Attract Hummingbirds

No hummingbirds.

I did however watch several butterflies flutter around Lil’fish’s flower sun hat.

“Butterflies! Catch! Run!”

And she’s off again. Running flower.

))){

It’s a long and
fruitless stalk.

Unless you end
up in a sugar
cane field.

Is sugar cane
a fruit? Grass?
A Wonka invention?

What the heck
was I writing
about anyway?

))){

No hummingbirds.

I did toss my
daughter up in
the air and she
hovered for a
moment like a
happy hummingbird
laughing before
gravity dropped
her into my hands.

))){

Trying to think of
of a short story to
write.

After thinking about
Australian snakes -
especially the tiger
which is out and about
now, ready to inject
venom into things (like my
leg).

They’re quite deadly, one
of the ten deadliest snakes
on the planet, and with my
luck I’d get bitten and then
stagger into the road for help
and get run over by a garbage
truck.

Anyway, for some reason
Snake Fart sounded like
a good name for a something
in a story about an exotic
bird war on a planet that has
nothing but air and sea and
flying snakes maybe.

I see two waterfowl standing
quietly and looking at two
identical waterfowl staring
back at them in the large
windows of the mental hospital.

They look like a good story
and they don’t even glance at
me as I run by.

))){

Try as he might
the male bowerbird
could not cast the
net that pursed
a female’s attention.

So he collected
some fallen stars
and brought them
before the king of
the hummingbirds.

These are fine
specimens you
have brought us
said the king.

The king of the
hummingbirds was
so impressed that
he stretched the
audience with the
bowerbird out to
a staggering five
seconds.

And so the bowerbird
went back to his
bower with five of
the king’s finest
hummingbird bards.

The hummingbirds sat
on the bower and
flashed like sun
on water and flowers
and sang songs
of nest dreaming.

Pretty soon female
bowerbirds were
falling out of the
sky like cherry
blossoms all around
the bowerbird’s bower.

))){

Phineas caught the last
hummingbird in his gossamer
butterfly net, placed the
harness of carbon and plasma
line around its neck and
hopped in his aerogel chariot.

“Away! Aloft!” he cried and
thousands of hummingbirds
helicoptered into the cerulean
sky straining to lift Phineas
and his soap bubble chariot.

))){

Phineas had a hummingbird
farm. It was situated in
a crater on Io in an
inflatable pressure dome.

Phineas grew hibiscus,
digitalis, honeysuckle
and gene-spliced beef
flowers.

The hummingbirds fought
over the beef flowers
which made them rather
buffed and aggressive.

Phineas was showing off
his hummingbird gym to
some visiting dignitaries
one day.

“You can see that the
hummingbirds are rather
territorial,” he said.

He turned around to
see the last of the
dignitaries being hauled
away into the bushes
by angry hummingbirds.

))){

I crashed on a flower
planet, crawled from the
wreckage of my rocket
and rolled onto my back
to gaze at the abundance
of flowers around me.

For some time I lost
consciousness and awoke
at last to a loud buzzing.

An enormous hummingbird
with gold and platinum
feathers hovered above
me swerving from left to
right like eyes flickering
in sidelong glances.

It was carrying a nut
shell in its beak which,
when I put forth my up
turned palm, it deposited
onto my hand.

The nut was hollow and
filled with honeywater
which I sipped empty;
another appeared as soon
as I drained it. And another.

Thus I made contact with
the hummingbirds of the
flower planet. Thousands
and thousands of hummingbirds
gathered and with a woven
filament net of spiderlike
silk, lifted my rocket
and soared into the sky.

))){

The hummingbirds
entered the building
through an aperture
shaped like a flower
of beckoning redness

))){

There were no
hummingbirds
but there were
grass parrots
that exploded
into the happyblue
sky like a miniature
multicoloured and
severely restrained
pillow fight.

))){