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Burning Birds & Fiery Jets: Mayday Mayday Mayday is French for Help Me

Late night, when Bridget’s already
been in bed for hours, & that last glass
of wine has me a bit wobbly, or sentimental,
or both, I enjoy earbud-watching short
videos on my phone—those soundplugs
because-or-as-if it’s something to be
ashamed of, as almost everything was
made to be, as I was raised in an ecosystem
of omnipotent, omnipresent, someone’s-
always-listening-watching Old Testament
sort of crippling trifecta of spirituality:
not father, son, & holy ghost, but
humiliation, shame, & holy-living-hell
guilt. But now the videos I prefer aren’t
porn or soldiers reuniting with their dogs
at airports or with kids at school assemblies
as some sad Sarah McLaughlin song,
the only kind of Sarah McLaughlin song,
overlays the action. Why’s the whole
goddamn school gotta witness a soldier
mom hugging her gawky awkward
middle schooler who’s already had
his share of beatings at the hands of
the football team? No. Not me. I prefer
to get weepy eyed at those golden
buzzer moments. You know the ones
from the reality TV loud talent shows
where a petrified contestant overcomes
her stage fright, her having-to-recount-
bullet-point her whole life’s trauma to
the-audience-backed-4-judge panel—
a bit sadistic if you ask me—before
performing the most important audition
of her life & then with her first notes
she quickly turns the audience from
petty critics to awed cheerleaders &
absolutely nails the song & the confetti-
rains-down-on-her better than it did
all those times in her head, better than
all those times when her inspiration for
taking this leap—her mom or grandfather
or lover or child—was still with her, alive
& cheering & the trauma hadn’t yet
been fully realized. People are actually
quite terrified of choice. Because once
given freedom to choose, people
are petrified they’re going to make
the wrong choice & then be held
responsible for the ensuing carnival
of such choice & in that paralyzing way—
even if we’re not all Hamlet-paralyzed—
accountability terrifies people far more
than choice. And the birds will do what
birds do, invisible migration routes
mapped into the sky blue above,
between & through the clouds.
When hasn’t the privilege of travel
been a requirement for more food,
sex, or living a good life instead of
merely existing? Nature’s always been
the template for a fighter jet’s wings,
& yet there are only 66 years between
that first flight among all the squawking
gulls on a Carolina beach & Neil & Buzz
walking on the birdless & silent beach
of the moon. Amazing what we can
accomplish when we work together.
Governments & people trade in secrets.
Birds don’t. Even if they know something
about existence that they haven’t formed
the words for yet. And anyway, we only
like secrets when we get to be the one
to hold them & then decide when & how
to release them. Parakeets or controversial
opinions. It’s not that we shouldn’t ever
talk about politics, sex, or religion in polite
company, but that we’ve never been taught
how to respectfully have those difficult
conversations without fists, guns,
or crusades. And now that we’re adults,
too many of us feel like we’re finished
learning, so the only thing more carved
in stone than our righteous indignation
is our stubborn insistence that we’re
as learned as we ever need to be. Did you
know that smiling politely burns the same
amount of calories as speaking your mind?
Most people tell you to just get over it.
Just get over your trauma or anxiety or
illness, as if you’ve never thought of that.
As if you can’t not think/hope for that
eventuality. But time always passes too
fast when we want it slow & too slow
when we want it fast. Which isn’t
too different from the act of mating,
dining, or nesting. With that face you’re
now making at me, it’s as if you’re trying
to claim the right to be unhappy. To be
unhappy, to grow old & impotent &
insolent & get syphilis or worse or be
tortured by unspeakable things or
cancer or death & you won’t even
manage a knowing & wry British smile
like Aldous Huxley. Bro, your world
ain’t brave if you’ve never once questioned
everything you’ve ever learned. When
did suffering become a competition?
A card game with an ace in the sleeve?
As if you have a right to be savage
again, as if you have the right to eat
architecture; eat archeology & biology
& chemistry & physics & all the elements
that make us, us? As if you’ve the right
to listen to the wrong kinds of music
& think the condiments you love are
the best & only condiments ever
invented, but then it turns out that
salad is just mostly crunchy water
& ketchup is mostly tainted sugar
which means in a way it’s not all
that different from Caribbean rum,
spiced or not, the spice never hiding
the fact of colonization’s role. The fact is
if we want to get really good at something
we have to live a life with our obsessions
without letting those very obsessions
dominate or injure every other aspect
of life: family, friends, or work, as if we’re
constantly juggling Venn diagram circles
way above our heads—airborne ikigai—
way up above like flaming knives or
chainsaws, & while those burning circles
might eclipse in front or behind each other,
moon hiding sun hiding planets or vice-versa,
partial eclipses are preferable to clanking
& crashing & open & about to be bloodied
palms upturned toward the implements,
birds, & spiraling galaxies beyond. You
are not Vlad the Impaler, nor should you
want to be. Don’t seek suffering. Like bird
droppings on a newly waxed car, suffering
just has an opportune way of finding us.
M’aidez m’aidez m’aidez. Unlike jets landing
on an aircraft carrier, a steaming postage
stamp amid the emptiness of an otherwise
empty sea, most birds can’t complete
migration as if marathoners, crossing
the finish line exhausted, dehydrated,
collapsing into the arms of a first aid
worker. Birds need to arrive, build
a nest, find food, mate & raise young
& make the most of the seasons before
the wind & snow & ice kick up again.
Unlike the old people & the ducks, us left
here in Ohio in January think we’re too
smart to follow migration’s roadmap
to Florida. The fact is, we all can’t be
a Wallace Stevens poem. Suit & knotted
tie to sell insurance, but a poetic-freak
in the sheets. Let be be the finale of seem.
But really folks, it’s just once again
stubbornness superseding fact-based
knowledge. Tour de force translates as
feat of strength, but more often than not,
strength’s nobility resides in withholding
rather than using force. And so again I ask,
what are you going to do when someone
steps up to the cliff’s edge? Are you going
to edge up to the edge of your seat & greedily
rub your hands at their potential catastrophe?
Or are you going to root for an earned,
if surprising success? Will you revel
in the majesty of their unfurled wings?

Inspired by: Britain’s Got Talent (2007) & America’s Got Talent (2006-), A Season On The Wind: Inside the World of Spring Migration by Kenn Kaufman (2019), ‘Angel’ by Sarah McLaughlin (1997), Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1603), Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight by Jay Barbee (2014), The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead (2003), Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932), and ‘The Emperor of Ice Cream”’by Wallace Stevens (1954).

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. His poetry collection And & And is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Newer work appears in or is forthcoming from Olney Magazine, Bullshit Lit, Lean & Loafe Poetry Journal, Metachrosis Literary, Paddler Press, Crab Apple Literary, Words & Sports Quarterly, LEON Literary Review, The Blue Flame Review, The Parliament Literary Journal, Fahmidan Journal, Erato Magazine, coalitionworks, Moss Puppy Magazine, The Daily Drunk, Curio Cabinet Magazine, Spare Parts Literary Magazine, JAKE, The Viridian Door, Ink Sweat & Tears, Full House Literary, Moot Point Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, andAôthen Magazine. He lives in Fairview Park, Ohio, with his wife & daughters. Twitter: @KingRobertJ Website: bobking.org