MUTANT RAIN FOREST: V

THE MUSIC OF THE MUTANT RAIN FOREST

by Bruce Boston

                                                                             art by Shasta Lawton

is a completely natural music

born of transformation,

a thoroughly mutated music

born from corruption.

The Mutant Rain Forest

comes alive at night,

and that is when

its orchestra tunes up

in a wild cacophony

of unnatural selection:

the hissing baritone

of a millipede python

the hypnotic drone

of the blood orchid,

drawing predators

that become prey,

the rising falling hum

of insect swarms

as they live and die

and evolve into

twilight dawn,

the raucous squeak

of the parrot hawk,

a ravenous bird,

a shadow bird

except when it feeds

and a feathered ruff

rises in garish

rainbow array

around its neck,

the hard bone click

of horned tapirs

clashing by night

for control of the herd,

the roars that

rake their throats,

and always

the sudden intermittent

sounds of death and feeding,

the cries of the conquest

and of those eaten.

And intertwined and echoing

within and beyond it all,

the sibilant and husky

language of the cat people,

a constant refrain,

whispering yet insistent

in its seductive complexity.

For no rational reason

you wait for them to finish,

but they go on and on,

this endlessly tuning up.

You wait for the

conductor to appear

in his tie and tails

with baton in hand,

tapping the stand

for attention

and silence.

You wait for him

to raise his arms

and strike that

hard blow

against the air

with his stick

that starts the concert.

But he never does.

There is

non-conducting.

The concert

never begins.

And that arrhythmic

beat keeps changing

with every measure.

You are frightened

yet drawn by

its random oscillations

and savage insinuations.

Then you realize

that you are already

listening to the concert,

this endless tuning up

for a performance

that never occurs

and occurs forever.

Click Image Below

for all 4 stories + 5 poems

to be bundled together into the

 MUTANT RAIN FOREST ISSUE

featuring writing by

SANFORD MESCHKOW

JOHN SHIRLEY

BRIAN STONEKING

VINCENT DAEMON

BRUCE BOSTON

and artwork by

WILL FERRET

JASON HECKENLIABLE

KARA KOMA

MARGE SIMON

SHASTA LAWTON

only on

the FREEZINE of

Fantasy and Science

Fiction