The Tucan understood a great deal.
He was old and spent many long hours
slowly digesting his thoughts
as if he were seated for an eight-course meal.
He mercilessly questioned,
Why is a square not round? Why are
parrots always so rude? And could I
play a tune on a flute made of a bird's hollow bones?
He would sit very still and ponder all of this and more
until he seemed to turn to stone.
Then one day, in a part of the forest he didn't regularly go,
the Tucan perched on a high branch of a Mingmog tree.
This place was rampant with too many doe doe flamingoes
for tucans to ever visit, to ever endure,
but all of this, he misplaced
in the murky depths of his thought process.
On this branch, the Tucan sat all day and
as the questions of infinity filled him
he discussed them with his friend the sun.
The two of them talked till the sun's burning rays began to dim
and it was time to let night begin.
On this branch the Tucan waited for his friend the moon to arrive
so to continue his conversation
and ask the moon questions in a similar fashion
-the two, the sun and the moon, always saw life so differently.
As the Tucan was very old and slow, and lost in his mind,
he did not notice the two doe doe flamingoes above him in the Mingmog tree,
imitating the Tucan's stillness and playing a game
as if it were a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest.
The Tucan also did not see
that this particular branch he'd chosen to perch on
was covered in mounds of poopoo from the swarms of doe doe flamingos.
So throughout the long hot day, the
poopoo softened like candle wax
and into this melted, sticky mess he sank up to his knees.
When the moon appeared and the air grew colder,
the poopoo molded around his feet,
and as it was as strong as cement,
an ax was required
to free him from this tragic seat.
The Tucan could not move, nor could he fly;
his feet were glued, and so he calmly continued
asking questions to the moon about this silly life.

Now, doe doe flamingoes aren't known for their patience
especially when under the spell of the moon.
So when one of the two doe does above
landed on the Tucan's beak, the other doe doe sat on the
doe doe's beak, and in merely a moment
another doe doe followed suit
till a tier of 16 doe doe flamingoes repeating,
formed a tall mimicking string
of doe does climbing from the Tucan up the Mingmog tree.
From his head to his feet, the Tucan was stuck.
He was glued and unable to move down or up.
So he asked the moon to put out her light
to calm the doe doe bird's travesty,
and like a chorus
every doe doe loudly echoed the plea.
But the moon only laughed,
and laughed so hard that she turned blue,
so the Tucan didn't know what to do.
He pondered very deeply the fate of this doe doe tower
as the mobility of his thoughts in his head was his only power.
He scratched his head with his wing
and every doe doe above did the same thing.
He adjusted his glasses, as the Tucan often did,
and each doe doe spray-painted circles around their eyes
to imitate his spectacles and frame their mocking disguise.
"Oh what a fate this is," the Tucan despaired. "As if the
weight of my own existence were not enough, now
I must think for a group of others who live only to bluff."
This was a novelty for the Tucan, to worry about others
and not just himself. Yet, it was also new for anyone
to pay attention to his thoughtful musings and meditative fun.
It was the first time ever that he possessed an audience,
even though, as an original thought goes,
the doe does had none.
He thought some more
and smirked on the fact
that he wore 16 birds on his head
like they were 16 hats.
The absurdity of this parody
caused the Tucan to weep tears of laughter,
and soon he was soggy
from every doe doe above him also crying.
The Tucan then was so miserable he cackled,
his shoulders shook, and when the doe does,
like a hungry fish to the hook, did the same,
he was tackled under the manic sway
of this feathered tower shaking.
"Oh what to do, what can I do?
Stuck here in the doe doe's poopoo,"
the Tucan lamented.
Every doe doe flamingo in unison chanted,
"Our poopoo, what to do? What to do?"
He calmly focused, and instead of fearful panic,
he turned inward to discover an answer
he hopefully kept somewhere in his mind's attic.
Of course the doe doe flamingoes did not see this,
so for the first time in their lives,
they were silent instead of violent,
and they waited and imitated his patience.
The Tucan sought
an answer in his books and encyclopedias of thought
without realizing that perhaps the doe does
might be learning as he taught them
a thing or two about thinking.
But of course this wasn't true.
What did a doe doe flamingo know,
but how to mimic what others do
and how to make lots of doe doe poopoo?
So this tower waited for the Tucan to act
and each doe doe secretly hoped it would be very dramatic
-full of great tragedy because this was always more funny.
The Tucan finally realized
that when this dreadful night ended
and again on his friend, the sun, he gazed,
the hold of poopoo molded to his feet
would melt and from this Mingmog tree
he could then retreat.
To wait, he resigned as his fate,
and in the meantime, he decided to play a little game.
"I am a tucan," he yelled, and
every doe doe echoed, "I am a tucan."
"I have thoughts of my own"
"I have thoughts of my own."
"I want to fly to another tree."
"I want to fly to another tree."
And the Tucan flapped his wings,
as did the doe doe flamingos.
But because he was only imitating flying,
none of the others rose.
Then, after several hours of waiting,
when the sun would soon appear, quite surprisingly,
the last doe doe, the one highest in the tower,
poopooed, and it landed on the Tucan.
Because doe does do as others do,
every other doe doe also poopooed,
and every last bit landed on the Tucan
until he was completely buried in this quicksand.
The Tucan could not breath and quickly
it hardened like a shell that outlined his form distinctly.
So in his meditative posture,
the Tucan died as a statue, and
still to this day, on that branch of the Mingmog tree,
the doe doe flamingos eagerly wait doe-eyed
for the great tragedy.

