A ****** Of Crows is the collective term for a group of crows. A term I have taken full advantage of in my prose poem. I rarely post prose, I rarely post Dark writing, so as a special treat, I offer the reader both.

Neighbours should cherish peace,
I thought, taking my seat for the show.
Psychopomps were gathering, fluttering, cawing,
Not on my roof though, not in my trees,
On Varley’s premises, my bad tempered neighbour.
I observed, shaded beneath my garden umbrella,
The sun bright in a blue sky marbled with cloud,
Sipping my tea, quintessential Englishness,
Brewed from the leaf of a China plant,
Sweetened by the pith of an Indian cane,
But English, all the same. (So I told myself.)
On hearing Varley clattering around in his kitchen,
I flicked up the music another notch, then another,
Black Sabbath’s Damaged Soul, pumping out,
The heavy beat thundering across my patio,
Through the picket fence, into my neighbour’s brain.
He deserves this, he truly does. (So I told myself.)
A wife beating pig who terrorizes children.
More Psychopomps came, pecking at each other,
Waiting eagerly on the fence, telephone wires,
Soon my feathered friends, I whispered, very soon.
I flicked up the bass another notch, sipped my tea,
Then he came, roaring out of his kitchen door,
Stamping down the yard, apoplectic face, so angry,
Almost purple as he bawled at me; screamed.
‘You half-blind ******! I’m coming for you!’
From my stash I pinched up the dried leaves,
A dash of hemlock, deadly nightshade, perfect.
I dropped them on the small brazier by my side.
As he reached the fence, shooing birds away,
Giving him my best smile, I told him. ‘Goodbye!’
Hairs, taken from his comb, fell from my fingers.
And as they crisped, Varley’s face froze in horror,
Instantly coming under siege from a ****** of crows,
No ordinary gathering of birds, these Psychopomps,
But more akin to the Hitchcock variety of bird.
I turned the volume up full, chanting quietly,
While the birds pecked out his eyes, opened his throat.
A mass of black menace, fluttering in a frenzy,
Brought him to the floor, wailing and pleading.
(So, Varley, I’m a half-blind ******, am I?)
It was soon over; the birds took flight, so noisy,
Leaving Varley to perform one final twitch.
Silencing my music, Varley’s dance of death done,
I gave his wife a wave as she walked down the path,
She smiled her approval, nudged Varley with her toe,
Just to make sure, then sighed with obvious relief.
‘I owe you,’ she mouthed, blowing me a kiss.
‘Call it a gift,’ I mouthed back, finishing my tea.
(One can never accept payment, it corrupts the magic.)
Varley’s wife laughed, I smiled, so darkly sweet,
All was well with the world, as it ought to be,
Neighbours should cherish peace.

©Paul M Chafer 2014

losing thoughts to the margins in
some great depression of creative
outlet. taking inked works from a
revered Shakespeare born of the
Moorish states, filling out cata-
combs of this one's entombed
thoughts. and pondering Paris
of some earlier century, how
those writers flocked together.
how this one loathes his current
centuries other writers.
and these, are we, birds of a feather?
flocking, so to be better caught
by twelve-gauge scatter shot?
perhaps we are of a generation
lost, with blinders grown thru years.
expats stranded in a sea of comp-
lacancy in isolation with warring
souls raising higher parapets for
safety? this one's soul may have
raised too high fortifications,
forcing attrition upon the inhab-
itants. this one's soul may have
slaughtered the others for fear
of a low-cat staring up to
the eyes of its King. and
lone heart-beat echoing off
solid stone walls built of mortar
mixed with sweat and tears from
desecrated - of the desolated - and
now forsaken culture only a
quarter-century out. this one's
dogma consisting of self-martying
psychopomps pre-proclaiming ..
     'I went out myself into
     an immortal body, and
     now I am not what I was
     before. Now born in mind.'
this one's canonized martyrs only
seeking migration and division.
seeking the Kepigori for hopes of
retrieving knowledge lost - placed
without qualm of forgetting - the
ancestors bore unto still setting
mounds of clay mixed blood. and
when finally set, when finally full-
formed, when finally upright and
springing forth the common know-
ledge which was taught once in
truth. and, now breaking in thought
while this one's hours rot, while this
one leaves an abrupt end.

Corded muscles of the neck ferry the voice of sky,
Charon of words adrift in a salivary dislocated sine,
A fracture of breath, the stenciled rowing of a sigh.
Psychopomps of moonlight, past-throated vultures,  
Carrion of clouds even if stripped clean in vulpicide,
Even if our scorched and coining tongues tip at stars.

In darkness the absence of light sparkles
Man’s reflection on notions of nothingness.
Empty space ultimately devoided of purpose
As space unhosting objects loses function.

Empty minds deprived of thoughts and imagination,
Unable of creation. Empty bodies ceasing to pump
Blood where it belongs, for hearts to beat, life to be.
Psychopomps allegedly escorting vestiges beyond.

Yet in nothing eyes can witness is there Nothing,
Always Something invading sight with blinding colours.
Beyond sight, perceptions of power, particles in motion,
Detecting forces playing games to challenge the reflection.

In space, in mind, in body, emptiness does not exist.

Alexander  K  Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; aopicho@yahoo.com)


I had a dream in the wee of the yester-night,
I was sleeping a lone on a reed wick-work of a bed
In my late grandmother’s ruffian thatched hut,
On the bed which she passed on,
On the day of her death,

She had earlier declared the bed a heirloom and memento,
To run among the grand children in her family,
Thus I was a sleep on this bed and began dreaming;

I was in a strange city, I don’t knew it
May be it was Jerusalem or Wales, am not sure,
I was walking on street, ***** and full of garbage,
Each person I met was not concerned with me,
But one woman who showed concern was mad,
She was carrying a grey cat in her arms
She asked me if I were headed to the church,
Before I responded with my awed yes;
She ululated before my eyes in her full feat of madness,
Then a huge building emerged from her red headscarf,
The building swallowed me, inside was maudlin and dull music
Like the one usually sang by christo-pagans
When attending a burial ceremony in Africa,
It was replete with irregular sounds,
Of church! Church! Church!

Riff-raff of human hordes flocked in
All of them looked different from me
Their skin was not smooth, it looked rubicund
Some were laughing, other were making nasal sounds
Not clear to me at all, at all, other made funny shouting sounds;
We are the kingdom of psychopomps, we are psychopompous,
One shot a lightening slap at my cheeks, he snarled at me;
Black discoboli! Jump and fight with our bulls.

I saw two bulls dashing at me; I was at the center of the circle
Formed by my foes, the human oats that came in,
The bulls attacked me with an aim to gore my tummy,
I kicked the bulls with one other kick of a man.

The bulls turned into cats on every kick I threw
Instead of mewing, they went melodramatic,
They began talking to me in Queen’s English,
One  of the cats duped me that; I better **** before we fight further,
I followed command; I pulled out my **** from short my trouser,
I micturated till my bladder was fully empty,
Then I suddenly woke up from sleep,
Only to find out I have terribly wedded by bed.