Pent-up Loonacy

From closets stuffed with symbols' ragged trade,
a loon peers out, subdued beneath the sag
of poachers, trafficking in loons arrayed
as trope, conceit; in short, a lollygag
of disembodied beaks, a clawless mash
of spanning hijack, bent on co-oped wing;
this bird employed for periphrastic dash
elopes on skies reserved for true-flight things.
Where went the swoop, the bird-within-itself,
the dusky eggs of loonlets-to-appear?
Why must this creature roost upon a shelf
and ground a stellar avian career?
I'd twist an unsung key in stanza's cage
to free a written loon from ostrich page.

Norman Ball  copyright 2001

Contents           Next Poem           Bios