"Put a Bird on It" Searching for Portland

 It's December in Portland: rainy, dark, and sopping wet. Clouds sink into the  downtown high rises and the forested parks. Trees are almost bare, and only the crows and squirrels remain. Oh there are occasional coyote sitings and it wouldn't surprise me if bear lived up in Forest Park, but the majority of  birds have left for sunnier climates.

Portland has a silly new motto that the TV show Portlandia seems to have coined: "Put a bird on it". On her last visit, Barb told me about this, and sure enough there are birds painted, embroidered, carved, and  welded in shop windows everywhere we looked! And when someone talks about a creative idea or a good plan, the listener might exclaim, "Put a bird on it!" It's kind of like a high five. Here is a video to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM3vWJmpfo 

 I have a writing group that meets at my place every Thursday night. After reading a couple of poetry slam poems, I gave the prompt "Searching for ___________" and the writers were to fill in the blank and write for ten minutes. I wrote "Searching for Portland" and came up with the following poem. What I love about this kind of writing is the surprising words that flow when "Monkey Mind" is not allowed in.

Portland

A bird sits on it

in the naked, wet oaks

black, observant and cunning

it knows the street litter as well

as the old buggy man with the gray, crusty beard

hunched and wet as commuters splash

and gutters gush and gurgle

and sheets of rain beat at the windows

and slip in like bad gossip

under closed doors

feeding the black mold that spreads its spores

in the warm crevices of the shower

the old man longs for.

Put a bird on the wet blanket

that separates man from cement,

as falling leaves open the sky

and cloak the street in sunshine.

Put a bird on hormone free, grass fed and recycled

and warm lattés with designs on top

and dollar tips for the jar.

Put a bird on the new-ager

with his titanium lift it with one finger bike

equipped with blinking halogen

heading down Rosa Parks Blvd.

like a dart

racing the pilots of industry all cozy and cut off

in their NPR  BMW cocoons.

Put a bird on the City of Roses where smug, sanctimonious citizens

recycle, buy local, vote liberal, and volunteer

while a fallen warrior

hidden in the alley

sleeps on cardboard by the dumpster

filled with Halloween plastic and discarded costumes

 and cell phones, computer parts and unfinished Thanksgiving dinners

all slimy and moldy and rat infested.

This clean, literate, lovely city

  aglow with Christmas glitz and glitter

and lost souls

who trundle their bundles

lurches

and searches

for reason

in this

the holiday season.

                               Ruth Lizotte 12/1/12

Now you try it! "Searching for ________"  Set your timer and "sling the ink" for ten minutes! (Some of my former students have started a writing group and they named it "Ink Slingers". I love that image!)