The crow: greedily

she comes close, flying away --


at could be danger.

i know
the raven quoth
"nevermore"
and croaked
himself horse
for Lady Macbeth
while the crow
is an omen
of doom
or a messenger
carrying secrets
for the gods
but
if i saw
one of these
blackened birds
in solitude
i doubt
i could tell
which it was

I grew up along a gravel road
in a refitted freight house once owned by a slate mining outfit
my backyard was a rolling sprawl of giant scrap-heaps made
of spent
or unusable slate
some slabs were as big as a tool shed;
mossy promontories jabbing and jutting like dull honey- badger quills
poking out of the hills
as they sprawled in their
heaps and their heaves
and their gullies.
it was a regular shangri la for a couple young boys born in the early to mid 80s
our own private wilderness;
adolescent paradise.
sometimes I would look up from my backyard to
the tops of those slate hills and
I would see my friend Joe.
he  was older than i was and I looked up to him and
I craned my neck
looking up to him then
standing at the summit of a slate hill,
hands on his hips
perched and
hiding behind his silhouette-
the Northampton County Sun setting on behind him
blood orange scarlet and
purple gray blue were the colors of those feelings back then.
time ticked on
the way time does.
my parents got a divorce and I moved across town
there were no slate hills in that backyard
and the slate company chain linked all the hills that remained
and so there stood
a fence between me
and the wonderland I once knew.
Joe died unexpectedly some years later in  
some obscure forest of
one of the Virginias
together we nurtured some regrets suspended in between our
childhood and those
terminal woods.
together we held some memories like beads strung along a strand of silk
translucent pearls like drops of dew
condensing
out there somewhere on the
eternal web of the akasha
unknown to even Indra
unknown to all but us.
couldn’t hold on any longer
had to let it go.  

my brother gave me a pencil cactus
it seemed to flourish in my care
I had been neglecting my own needs for years
not sure I knew what my needs even were
but that cactus needed water and light
and this much i knew
and this much i provided.
it turned a red color down near the bottom of the stalk -
looked it up on google;
some kind of pencil cactus rite of passage.
after the reddening
it becomes then the stick of fire.
we were kicking up dust
over all the trails
fading on behind us
we acted like it was eyes forward only…
towns I used to know, sinking without blinking
absorbed in the horizon on behind me.
I acted like I couldn’t take my eyes off the rear view.
we pulled up and parked on
another
orange
lane
me and my stick of fire.
we landed in a
townhouse -
plenty of legroom
even had central air.
I put the cactus under a window
on the second story
didn’t think about the air vent on the floor
blowin all that dry air
and my stick of fire
withered and wrinkled up
and it shrank and shriveled
I couldn’t bring it back
and i tried
but i
had to let it go.

a giant scooped me in his hands
he was massive
40 feet tall
the war horns blew in the distance when he walked.
he
cocked back his hand and tossed me
through the air
on over the horizon
i was surfing the high skies
on thermals and the slip
streams of vultures
and peregrine falcons-
all of us then dive bombing
all the skinwalkers
like a 2 dimensional love spiral made of
peaks and valleys
and deep trenches swimming in the waters of the
mystic arts….
I held the sun in my hand for exactly one moment
but i blinked and turned
back into a clanging cymbal
a vessel of divine prophecy
going on babbling in tongues.
now a raptor eats my liver every day at noon.
I heard the sun rising in my hands for only just a moment
it was warm and held me in a present bulb of space
I breathed it in
and held it
before I had to let it go.

the architecture of
the Wyoming Valley downtowns
are like frozen songs
crumbling into puddles in a *** hole.
the steam engines and the breakers
are empty skeletons
and dry leaves.
weasels and other vermin making homes inside of holes
the soul was laid off in the vacancy
conflagrations once able to burn down entire cities
at the top of golden arche, and
now the place smells like the smothered ashes of a
single
dwindling
ember .
I yearn for a smooth good-bye
you go ahead and talk and then i’ll go-
yet i ****** up another one
open throats and
another
wire barb in the
neocortex…
I had high hopes
but I had to let it go.

