Falcon rides upon a pillar of air and there
From his tower he sees this, his city.
All windows and wet buildings shim’ring fair
Now fresh with rain and colours pretty.
He falls downwards like a blazing stone
In the air and cool clouds alone
Falling for the day, falling to his prey.
The voice of the wind cries,
Fly! Hide!
Out of the clouds into the flock
He kills without the slightest squawk.
Winged, terrible and bloody and beautiful,
His eyes yellow and keen: immovable.
Out of all their fears he is borne
He bears one of theirs away, torn.
Landing on the tip of a tree
He tears into the flesh but pauses and sees
This rat with this, his catch:
A triangular slice with circles to match.
What have you got there Mr Rat?
You’re talking to me?
I’m talking to you and I said what is that?
None of your business… but come and you’ll see.
Solely a shadow he flies to the rat.
Picking at the pizza, he shows no grace
But the flavour is full, something to chase.
I want to have more.
But this slice is mine!
A flap of his wings and Rat is left sore.
The hunger in its prime
The falcon – he is hushed and rushed –
Climbing, his mind clearer and pointing t’ward the sun
There’s work to be done!
A fresh prey in his eyes
Circles: yellow and red
Scorching the ground with his shadow, he fills the skies
Following the scent, pulling its thread
Soon finding the prime scene
For the true prize, it’s sheen
Dazzling from paper plates, to it he’s bound.
He scratches his form to the ground
Catching the blue
A speck in the skyline, a perfect view
He’s ready to crater
Pulling up at the last moment, no later.
Blasting the diners, blinding you,
Snatching pizza from hands on cue.
After, with laughter, he makes his escape.
Burdened with treasure, he hits at the air.
Beating the blue, trying to get to where?
The shouts, they rise, to him, to fear
Eyes, hands and grips, they all grow near.
Spinning escape through a gutter,
He’s safe here in this slick sewage butter.
Creation in his claws, fine and divine
With plastic cheese, in his eyes: sublime.
From they’re sockets, they’re blown wide and bright.
Fat, carbs and sauce fuelling his might.
Its form folding, enclosing his entire heart
This from baseness, a predator, apart.
Reaching now to his beak, before his mouth could speak.
The light shines upon him. For five days he floats
He doesn’t want prey with feathers that coat
He wants pizza, a game that pays:
It earned his love, his faith, his gaze.
People now know his wicked dive
From them their pizza he deprives.
There isn’t a slice that escapes his taste,
Diners pick up, shouting loud in their haste:
It’s the Pizza Falcon.
Scheming
The pizza bosses gather ‘round their table
And begin the demise of the Pizza Falcon, dreaming
Of a trap as tight as they are able.
They set aside their generations’ strife
Combining their skills collected for life
Creating a pie that’s so good it gleams,
As none has ever seen:
So beautiful
It’s beyond taste. It’s musical.
One no-one could resist,
Not man nor beast, not fish nor fowl.
This falcon, he will forever persist:
Feeling his stomach growl
He will be driven beyond all wildness
Senses driven to the edge of blindness
Save for the pizza, the terrific force
That would draw, claw him and bring him before
The source of pizza pangs so big
The city is from its wits divorced.
The best ingredients and the hottest ovens
Cooking day and night there, chefs, more than a dozen
Until created is the best pizza the planet ever saw.
One that will not be seen more.
It draws the falcon, everyone.
It rises t’wards the sun
Rises true from the highest block as a beacon
For miles and miles, it’s putting its curse on
And in them, there, exposed and unable to fight
The curse with all the muster and the might
Those chefs, those artists, those druids could throw,
Evil designs always in tow.
He flew as it crowned the town, there beaming.
Racing, racing, racing, screaming.
Feeling the wind’s knots and its twists
Grasping, groping, peeling his feathers and his wits.
50, 100, 200 miles, more
In a single hour
Straight for it, his heart’s score:
All its power.
A net carefully set
His dive complete – not yet
The dizzy, dreamy dance.
The hunters take their chance.
The falcon’s form lighting the oxygen
Around him, he blazes almost past them,
But deep into the ropes he falls
They’re bringing a bag to hide his calls
To the pizza, he’s close, reaching
Desperate. And from its perch it’s knocked spinning
The prize gone forever from eyes.
YOU!
Say his captors, this culinary crew
Do you know what you’ve done?
All of this from just one.
Our lives are now sans calm, sans all repute
From your flashes and feats
Can you dispute?
Now we’re taking you away from these streets.
A hood for his dark head, his feet shackled,
They take him down
To the dampest and the deepest
Hole in the city, far beneath the ground.
Dark and sleepless
Where life is small and sad and creeps
This is where they put him. He weeps.
Time settling like dew, it grows so cold
He feels a thought that grows like mould:
It would be best if all hope you did purge.
Between the dark the men emerge
With sticks and words. From both, he bleeds.
They place their pain to punish his greed.
It pulls from him the purest action
In his limbs it coils tight, a plain reaction
His wings in a cage, canned
Escape is his mission, his flight’s at hand.
The men soon come red and drunken
Their eyes are full, dumb, they’re sunken
Stumbling around the room in glee and wine
Give him, he’s mine.
Out of his cage and to their hands
A better moment he couldn’t have planned.
All strength left pushed into his wings
Into his claws, clawing all things:
On hands, faces, eyes. His wings spann’d
Across the room. Across all land
And oceans soon
Out of this box, fleeing this room.
Down corridors, flying up flights
Up, draining his might
Almost doubting they stop
But stopping – daring not
Pouring from the windows, sunlight.
He can hear bellows behind him
There’s fuel for this, his flight:
Fear filling to the brim.
Racing, hopping, flapping for his freedom
The front door flies open
And he sees what he’s seen
When he’s dreaming his dreams
All creatures and colour
A joy and another
But there’s men in the door. With feathers fanned
Heading t’wards it, charging the band
Of men, to free himself, their prized plunder
The world he’s calling with eyes in wonder.
The men are armed, arms flying everywhere
The blows, they fill the air.
The rolling pin swinging, it hits his wing
Spinning through the door he’s singing
Racing to the pavement
Through a hole in the street he falls
Far but free and vagrant
The sewers infinite in their vanishing halls
Here, fear whispers: How to get out?
Follow this flow and banish all your doubt,
Whispers the underground river.
The men approach, I wouldn’t dither.
He stepped along, chasing the rain.
‘Till finally he saw the light again.
In the beams of moonlight, he flies
Without a mind that’s fit or wise
But pointed fiercely t’wards his want
His bones, feathers, his beak and eyes, they’re all
Players for his urges, which haunt
And always drives and always drives his fall
Into the air, all full from its promise
Of what? Freedom and everything.
His eyes and blood are honest
In men his screams are ringing.
