Crow Mind
All night, no sleep:
a race between man and crow.
Crow beat me
and went home to play.
How busy a dance
I find it to be!
A great stranger is my mind.
I am loath to settle in it.
Poems on the topic: crow
Poems on the topic “crow” on Poets.by.
Mother crow
without prejudice to mine
who would the great leaders punish
fear is a game
poor people examined
as suspected persons
that they pitch upon to torture
our mother crow
in a strange hour
commanded to ask who we were
her face full
of black rain
like poison for a rook
Surveillance
inching over the house like a staircase
the crow spent the morning
looking in on us
and our paper
our melancholy milk
Deep Structure
day breaks
like a wishbone
how lucky
that the longer portion
remains with us
in darkness
under the interstate
in that dull
interminable thunder
a school of salmon-
colored leaves
stream down
from trees given
scraps of now-
worthless land
a cylindrical concrete pier
A Brief Dispatch from the Anthropocene
sweating in the shade
the boulder and I
I’d shave my head
but it only brings the sun closer
closer still a mob of crows
re-convenes in my ear
iridescent midnight feathers
aimed at an owl
Camouflage
Harried by crows,
the pale red-tailed hawk
glides along the ridge
and lands in a stand
of black locusts broken
by last December’s ice,
one more pale wound
among the ragged spears
of raw wood.
Evolution
A circling crow
turns into a hawk
as it clears the trees
with their bare-boned
parceling of the light. And then
those upswept wings—
primaries splayed like hands
open to the ground—
can only be vulture.
Rabid
The gray fox sat
and gazed at us like an angel—
one that foamed at the mouth.
I refuse to write
another poem about
the goddamn crows.
Holding a rifle
is like holding an infant,
wary of setting it off.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia
In the first documented reference
to Friday the 13th, it is already
described as an ancient superstition,
but the ancients had much more
complex methods for detecting
an inauspicious day. They might’ve noticed
for example how those three crows
skimmed low & landed in the field
to reunite with their shadows.
They might’ve seen the wild
columbine next to the sidewalk
thrusting its red lanterns where
they don’t belong. Our ancestors preferred
hot jets of revelation to the patient
& dispassionate sifting of evidence
and you & I are the eventual result,
Haiku 51
Dressed for dinner, she
leaves out water for the crows
in her coat and mask
Low hangs a boiled moon
fingers stick up through the sand
farewell to low tides
No one notices
much about anything
so I think I'm safe
Dry dirt tossed over
my blind brain at mid-evening
three layers of black
Wakizashi
behind glass at the museum
whose hand drew it last?
Little girl chases
Haiku 46
My window ticks once
at a brushstroke from the rain
wind keepsakes the rest
But how many friends
can you have, if all you see
fills all that you know?
Banana milk, drunk
years ago, long-dead diner
returns to my tongue
The night crests morning
only my two stinky feet
keep me company
Teakettle whistles,
but it’s in another room
along with my mind
How proud of my words!
Haiku 41
He didn’t shoot me
for looking at him funny
so here I am now
I’ll file my report
the whiskey ran off with my night
leaving splintered sun
That pecking pigeon
could it wander through the doors
of the southbound train?
A flagger, shrouded
in bright orange; excavator
waits for the whistle
And I’m lumped in with
this whole busload, young to old
watching the fall storm
Hoodied, with gnarled hands
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: