William Slattery
William Slattery has a poetry book coming out, Slattery’s Universe. He wanted it to be an epic poem, but since he's not really a serious or noble person, it's a mock epic instead, that describes -- through the misadventures of two clownish altar egos -- a war with God, a robot apocalypse, and a crazy theory about time: that the future causes the past. Slattery's poems and essays have appeared in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Poetry LA, Santa Clara Review, ONTHEBUS, The Herman Review, The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Antioch Review, and elsewhere.
William Slattery has a poetry book coming out, Slattery’s Universe. He wanted it to be an epic poem, but since he's not really a serious or noble person, it's a mock epic instead, that describes -- through the misadventures of two clownish altar egos -- a war with God, a robot apocalypse, and a crazy theory about time: that the future causes the past. Slattery's poems and essays have appeared in The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Poetry LA, Santa Clara Review, ONTHEBUS, The Herman Review, The Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, Antioch Review, and elsewhere.
The Heaven of Birds
If birds think of Heaven & Earth
as spiritual as well as
physical realms —
if they fly with joy transcendent
and land with sad regret —
isn’t that the world to live in?
Even if imaginary?
Especially, imaginary.
The birds your own, a part of you,
their flight your achievement.
Your world Eden enough for birds.
Its moral compass baked within
your nature, the way you are,
generous & in love with freedom.
The social code biology
writes in an animal like you,
you great ape come down from the trees,
and what you have done with that
and some tools, remarkable beast.
Imagine the unimaginable.
Can you do that? Don’t stop trying
If birds think of Heaven & Earth
as spiritual as well as
physical realms —
if they fly with joy transcendent
and land with sad regret —
isn’t that the world to live in?
Even if imaginary?
Especially, imaginary.
The birds your own, a part of you,
their flight your achievement.
Your world Eden enough for birds.
Its moral compass baked within
your nature, the way you are,
generous & in love with freedom.
The social code biology
writes in an animal like you,
you great ape come down from the trees,
and what you have done with that
and some tools, remarkable beast.
Imagine the unimaginable.
Can you do that? Don’t stop trying
© 2025 William Slattery
William Slattery was a Featured Poet at the December 2025 Second Sunday Poetry Series
William Slattery was a Featured Poet at the December 2025 Second Sunday Poetry Series