Graphology Coda 10: parrot scriptures for Laurie Anderson
I see parrots where there are none
I hear parrots where there are none
I see parrots where there are parrots
I hear parrots where there are parrots
All parrots show me their albino nighteyes in daytime —
their albedo is high and often escapes the atmosphere
All parrots show me a panoply of colours and their blank sides —
they are discreet but confident in their showing
All parrots register our mimicry and play it back loaded with subtexts —
they feedback and swallow governance
I see parrots where there are none
I hear parrots where there are none
I see parrots where there are parrots
I hear parrots where there are parrots
Just then I was out being garrulous as them — the subject
of my obsession, ‘darlmoorluks’, as a Nyungar elder says, offer ‘protection’
Just then I was out there making a fenceless secure zone
where the tinge of red above a grain-cracking beak might shine
Just then I was welcoming a subspecies of ringnecked parrot, a gambit —
taking stock of heritage and feathers in museum display cases
I see parrots where there are none
I hear parrots where there are none
I see parrots where there are parrots
I hear parrots where there are parrots
It’s not that they trust me but they know they haunt me
It’s not that I trust them but I know that I haunt them
It’s a case of like-minded apostasy
It’s all speaking in tongues
It’s an exquisite architecture — sweeps and pendulums, radical cornering
It’s graceful and severe, an impact that startles, that we sadly get over
I see parrots where there are none
I hear parrots where there are none
I see parrots where there are parrots
I hear parrots where there are parrots
They are finely tuned as the thin pointed leaves of jam tree
They are birds of the canopy and birds of the ground (vanishing)
They are raucous in places far into oceans where humans can’t step
I see parrots where there are none
I hear parrots where there are none
I see parrots where there are parrots
I hear parrots where there are parrots
Parrots see me where I am not
Parrots hear me where I am not
In the fruit trees
they are no more
destructive than me