A remix of my poem the bird leaves its cage (and enters another) remixed with duckett’s smooth production of Ad Astra by Ghost Collective.

The bird leaves its cage and enters another
for Juan Garrido-Salgado*

1990.
english was in the air.
the air
was english

blowing on a sea breeze at henley or glenelg
one sentence floats near you

but it will not come
into your mouth

tortured barred
in & from your homeland

mute in the newland
your heart bleeds metaphors
exiled from your tongue

alien vowels/ consonants
fill your ears
elude your mouth

your heart an injured bird
one wing
plastered to tarmac

an impotent flapping
in spanish

• In 1990 Juan was granted asylum in Australia after fleeing Chile’s Pinochet régime which burned his poetry and imprisoned and tortured him.

This was first published in Blue Giraffe 3 ISSN: 1832-6277. It also appeared in my collection micromacro and on the Poetas del Mundo and Australian Reader websites.