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This Bird, That Bird

from Quiver by Ken Yoshikawa

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about

I have a strong feeling that a lot of poetry is only half alive kept on the page. For me, this is poem that really needs to be said out loud.

lyrics

This Bird, That Bird


This. This I am this. This. This what is this feeling? This all here leftover. This not gonna smile hard. This smile. This smile not gonna be hard enough. This not smiling hard enough. This I want to tell you this. This I do it and I wanna wanna wanna. This feel. This but why. This scared. This scared to feel. This actually. This right here. This air. This apathy and bleak shit.

This old round of similar metaphors. This metaphor. This round thing. This sharp sharp thing. This spine. This drain. This fire. This broken thing. This baseball bat. These chewing mouths and quiet dull eyes. These eyes. This room. This almost tears. This now. This not now. This is why. This so damn close, dammit, dammit. This dammit.
This cut caution tape waving just so. This so. This dab ‘n wa wa. Those perfect bricks.

These breadcrumbs. This bird. This bird. This perky fucking bird. This perky perky picking bread bird. This bird. This piece. This piece. This piece. This piece piece piece. This bird. This bird. That bird. This can’t string six proper fucking words together bird. This birds can’t smile, bird. This I have no idea what I’m doing, bird. This can’t keep this shit together, bird. This bird. This so goddamn bird. This bored. This bored bird. This bird. This I’m this bird. This not that bird. This no. This can I stop now? This how about now, bird? This why. This please. This again? This flippy hair. This flippy hair wind. This flippy flippy hair wind. This try harder. This make effort. This sweat. This please no sweat-sweat. This chirpy, chirp, chitter right. This never, never, never, never hit it. This now never why this fly-fly.

This is why. This roll o’ dice chamber. This clickety click-click. This close. This sick to my stomach. This same old shit on the radio. This radio. This tonight tonight. This I’m not a program. This not every bird gets a name. This not me I’m a knot and gonna tweaked, tweaked. This tweaked. This tweak, tweak, tweak. This tweaked. This stop. This this. This pour that on my head. This that. This that. This that. This run. This crack in the pavement. This crack in the pavement.

This pavement. Pavement. Pavement. Pavement.

credits

from Quiver, released March 30, 2019

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all rights reserved

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about

Ken Yoshikawa Portland, Oregon

Ken Yoshikawa is a shin-issei/first generation half-Japanese American poet-actor from Portland, OR. He has been active in the Portland Poetry Slam community since 2014. He loves blue chicken taco trees and resents punctuation and grammar at his convenience. ... more

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