How Predetermination Guides

God’s a goat named Albert

Write what you know

They say

Only by the way holds water

If you know something

So I named our first swallow

Sherman like the general

And like the general

He wants to burn Atlanta

But settles for pooping

On our tiki patio 

Tiki-men dazzle in a thin

Haze of swooping excrement

It beats the alternative

It is a matter of content

Over value quantity

Over quality at least

It is

If you are standing in the center

Of the fire

It is why Daisy in her

Ancient Chinese Llaso wisdom

Gives the budgies a ride

On her taciturn tumbling back

When they are too forlorn

Or precious

To waddle out to the feeders

Satyrs live by design but then

It’s obvious that an awful amount

Of questionable information is known

Regarding the definition of design

A rib is a designed item for instance

As is a pomegranate  As is

A cry in a goat’s throat

But these are mere excuses

Apologies for happenstances

Not finally very different 

From a serpent in a tree

Or a convoluted notion of what is free

Will  

Andrew Jackson knew

How to ride a horse content

To slaughter innocents

He would be on the left

Side of today’s political economy

And on the left

Hand side of the Golgotha three

     Let the thunder toll as the center

          Averts its eyes

     Or at least

     Is missed by the lightning

          Strikes or somesuch

     Heavenly babble

     Untranslatable as it is

     Handed down

Pure conjecture on the part

Of theoretical knowledge

Or pharmaceutical guesswork

More the truth

I should

Come clean:

I’ve not slept

In three days

Or three cocks’ crows

Or ever with a Hellenic face

But that only goes so far

To explain the right eye-ache

I am experiencing

Again conjecture as never

Have equals a sort of maybe

So maybe  God’s true

Name is Albert every

Tree has its serpent and 

Daisy will scoff in her Apso

Way at this poem

She will huddle on the tiki-patio

With Sherman washed in a glaze

Of digested leftovers  Both will

(And do)

Wonder at the suddenness of the 

     Appearance of trampling

     Andrew Jackson

But the Budgie knows something

When Albert says Free will

The only rational response  

from shining seas

to stinking allegories  

Is Shut up

Bow

Applause

Curtain

Notes on production

     An even-handed goatherd ultimately has less 

          to do than a good shepherd

     The feathers of a swallow are not counted 

          unless you pluck them 

          individually

     The budgie in question is sea blue 

          not yellow

     Ancient Chinese wisdom sees through and 

          supersedes most of our daily fumblings

     Lightning did not strike one of the crosses which is 

          scientifically strange when

          you think about it

     Atlanta was a slow burn but the creek

          were alight

          with blaze

          for decades

     We are simultaneously living

          and correcting

          the tower of Babel

          parable

          even as we speak

© 2012 – Mark A Douglas – All Rights Reserved