"caw" poems
tall red rubber boots on this rainy morning
bring me joy, happiness.
stomping in the puddles,
hiking in the wet wet leaves.
standing still as the raindrops
pour down over umbrella,
drops pounding the pond with intensity,
watching mother nature in action.
still winter but with little
signs of spring emerging.
green green shoots of jonquil leaves,
a bit of sun and warm will bring color.
for now the trunks of the trees are grey
and branches bare.
crows caw on this quiet wet morning
flitting from branch to branch before taking flight.
raindrops mix with creek water,
rushing down over rocks
and logs,
dams created.
such beauty and peace
on this raw morning,
such profound love is found
in the stillness and silence...
in Mother Nature
in the Tao.....
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 8:51 AM UTC
I torment the salt of the earth,
~"Who am I?"~
Eat up the children from unholy birth,
~"Who am I?"~
The ravens caw and come to pick,
~"Who am I?"~
Off woeful ones that I've made sick,
~"Who am I?"~
See travelers on the road of pain,
~"Who am I?"~
Rider on the clouds drive you insane,
~"Who am I?"~
I'm coming for you, I'm coming quick,
~"Who am I?"~
My art deception, my craft, -the trick...
~...Anatu...~ *
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 10:23 AM UTC
For a Child of 1918
My grandfather said to me
as we sat on the wagon seat,
"Be sure to remember to always
speak to everyone you meet."
We met a stranger on foot.
My grandfather's whip tapped his hat.
"Good day, sir. Good day. A fine day."
And I said it and bowed where I sat.
Then we overtook a boy we knew
with his big pet crow on his shoulder.
"Always offer everyone a ride;
don't forget that when you get older,"
my grandfather said. So *****
climbed up with us, but the crow
gave a "Caw!" and flew off. I was worried.
How would he know where to go?
But he flew a little way at a time
from fence post to fence post, ahead;
and when ***** whistled he answered.
"A fine bird," my grandfather said,
"and he's well brought up. See, he answers
nicely when he's spoken to.
Man or beast, that's good manners.
Be sure that you both always do."
When automobiles went by,
the dust hid the people's faces,
but we shouted "Good day! Good day!
Fine day!" at the top of our voices.
When we came to Hustler Hill,
he said that the mare was tired,
so we all got down and walked,
as our good manners required.
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"Handsome fellow,"
She said. Blue-black,
Eyes of knowing, cocked
Head, he is peering
At her with certainty.
"Caw!" His answer of love.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 10:45 PM UTC
I was a shirt filed with straw and rags.
Pants that hang loose. Jeans cuffed pinned uncomfortably.
Nothing to think of; a hat filled with straw.
The inability to walk. Pinned to a board.
Hickory oak.
Chest disproportionate to a small waist.
Sleeves flung in the wind.
Left standing still; a face motionless.
Pinned to hickory oak.
A shadow left in an empty field, the boundaries of a checkerboard shirt.
The insecurity of straw hands.
Pickett fences to the feet of crows,
Still she'd visit often.
Distance cut short by dark heavy wings.
She'd caw in my silence,
Not knowing the ability to smile I stood against purpose.
She refused to run, poking fun at my hat.
The clothes that hung loosely in the wind, scurf tied tightly around my neck.
Feeling her ***** the strings of my chest.
Strands of straw filled by her need to find a home.
Was there anything there at all before that moment.
Becoming shelter to the way she pried.
Mar 22, 2017
Mar 22, 2017 at 7:11 AM UTC
WHAT was the name you called me?-
And why did you go so soon?
The crows lift their caw on the wind,
And the wind changed and was lonely.
The warblers cry their sleepy-songs
Across the valley gloaming,
Across the cattle-horns of early stars.
Feathers and people in the crotch of a treetop
Throw an evening waterfall of sleepy-songs.
What was the name you called me?-
And why did you go so soon?
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My words are not my own,
Nor do they belong to my totem frog
Which hippity hops
His way trough my life,
Guiding me towards a metamorphosis,
From drunkard
To enlightened.
