylvania English, Pine Hills Review and the anthology Processing Crisis (Risk Press). She was nominated for Best of the Net by Okay Donkey in 2020. Jacqueline received her Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Saint Mary’s College of California, and is a member of the Community of Writers. She is a volunteer and board member of an environmental education nonprofit, where she works with and trains donkeys.
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