'Black Cockatoos' by Stuart Barnes | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
after David Brooks
Red-
tailed Bedouins
of Poetry, black
cockatoos embroider
the sun into us,
seam-rip it asunder.
*
On the Fitzroy's
bank at midday,
cracking seeds of eucalypts
that outrank Council, a hundred
Banks' black cockatoos,
a paroxysm of commas.
*
With their subtler
complex-
ions, the females infinitely
more beautiful
than the ludic-
rously coloured gatherers.
*
The gospel according to the locals:
'Four black cockatoos
kreeing seawards
means four days of rain'
(burkesbackyard.com.au confirms it).
I am not a God-fearing man.
*
Should black cockatoos
know
that theirs are the colours of life?
Indefatigable black
and needlepointed into this
starry orange and yellow.
*
Imprisoned
black cockatoos
long-lived as man
neglectful beneath the same
white sun, its ROYGBIV illusion
destroyed by the tiniest prism.
Stuart Barnes
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