I had high expectations of an early grave
“here lies such and such”
stiff in the long stillness like a possum caught inside a headlight
what a relief that would of been in the brimstone of my twenties
but the roosters kept on crowing
the morning sun kept rising
shining
death away
the big sleep was a false hope
had to let it go.

By Jordan Gee

The Crow's pitch wings
Glide through darkness
Cutting through fog
Like each feather is a blade
Slicing the air
As if slicing my skin
His eyes red
Infused with the dripping from my veins
He soars above a paint-chipped steeple
Perching on an ebony cross
He observes the soil below him
Gaze landing on a single figure
The Crow keeps in his sight
A bleeding body
Staggering towards the final resting place
Who could it be, on this heavy night
But the troubled soul of a human
Toppling down onto a crumbling grave
A life soon to be taken
To ascend to the moon above behind him
A being
Breathing
Breathing
Breathless

A rook, a rook
Flew from the sky
And landed on a tree.
Spoke to the snake
That lie there:
"Snake, what do you see?

"I rise above,
I fly high,
Know all the human breed.
Seen kings and queens,
Even a princess-child
And all the warrior's deeds."

"Rook, oh rook",
Hissed the snake.
"You are so naîve.
You see strength
And beauty, too,
But they lie just as they breathe."

"Snake, oh snake,
What do you say?!
That is not true!
It's merry a life;
That I do know
I watched from high blue."

"Rook, oh rook,
You flew too high,
I know what they've got;
To ******, deceive,
Fight and ****,
Their tales are full of blood."

"Snake, oh snake,
You must lie,
I haven't seen such thing.
But let me tell
Of what I saw
Of wars and weddings.

There was a man,
Vain and full of greed,
So proud and so old.
Would never spare a coin,
But as a beggar he saw,
He gave him a coin of gold."

"Rook, oh rook,
I saw it too,
But that was not the end;
The beggar him stalked,
To his home,
And with a dagger in he went."

"Snake, oh snake
Let me tell
Another one:
Of a wedding so bright,
Of a king and his queen,
He kissed her and gave her the crown."

"Rook, oh rook,
Don't believe all you see!
Didn't you hear the queen cry?
The marriage was forced,
Their bond forged,
And she jumped down her tower high."

"Snake, oh snake,
I've seen battles grand,
Where heroes and legends fought.
The earth shattered,
The elements they've torn,
And flames from the sky they brought."

"Rook, oh rook,
That was no battle fair,
Just unglorious assault.
They died like flies,
All of them,
And were buried in nameless vaults."

"Snake, oh snake,
Listen close,
As I tell you of heartens blaze;
Once I saw two lovers,
Kissing under moonlight,
At a lake that mirrored their grace."

"Rook, oh rook,
That I saw as well.
They soon had broken up.
The next day,
She was found dead,
He murdered her out of love."

"Snake, oh snake,
If you speak true,
Then all I knew was wrong!
But then, dear snake
Wouldn't they be
Nothing but spoiled flesh and bone???"

"Oh, but that's it,
Rook, oh rook,
The inhuman, human lot.
They are alive,
And vivid they breathe,
And yet
They
Rot."

Deep in my heart,
There's a crow who sings
Songs of love
For his darling wife.
Their love lives on
In my fragile heart.
Though he's mute
To others around,
he is headstrong
And keeps me moving.
He's quiet still,
Recalling the
Memories of the past
When his wife
Still walked the earth-
Before you
Killed her with your words.

Dug up an earthworm
the longest I've ever seen
while paving a garden path
to make my home look clean.

Thought it wouldn't suit the worm
to be trapped under so much rock,
so I tossed him over to my neighbour
who has lots of lawn around his block.

Hoped the worm would appreciate
that my strategy has saved his day,
when a crow came swooping down,
picked him up and flew away.

(Ultimately, at least for tonight) math is about how well I can logically uses elements together.
A crow can use a tool to get another thing to use for something else.
I imagine those who have accomplished the full pedagogy of math are the most capable of humans in using elements for "work".