Anyone with a high enough perch
yearns to be heard.
The higher-ups watch like hawks,
like harriers staring down
through the spaces between
the bars,
no need to rattle the cage.
Let them talk,
let them spin their yarns.
Tell them what they’d like to hear,
down to every, minute detail
but skewed
tailored anew to everyone you told.
No one thinks about the things that “everybody knows.”
Stymphalian birds,
cruising low and slow
surveying the land,
hungry bronze beaks glinting
long grass blown flat
to the ground
with each
beat of their razor-edged wings.
The hammer and nail
follow the trail
and retrace their tracks
back to the little bastards
who first chirped.
The File Pile 