A dark clay raven hung at a windowpane
to ward off bright songbirds from glass.
It never spoke a word, nor did it feign
to know of a departed late lass.

I asked it my questions, expecting more
conversation than it had on offer,
but plainly it found me a tedious bore
for it stayed quiet. Not much of a talker.

The brief encounter left me po-faced
as I’d been led to expect more from him.
So I turned away, belying a trace
of disappointment weighing within.

Then I heard the wind, and nothing much else
except the song of birds who’d survived
thanks to the clay raven who hung by a belt
in front of a window to keep it disguised.

Edgar Allan Poe
Never wrote a poem about a crow,
But he did write a poem about a misbehavin'
Raven.

The Raven flies,
But just to die,
For the children that it bears,
Bit of the hand that fed them
In a land bereft claimed fair.
A world where god bids all to live
When they say “If we dare”.
A place where all that was is not,
Yet The Raven does not care.

The Raven, dead,
Its children fed,
Its life, long forgotten.
Covered in red,
They laid their heads,
Leftovers, ever rotten.
With its soul fled,
The life it lead,
Its memory now shotten,
The land it left ignored its death,
And upon it grew soft cotton.

Towards the end, there was The Good Place inside of The Dying Place.

The raven watches silently.

You were drifting on waves of Ativan while I vaped in the courtyard before I flipped the mouse card. Lotioning your feet—now yellowing.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said to the nurse. “But here, take this” as I handed her the phone I yanked from the wall.

No more distractions, please.

An advance copy on a projector screen. Downton Abbey in The Dying Place. You couldn’t believe it. But you also couldn’t stay awake.

Nowadays when I say “calzone”
I’m actually saying “can I have another year on loan?”

When I think about bourbon in the rainbow-speckled glass, it’s a sip-by-sip plea to get those years back.

Alas…

I hold your hand.
The dolphin returns.
I kiss your head.
The mouse rests.
One last breath.
And the raven's wing lifts.

‘twas the Hour of The Raven,
Scolding at the Seven Seas,
Humidity can’t be seen
As the sun whirled
Its final twirl.

A flock of pigeons stand by Midnight’s Trolley Trail.

I am my own eye,
Staring at taught veils
'tween cotton gaits.

The clouds are no more,
Spirits remained encaged in rose sepultures,

A transformation so chaotic, they cackle at their false fear.

MY BLURRINESS SEEMS TO BURN
STEADY. ready,
For what to behold.

I have left Universe to relay ,
As the subtle sun one did in its day.

I am left
To react.

React to what?
React to wee?            React,
to relationships,        React,
to their degree of nobility,
So fruitful, so radical in concept indeed.


Of all these perspectives
I am one.
One paper, one tree cut for endless possibilities.

The treasure remains underneath,
Where I weep
In the deep,
In the deep.

There is nothing to find,
And that made all the difference.

'twas the Hour of The Raven,
Scolding at the Seven Seas.

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

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