what will the birds do when all the poets are extinct

the song dissolved on my tongue like one of those green
flimy single-use strips of gelatinous listerine
there were birds in these fences a long time before the fences were overgrown
and now that the earth is once again their own
and now that these halls are empty of those featherless beasts who dominated the scene
for a fracture of time in a split hair between
one or the other decaying or burgeoning 'cene
they are building their nests in the bells that used to ring
every hour on the hour when there used to be hours and this is the song they sing

it was never your song at all
it was never your world to recall
so lace up your shoes
and switch off the news
and take a few laps through the mall

poets will anyone miss you the poets each
wondered of one another as they gazed at a street or beach
they were so wrung out by the thought of losing the birds from their days
that they never considered the various ways
birds might go on breeding and shitting and squawking
in a spring forever stripped of the sound of poets talking
about birds or any other thing
with no one left to ring the bells that technically still can ring
except that occassionaly deep in the kudzu an automated timer goes ding

goodbye, they will say, goodbye
to the birds that uncaringly fly
around trees still bestrewn
with small lights and festooned
with streamers both dripping and dry

it was never your song anyway
let the last of your cris de couer play
through the darkness alone
on your long-lost cell phone
someone dropped off the bridge in the bay