Nothing but

Listen carefully.
Somewhere
inside you
is a bull
with an elegant
molten snout.
And if you dare
stare
at his bottomless eye
you will be trampled
by the force
of his unarticulated
sagacity.
And when you fall asleep,
completely unaware
of such creatures,
you’ll encounter a hoot owl
who shits stones
etched with tiny hieroglyphs
that not even
the wisest of ants
can decipher.
 
When you awaken,
an ever-insistent drone
of domesticated logic
will scream from its civilized heights
that owl stones
are simply made
from the bones of tiny birds
that they’ve devoured,
and bulls
are filled with nothing
but bullshit,
but the laughing black bear
and the snickering coyote
know better.

 

This poem is featured in:

The Sleeping Mermaid, poems by Rob Couteau;
with an Introduction by Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno

 

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Updated: 28 June 2011 | All text Copyright © 2011 | Rob Couteau | key words: poems by expatriates poetry about spirituality Paris France owls bulls ants coyotes mortality