This is a collaborative effort between me and HoundDog. I provided the theme, he wrote the poem. I then edited it.
But he wrote most of it. And the parts I changed or added to, probably weren't an improvement. HoundDog is a great poet; I'm much too linear by comparison.
Tips For The Vultures Of Yesteryear
How to take down a structure?
Derrick Jensen asked this
and then I wrote him a letter and he wrote back
and said, yes, it's scary. I'm scared all the time.
Then I wrote an essay,
because I refuse to let fear rule me.
And then HoundDog read it, and wrote a poem, most of which
this is
Hating on cell phone towers,
thinking about taking down
a cell phone tower.
rewriting a tower with his influence.
drop bombs.
cut off its legs
pull it down with other machines.
disguise it so it still functioning
more aesthetical
poison it...
spray stuff to make metal rot,
Acquire access plot of land,
and dig a tunnel under it
until it collapses.
Creating a culture
That refuses to acknowledge existence
of that evil thing of the past
that now sits there rotting
eschewed
tabu.
Yelling insults,
I cannot co-opt cell phone towers
Into my own existence
And indeed, why bother?
Too hard.
Too sad.
Too much work, and I am too old and sad
and tired.
I feel like dead stuff,
more dead than stones
But stones are not dead
So I am not dead
I have to remind myself of that.
But what about radio towers?
Radio Towers are different
from cell phone towers.
I don't know how dead
any of that is
but it's not promising.
I approach a cell phone tower
I observe how our local turkey vultures
dealt with a radio tower
Great groups of local turkey vultures
liked to perch on the tower.
here in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
I hang around
With Great flocks
Of Turkey Buzzards .
We make Christmas cards
out of pictures of us
Me and great flocks of vultures hanging out
on the red and white painted radio tower,
like so many scavenging decorations.
years back, owners set up a big speaker
on the radio tower,
and started transmitting
huge offensive booming noises,
Attempting to drive the vultures away.
I change from year to year.
I rode a bike route
to the radio tower
every day,
Every few minutes,
A really irritating
huge BOOM!!!
Boom, boom, boom
Owners don’t know
vultures can not be driven away
by loud irritating booming
Booming booms boom
Vultures rise up
vultures fly out
Vulture circling around ,
And, vultures, come back down
to perch again.
For months.
I watch
Interesting turkey vultures.
And for months,
Interested turkey vultures
Watch me.
What are they thinking?
About me watching them?
What am I thinking
As I watch them?.
Soon I become the turkey vultures
And the turkey vultures become me.
Turkey vultures circle around me
And I circle around turkey vultures.
Circles, circling circles
After a while we vultures
stopped flying up
and circling
upon the boom
We imagine how people
in residential neighborhood
must have felt!
And we laugh.
Proud vultures
Perching on the radio tower
ignoring the boom.
And I was proud of them.
And they were proud of me.
Now I am a proud vulture too!
And we laughed
At the people
who "owned" the radio tower
who thought they could drive us away
They gave up
They stopped the boom.
And walk away.
the we vultures still perch there.
Laughing like its Christmas time
I should go check them out.
To return home to my vulture family
They leave here every year,
After celebrating
my birthday
(ten fourteen),
and come back,
like the swallows of Capistrano,
So we can celebrate
around Saint Patrick's Day
(around three seventeen)
I watch this. I should write down numbers for them.
I have a kind of sense that the numbers are changing,
But that's not good enough.
Sure, writing down the numbers is just bullshit
compared to real world love faith & stuff.
But we are what we are, we humans,
And we are vultures
and we should continue to work with the angles
we are given, by the world.
We should continue to work with our angle vultures
And the angle vultures will continue to work with us.
We can measure,
we can also be in awe at experience.
We can lie naked under the stars,
we can also try to work
with humans even madder than we
And vultures happier than we
try to say kind helpful things
.
We can be mechanics,
and worry whether that is enough.
We can be people who don't understand mechanics,
and be grateful for mechanics,
because our culture has become built up
so much around mechanics,
and they are so often loving people too.
we who are shit about mechanics,
can learn to be friends with mechanics,
we can learn, learn, learn
to work together
to make this place we live on,
Our huge round ball of rock,
only what it already was,
with us dancing across the top.
&&&&
Today, as I bicycle around town, I remember to look at the radio tower
No vultures there. I have not seen vultures much at all, this year, I realize.
Where have they gone? Where there is rain?
Did we destroy them, too? After feeding them with our endless road kill?
Are there better opportunities of death elsewhere?
Or are we the new, improved death?
I always liked the vultures. I would miss them if they left.
&&&
If you want to see the original HoundDog inspiration, it's here.