Tom Beckett Title #12 - Birds are going nuts

(I'm cheating again, Tom, big time this time. The poem below originally appeared as All Things Bright & in can we have our ball back about eighteen months ago. But I think it fits in with your title, & so I'm re-badging it. I hope you've enjoyed the dozen pieces, & I thank you for providing the evocative & inspirational names. I've enjoyed the ride.)
 
 
On an otherwise uneventful day
the sun turns an angry
shade of burgundy, birds
fall screaming to the ground
& the whole cicada universe
rises in a stirring rendition of
Bohemian Rhapsody . There is
an underlying humming
which is unsettling everyone.

In this land where lemmings
are unknown, it falls to the
lemurs to be the first to throw
themselves en masse off The Gap,
the local focal point of ultimate
reconciliation for those for whom
the parts of their lives were
previously unreconcilable. Llamas
& meerkats watch in trepidation
as the humming grows louder.
Rising from a bunker deep below
an organic mink farm in the Rockies
what started off sounding like some
tantric mantra has finally resolved
into a tuneless anthem. After many
false beginnings the content now
seems settled on. There is an axis
of evil that threatens the world.
The Homeland must be protected.

Armed men stream forth to make
it happen. They are adorned with
blackened faces & head mikes, symbolic
decoration to show just how far beyond
the godless underdogs this nation
under god has progressed in a
sesqui-century — all the way
from minstrel shows to Madonna
concerts. They roam pro-
claiming they are on a holy
mission, a jihad to rid the world of
something so insidious it cannot
be seen, can only be identified
by scanning equipment that picks up
aberrations in the brain's alpha
waves. Billions have died before
it is realised the equipment is so
imprecise that any brain activity
is considered to be aberrant.

When no one else remains
the missionaries turn upon themselves
fearing that they too may have been
contaminated. Leaving behind
only the cicadas continuing to work
their way through the Queen songbook;
the mink who, finally freed from
enforced separation & a diet of
vegetables & vitamin supplements,
are frantically fucking their tiny tits off
as they prepare to inherit & ultimately
overrun the earth; & someone somewhere
saying "See, Gaia. I promised you
a fur coat, & Daddy always delivers."