#poetry - intriguing

let us not be so transparent
if we are to also carry on with secrets!

but to ever appear the sum of right action
and therefore to never fail our failing selves,

so that if we carry out this intrigue further
let us only be intriguing---

a sentence which does not include the obvious.

down on the bower going down

the fucking creatures of this world
never cease by their arts to amaze me

regard the bower birds on the ground
in the long hours of their mating season

the males construct earthen structures
with complexities of inverse proportion

inverse to the unquestionable beauty
beaming out the chest of their plumage

the females amble into and through
the wards of their could-be desires

and if the high walls with surrounding treasures
and hues conquer enough they act subdued

and to the nearest branch they go and call
and hoist a tail feather then wait and are taken

but then it happens sometimes a female will
after the act recognize another bower she likes better

and she will course then through its heart
inciting a thrill in the body of its maker

the new male will meet her on her regular branch
and he will greet her from behind with his beak

where he picks the semen of the errant lover out
from within the body of this mistaken female

and then he plants a seed for his own future
and secures it by destroying the nearest bowers

amazing these birds are artists engaged in intrigue
that parallels closely human life and courting ritual

and is it a great divide between their promiscuity
and ours that waters my eyes and leaves a bad taste in my mouth

knowing bower birds do not need machine guns
to kill each other and neither do we?