The Dangerous Animal

On the farther side of the town
Mistletoe laborers fought over
The death of a strange bird.

The pheasants had died out last
Winter, the flu tethered me
Here in oldtown where the whiskey
Is cheap and the girls were 
Pretty.

I remained drunk through the day
And when the night fell like
Teardrops in this godforsaken ghetto
I took up this strange habit of
Articulation.

Birds were bringing disease to man," a rabbit's
Disease" hummed Miss Tortoise. 
They were killing the birds everywhere-
Blue birds, Black birds, Grey birds, Lady Birds. 

A Machiavellian incarceration of chick figures, well
Who gives a damn about that?
Life without my chicken culinary, that's
What's bothering me!

Miss Tortoise makes it hard
By calling me a bard.
I must appeal to the 'killer humans' she says
and mains her doe eyes
With acid. 'Its madness' she grieves. 
She is one sensitive woman, doomed to be born
Here, where billions may die to save a thousand,
As long as the thousand were-------

I lose words there. 

So let me live my licentious
Life, with this decadence of
Strange habits.

Let me invite the dipsomania
That heals my soul on shoddy days.

I will drink and fuck, 
But for you Miss Tortoise
I will sometimes
Write.