Sometimes I get so fucking tired of it all
Hera Lindsay Bird
sometimes I get so fucking tired of it all
I want to climb onto the back of a wild, white goose flying high above St Petersburg
and spend the rest of my life divebombing embassies
or honking over abandoned Bolshevik gymnasiums
I’m sorry I missed your call, I will say in my answerphone message
I live on the back of an enchanted Soviet goose now, get over it already!!!!
soaring between forest and sea with a great abandonment of purpose.
There are a lot of problems which could be solved
by renouncing all my various responsibilities and instead
navigating Russia on the back of a gentle, ancient bird, with eyes as black as time
blinded by the wind, and the white agony of the stars
have you seen Hera Lindsay Bird lately? someone might ask at a party or social gathering
and people would just shake their heads like...don’t even ask
sure, there would be some aspects of my old life I would miss
because when you live on the back of a mythic waterfowl
with nothing to keep you company but the red symphony of your own blood
there isn’t a lot of scope for things like .......learning to reupholster furniture
or filing tax returns
but you could use your new abundance of leisure to consider
what you had seen and felt in your life
the trees gliding like green wheels beneath you
and besides, you wouldn’t be totally alone, you would be constantly accompanied
by a centuries old, possibly magic bird! with a wingspan of up to 12 meters
and a distant inhospitable mind who,
while never explicitly acknowledging your presence
openly tolerates your companionship and demonstrates that in many subtle but
unmistakable ways
such as not permitting you to fall thousands of meters through the air to your death
your mind gone huge and wild
as you glide like over the great and prosperous shoe emporiums
of the twenty first century
trying to remember what death is for
First published in Issue #31
Hera Lindsay Bird is a writer and poet from Dunedin, New Zealand