The Robin’s Last Moments
A sudden sloppy
thud.
Feathery bundle tumbles past
and fluffs on the floor.
A robin, quivering.
It arches its wings over its body
shuddering in a tomb of its own making.
Then stillness.
A high school boy stares down
in disbelief,
points downwards.
The Porpoise
Fattened with plastic and viruses,
the porpoise splashed on the Christmas
Eve Pacific City sand flapping a fin
at distressed walkers, dogs hungry with
confusion. The flukes digging the sand –
a message mistaken for a desire to return.
Volunteers waded up to their waist,
pushing the porpoise back out, but she
turned back, rolled in by a corrupted
instinct and waves washing over and
over her, slapping her higher up on
the sand where the white lip of foam
was stained with corpuscles of plastic.
There she lolled, waving us away.
The Rhino
Pictured on Bahnstrasse in Zurich a life-size
metal rhino, in honour of Albert Durer
who manipulated the armoured beast
into Renaissance imagination.
Four hundred
years later, there is two white rhinos female left
and a few thousand black rhinos, a few hundred
Sumatran rhinos. Tourists poach pictures
of the metal rhino and saunter on through
Durer’s sigh. The rhino remains unmoved.
——
Matthew James Friday has had poems published in the following UK and worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Bolts of Silk, The Brasilia Review, Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), Dreamcatcher, Earth Love, Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Gloom Cupboard, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), The Journal, The New Writer, Orbis, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom, Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), The Peacock Journal, Pens on Fire, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Red Ink, South Bank Poetry Magazine, The Dawntreader, We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), and Writing Magazine.