Towhee poems on Hello Poetry

William A Poppen Jul 2015

Eastern towhee flits along garden edge
picking here and there
its movements assumed to be
intentional to casual observers
who imagine a search for food
or a gathering of sprigs for a nest.

Last night was a mystery;
a kiss, then a hug followed by a tirade
seemingly without a purpose.
Was there intent to hurt,
to inflict an invisible ****
deep inside her chest?

Cowbirds leave their eggs in towhee nests
expecting the towhee to hatch them.
The cowbird knows its purpose.

Unlike the bird, he seems unaware
that consequences ride
on the back of his behaviors
like mites cling to a wing.

He wanted to assert himself
to make clear his desires.
He didn't intend to wound her heart.

*One of my favorite writers, E. F. Schumacher notes why there is often pain and misunderstanding in relationships. "…we tend to see ourselves primarily in the light of our intentions, which are invisible to others, while we see others mainly in the light of their actions, which are visible to us, we have a situation in which misunderstanding . . . is the order of the day."

#broken #heart #pain #misunderstanding #intentions #behaviors

CharlesC Jun 2013

Wild eye

a fortunate photo
towhee up close
sentimental bird..
red eye warns
nature's wild
constricted point..
seeing here
what one sees
in restless tiger's
fearsome eye...

Stephen E Yocum Apr 2023

Bad Endings

From the outside in daylight my
large front porch windows are
nearly as reflective as mirrors.
Birds often mistake them for
open space fly zones.

Today I watched in horror as a
stalwart resolute Towhee fell for
the visual illusion, flying full tilt
into the window, impacting,
bouncing recoiling, reversing
and then trying it yet again!

The second impact bounced him
out onto the lawn, where he laid
stunned, feet pointing to the sky
for perhaps a minute.

I watched helplessly as eventually
he struggled to rise, then into the air
he drunkenly took wing, away from
the porch, turned and flew directly
back onto his delusion of freedoms
space. The sound of the impact
sickened me.

One minute alive the next he lay
dead on the stone porch. A victim
of his instinctive inherit perseverance
for freedom.

We humans; perhaps all living creatures
are not so different than this little bird,
our innate instincts can and often do lead
us down the wrong paths, even to bad
endings. I buried the little downed flyer
beneath my favorite Birch tree in my
garden.

Devon Brock Aug 2019

For the First Time

On clear days it rains buckets,
swelling the headwaters
and the algae blooms gluttonous.

Rufous clay breaks into wider trenches
and the towhee flashes away.

You never flinched when I crushed your hand
on that first day on the ****** rise before a charging
buffalo sun, gnat swarming my wild panicked eyes,
giddy with each hill blue upon bluer receding.

I'm a woodland kid, baby, creek crouching
with roots and canteens of sassafras
in the leopard light and leafmold;
the wannabee Tarzan swinging
on wintercreeper vines.
I'm the scurrying rat in the stormdrain,
taking the shortcut home for supper.

But there you were, straight as loblolly pine
in the canyon lands of Chicago, prairie drifted
in with the drifters and the hawk winds
of winter to find the woodland kid dragged
blind before the gridiron sky.

Two rivers led nowhere, two rivers
and a chance confluence of running
merged and pooled in a one bedroom cave
on Belmont, hatching our tadpole dreams,
fattening the swimmers with mustard greens
and gaudy hotdogs.

When we crested the banks,
on the continental divide,
one to the woodland, one to plains,
the water ran as waters do,
and as in each great story,
the boy follows the girl,
to the ****** rise before
the charging buffalo sun,
where you held my hand
and I saw the sky for the first time.

matthew scott harris Dec 2019

Stranded courtesy bittercold without food or drink...

Dire straits necessitated
yours truly to bethink
outside the box (literally outdoors
of squarish structured nested dwelling),
where blinding albedo effect
forced me to blink,
additionally also ruffled tail feathers

of this sole surviving male bobolink
(North American songbird,
Dolichonyx oryzivorus)
pushing survival species
to extinction brink,
thus series of unfortunate events
woke resident chewink
(North American bird,

Pipilo erythrophthalmus
also called: towhee
or ground-robin),
tweeted from within
his cozy armoire *****
polar vortex froze habitat,
whereby arctic wind found
brushy areas to clink

unwittingly brambles ferocious
waving circular rotation
wrought minuscule countersink
eh, no bigger than a cufflink
his ornate bejeweled complex edifice
compliments of sizable income
allowed, enabled, and provided
opportunity in tandem

with significant other
to create acronym named ****
(dual income without kid)
acquiring handsome combined income
rendering and selling stylized goldfinch
also known as distelfink
common motif in
hex signs and fraktur,

which interpretive native folk art
eye state meaningless
without rhyme nor reason,
superfluous gibberish by George,
and/or...well... courtesy
following more purposeless gobbledygook
defying poetaster to incorporate doublethink
intelligently nsync with downlink

playfully, jauntily, and deliberately
creating confounding badinage eyewink
at thee, no doubt many
an anonymous innocent
reader calling me ratfink
under their breath or more
colorful brutal appellation
inducing cheeks of unknown followers
turning fifty plus shades of firepink

moost definitely concurring gink
perfectly apropos description
concluded individually versus
collectively, quickly, and
unanimously i.e. (think) groupthink
I approve this entire message, which
most likely tinders pet peeve,
concluding GoDaddy liberally did hoodwink.

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