Pigeon Goldie

Dedicated to Goldie Osgood of the Cecil Hotel

“Pigeon Goldie”

Did you hear, brother?

Quacoo. Quacoo

She is gone.

Taken away.

Sweet Miss Goldie. Saint of Pershing Square.

No more shall she feed us, her hand extended in love.

No more shall she smile, chasing the cats and prey away

Humming an old Al Jolsen tune under her breath

A bag of seeds is her mark, trailing from the Cecil

Even in a place so dire, her smile is light so many are want to have.

Our brother saw through her windowpane, her body laden with blood

Contorted and unnatural

Her pristine room rattled, by some unseen assailant

Fed not by seed, but a dark and sinister impulse.

-To think they say we are beasts.

Now she is gone. Gone away.

Gone west.

She has not perished in Pershing, nor silenced by Skid Row

She moves onward, as we do

We will take wing and follow her

To wherever she please.

The Shores of Sisley, Vatican City, where our brothers gather.

One after another, they shall come steadily to greet her.

From the Orient to the Baltic,

to Times Square or the French Quarter

Come now flock and fowl, unearth yourself from your rooftops.

Your sheds, your huts, your nests above

and let us feast on grain and seed

We will convey her

on a wing and a prayer

so as to carry sweet Goldie

to the arms of her god

and we gather seed

-at the gates of Elysium.

CC 2021