Jennifer Handy

“Poetry is a survival.”  --Paul Valéry

“Poetry is a pipe.”  -- Paul Éluard and André Breton

“Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”  -- René Magritte


Poetry is a pipe
and not a pipe
Poetry is music
or perhaps a polar bear

This is not a poem about a polar bear
It is a poem about a poem
and the bear too is a poem
a poem written by a bear
                 about a bear
a bear by and about a bear

the bear, a god, self-fertilizing
the bear, a bear, self-poetizing

Poetry is not a pipe
until it becomes a pipe
filled with stilted words
filled with lilting music
filled with walrus-tusk tobacco

the bear, a poem, self-ursinizing
the bear, Narcissus, self-mesmerizing
the bear, a pipe, self-smoking

The bear is a pipe
and not a pipe
The bear is opium 
The bear is music

the bear, a rhyme, self-aestheticizing
the bear, a drug, self-anesthetizing

The poem is a bear
and not a bear

The poem is a pipe
and the smoke, a forest fire
a poem to burn down the world
The poem is a bear
wearing a ranger hat 
who threatens to let you do it

the world, a pipe, self-playing
the world, a fire, self-immolating
the bear, a poem, self-saying
the bear, music, self-syncopating
the bear
self-conscious
	self-prophesying	
	self-engendered
	self-contained 
	self-referential
the bear rhymes itself with perfect rhythm
the bear rhymes itself with bear 
 

The tricolored blackbird is a native of California, and reputedly the inspiration for the electronic sounds of R2D2, for which it received no credit, no benefits, no compensation:  it is an officially threatened species.  A feather from the epaulet can be used in divination.  The blackbird is a tri-gendered subject.  It is majestic.  And economically oppressed.  It is related to the red-winged blackbird, its far more common cousin.  The tricolored blackbird of California is underprivileged; 80% of its urban population is located in federally designated food deserts.  They subsist by dumpster diving.  Those still in the wild eat their fledglings, Medea-like, in acts of vengeance against unfaithful partners.  The blackbird’s rating on the Quality of Life Index (developed by M.D. Morris) is 16 out of 100.  Its metalinguistic habits have not yet been explored.  The tricolored blackbird is asexual and aromantic.  Specimens in aviaries reproduce by IVF.  In the wild, they rely heavily on social reproduction.  A recent government grant provided $1.2 million to tag 10,000 tricolored blackbirds.  The recipient is a major R1 institution with plans to attach electrodes to the blackbird’s brain and transliterate each caw into English with the long-term goal of constructing a Franco-English-Blackbird pidgin.  No one asked the tricolored blackbird what it thinks of being tagged.  Increasingly, they are found with BP oil slicked on their wings.  Poachers have been known to kill them for a single red feather from its wing. The blackbird is itself and nothing else.  But this one here is special, No. 07115.  The blackbird is itself, but we all need some ID.