Modern Sonnet 215. Avian Domesticus -On Birds Kept in Cages- by Andrew Barker

Modern Sonnet 215. Avian Domesticus.


-a Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage-


The heavens may be prompted more to rage,
Through children raped by priests, cot-death, old-age,
Or AIDS, than songbirds kept within a cage.
But Blake’s ridiculous hyperbole
Has, for the Broken Windows’ devotee,
A certain sense, in tone, if not degree.
For evolution’s life-long journey means
That flight as movement’s coded in the genes
Of every feathered thing that sings, or screams
To be released. What’s nice to see or hear,
We bring in close, we lock it in; we clear
Our conscience claiming, “She prefers it there!”

A songbird walked in circled cage contracts

From dinosaur to sad symbolic act.



Andrew Barker