Kinks of the straight rope
Untie
Our fish net burqas,
and unveil the loose mantle of
her hips and shoulders dancing
in feathery plumes of leather fire
above cured logs smoldering.

Martyrs to the city
Unite
Under a banner for gardens hanging from every corner,
Bike lanes and one less car,
No blood for oil and the return of the spoils
To every child we are leaving behind.

Subjects objected to the
Crowned finger of Doomsters,
Calloused beatings on blistered bodies,
Rise
From tombs of hooded fears,
No longer cynics and victims
cycling and feeding on the crest
of their eroding shores.

In the dark days to come, he said lift up your hearts
19.99 folks, turn it upside down and it's great for parties
All my friends couldn't believe the change. They said it
was like meeting a new person
Spray, and watch your happiness grow
Maybe it's about time we just shut up and list
I said once, twice, three times a lady and I'll always love
you. And there's much, much more
It fits in the closet for easy storage, guaranteed to please
for years to come. Only 3 minutes, 3 times a day
Must call now for your free virus scan
Since I started using,
my breath is fresher, I'm more
comfortable in groups, and I actually have a date
this weekend. It's like magik

Get Out-
Always go when leaving,
And sell your skin as it sheds.
Live each word just before it begins.
In the passing.
In the silence.
Embetween breaths

http://ynottony.com/

Inside my stomach,
our love is preserved in tin foil.
Buried in the pads of each toe
are pebbles of this wandering road.
From each kiss a flower sprouts from vines curling
at the back of my throat. They coil
from tranquil pools deep inside my small intestines,
where a bit of dirt is bulldozed in each time a feather grows on my head.
Cocoons hang from my ears and wait to reveal.
Armor plied to my chest peels back to show our bed.
Your smell is wrapped like an
enchilada buried between my nose and head.

On the earth, stretched
Out like a quilt,
Let's pillow fight.
Let's sleep over
The edge and dream
Beyond the seen.
When I die
Make my fingerprints
glow in a frog's eyes,
Curl my toes into a pinecone,
Press my lips into a leaf
floating the Ohio,
Give my hair to a prickly pear,
And may my hands be
A pigeon's wings
Flying home.

My mother believed,
disregarding her doubt,
that she was born infected, diseased
and to fight it
was hopeless.
Burning holes sunk from the stress of waiting at her bedside
in a cold sterile facility,
her happiness washed in the tides of grief.
I've been to a field,
acres of red rose bushes,
my mother's wild scarlet blanket,
the blood of the thicket.
A tunnel there leads to tissues
beyond skeletal barriers of thorns
to an underbelly, a crimson-skin umbrella,
floating tranquilly in
the stillness of breathing.

So I say here to the present, which is just this, a gift,
to the steps I don't take but give.
And I'm feeling out to breath in
all that surrounds the industry of us.
Cause all I can do is all that I must,
and all that we do is dependent on cooperation and trust.
So sit at our fire and drink to us,
who give love to everything touched;
Who feel to heal with kindness,
a peaceful word,
And bless all those giving to this world.

There's so much taking;
What's mine is not yours:
pad locks on every door,
barb the walls and fences,
load the guns, raise the rents,
and impose more prisons,
without ever questioning what it is we're defending.

I must believe the world
is more than just what's in every
big boxed Mall Wart store;
All the savings are just more folks we're enslaving;
The wide-eyed, fat cheeked mouths
of our children stuffed with neon candy,
ride diesel powered strollers assembled on the skins
of children in distant countries.

I must believe we all can recognize
pain and suffering;
that we will organize
to end our diluted wondering,
end our pathetic stuttering;
and harvest the seeds of tolerance
and empathy, implanted by the storms of
malice and injury,
that cleared in the winds of mercy:
the pronoun of being
we a collective finally,
when an island rises from the sea
like the dawn of birds stringing the wind with song.

It's time to shed the brown bagged manners
and destroy the trickled down etiquette for climbing the ladder.

the only feared regret we feel should be that we do nothing and
fall asleep to their blockbuster hoping that the world they offer is real
and the wounds we cut deeper each day will magically heal.

It's time to define me as we
and take responsibility for the lives
depending on us and our communities.

the only feared regret we feel should be that we do nothing and
fall asleep to their blockbuster hoping that the world they offer is real
and the wounds we cut deeper each day will magically heal.