An antisocial anti-establishment poem in the guise of an angry bird. Just because.
CW: contains swearing.

Poem prompt: “Our resource for the day is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The museum’s online image collection is practically endless, and to call it varied would be an understatement. There’s over 2,000 images just of baseball cards! To say nothing of candelabra featuring what appears to be a scandalized swan, a processional sword belonging to the guardsman of a sixteenth-century German duke, and a couch that I would very much like to fall upon in a melodramatic swoon.

And last but not least, here’s today’s (optional) prompt. Humans might be the only species to compose music, but we’re quite famously not the only ones to make it. Birdsong is all around us – even in cities, there are sparrows chirping, starlings making a racket. And it’s hardly surprising that birdsong has inspired poets. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that focuses on birdsong. Need examples? Try A.E. Stallings’ ‘Blackbird Etude,’ or for an old-school throwback, Shelley’s ‘To a Skylark.'”

Shoebill Shylock

Clatter clack shudder danger wings
with a beak so strong to break bones
and swallow clenched hands whole:

I daren't go near it,
but some days I understand the
clatter clack shudder danger wings.

I feel such a way at others demanding
I be aware of their presence with Broadcast noise 
pollution, distorted phone-speaker screams.

I'd rather listen to the
clatter clack shudder danger wings,
rather wake up with scars all down my arms

telling an actual story
than listen to the same songbirds sing
the same average melody

every same day
in day out, the same damn routine, 
the same fucking script. 

I'm so done. 
I choose the
clatter clack shudder danger wings—

come over here, Shoebill Stork,
take that death stare, click and shatter 
the shutter. A picture won't last longer for me.

Come over here, Shoebill Shylock, 
nip my pound of flesh.
Unlike Antonio, I'll give you no grief.

I owe you more honestly than I do Them,
so take all my sacrifice, whatever it's worth. 
Fly a piece of bloody me 

through your trees They will never let me
"trespass"
for fear They will not find my wallet.