THE OSTRICHES: PART I

Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.
—Song of Songs, 2:15

I have become a brother to the jackals, and go about in the company of ostriches.
—Job, 30:29

Our vineyard is titanium and glass
and the little foxes flicker
in the tiny rectangle amidst
weird tricks chair calisthenics
and large language models

The jackals know the shards
and bones were never ash
but embers blown by bile
by mistakes so obvious
that they could never be
repeated and that’s exactly why
they were repeated
not even remade but repeated
louder faster a boot to the face
a girya to the groin because
this time they really meant it
a killer joke that was no joke at all
so take a fucking joke snowflake

This is the plague after the plague
the blight meant for us the we who are
the ones we have been waiting for
masked men have come for us with sickles
run! run where? there is nowhere to run
excepting fog drenched with the dew
of heaven or with the bitter foam on sweet grass
blown by the nymphs of spittlebugs
from meadow sap to hide us low and quiet
in the fields until the smirk of danger passes


“The Ostriches” is a poetry cycle written and read by Val Vinokur and published by Public Seminar. The cycle is a continuation of “The Big Cats,” a 12-part series Vinokur began writing in June 2020 in response to COVID-19, George Floyd’s murder, and other world-shifting events as they unfolded.