YOU LIE!

I genuflect to the Oriole with you-
Mark Epstein–I marvel you know so much
about this bird that wheels no more in the sky-
if nobody alive has ever seen one
and YOU are alive,do YOU lie when you imply
the bright cadmium orange of this bird’s breast
once caught your eye–
its half finished song–
once left you wistful that death would never be as foul as extinction?

Ah, but you are a poet, not a politician,
you have license and a stiff logician
yelling at your lyrical ode, “YOU LIE!”
will never earn the same distinction
as Joe Wilson yelling the same to Obama!
Usha Nellore

Beautiful poem, Daniel. More poetry on the Brew, please!

With Mike Bowler, holding my hand across your verse, now it is clear as daylight to my idiot mind,
Mark Epstein–you are talking about the passenger pigeons (not the oriole) once wheeling and coiling in the sky–
Now gone–it’s frightening to behold my own mind,
Going the way of passenger pigeons, presuming to point a finger at your perfect poem,
If I were Joe Wilson, I’d find some excuse to exonerate me,
I’d say past midnight when I accused you of lying, the Baltimore Brew was no brew at all,
Instead a hallucinogen,
It made me see in what you wrote a careless deception,
Or I would say “Nothing is ever clear in a poem,
Always subject to interpretation,
From the oriole, to the robins, to the passenger pigeons you forced me to shift my comprehension–
in your first verse and taxed my tired brain into the misapprehension-
You lied,”
BUT I WON’T foolishly defend my presumption,
Or act as though I was ever in a position to challenge the veracity of your verse,
And unlike Joe Wilson to Obama, I will tender you two apologies,
Willingly once and even more willingly twice,
Sorry–Sorry,
I will also tell you this,the last passenger pigeon, Martha, buried on this planet,
Died in 1914, in the Cincinnati zoo,
Ninety five years ago this month, and if I were Joe Wilson I would search high and low to locate one centenarian alive who saw this pigeon so I can crow, “I was right in the first place–you lied!”
But being Usha, I won’t,
Besides I already know Mike Bowler will jump to your defense and tell me if I did that, “Pigeons in captivity don’t count!”
Usha Nellore

You lied

Thanks Hon–it seems that I am irredeemable but I am going to give the predictable excuse–Daniel Mark Epstein–too long–Mark Epstein has just the right ring, the right number of syllables and the right length for poetry. I know what you’ll say,”But still not his name hon!” Think about it–Mark Epstein–has the flourish, and the flavor of Mark Anthony–Daniel Mark Epstein–the Daniel is an interloper. Usha