He (I) sure am taking his time,
But should/could this journey be rushed?
My poems are not the caw of the crow and/or raven,
She does not sing a song so beautiful that I am moved to purge it least it take up too much of the spare space I have inside of me.
She is my spirit guide,
Turn this way, choose that one (with the pretty smile which makes you ever so nervous),
Do not wear that ridiculous outfit,
Don't even think of-
Too late, now live with the repercussions, idiot.
A ****** of voices.
My muse tickles my lust and embraces my love
But is neither.
She/he dons many faces none of which I have ever seen.
Whimsical ***** ******* of emotional release
I do not know you!
I write your words as they come into my head.
Or I would,
If I could keep up with your maniacal laughter;
You spew nonsense rapid fire, child slaying zombies with Cheetos stained fingers,
And with all the elegance therein.
Yet,
I am thankful indeed.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 12:59 PM UTC
The wild blackberry
plume bursts,
effervescent under briar
and brambles,
brilliant indigo and magenta prior.
We picked the posy
and sweet fruits
which scalloped along the ditch
until our baskets were full and rich.
The bronzey leaves quiver gently
but do not fall
however thick thorns plenty
tear our long skirts
and scratch our pasty legs.
Stained with dirt
And blood and mud
We skip home through thyme.
Through our childhood as
The blackbirds caw.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 5:38 PM UTC
1659
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer’s Corn—
Men eat of it and die.
3.9k
I've heard
the twig snap
the crow
caw,
ripping away
the silence
in the
twilight
of the
snowfall
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 1:28 PM UTC
On a swing sat a girl.
She sat, and she sang.
Cars drove about,
A telephone rang.
The usual noises
Went through the town
As the girl kept swinging
Upwards and down.
Then the swingset was empty
And nothing was heard
But the creak of the swing
And the caw of a bird.
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 12:55 AM UTC
HOW UNPLEASANT TO KNOW MR. CROW
"Hello!" said the crow.
"Hello?" I answered
thinking: ("Talking to crows
is a bit of a no-no?")
"Do I know you?"
I asked politely.
"I'm Ted Hughes' CROW
....you know!"
"I didn't know that!
I admitted.
"You look like every other crow there is to know."
I impolitely pointed out.
"Every crow is CROW!"
it pointedly pointed out.
"Say...something Ted Hughes-ish then!"
I challenged it.
"In the beginning was..."
"...scream!" crow screamed
and then a load of begatting
to give the Bible a run for its money.
Nothing and Never both begatted
to make crow.
It made me remember the only time
I had been in Mr. Hughes' presence.
One shift leading into another shift and yet another shift so that
it was falling with tiredness I was.
Was it on Thursday I was
to meet the girlfriend
on Friday Street or
Friday I...just didn't know no more.
Ted grasped the podium
with crooked hands
as if he were Tennyson's EAGLE
or a Heathcliff grown old.
He glared down on me.
I trying not to fall asleep.
He like a cliff come alive
as if rocks could talk.
His words....CROW'S words.
Ted now
merging into the crow
gazing upon me as if
I were carrion.
Crow now losing his human voice.
His raucous caw
echoing inside my head
as he takes to the skies.
I should have listened to
what my mum said.
"Don't talk to strange corvids!"
Sep 7, 2018
Sep 7, 2018 at 3:35 AM UTC
I wish that I was sea,
To splash upon the land,
Saying hi to the humans' limbs,
Playing in the sand.
A single breath a girl can take,
Before she slips below the waves,
To search the coral reefs that do,
Blanket the sandy lay.
We can be, with spite so high,
Birds that caw at the beautiful sky,
For we cannot even see,
The life within a sky filled with glee.
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 3:03 AM UTC
Have ever you heard
The crows sing sweetly?
A singing bird,
They sing discreetly.
They caw to scoff
And to berate you,—
To **** you off
And agitate you.
O.O
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015 at 9:32 PM UTC
"The past is a bucket of ashes."
1
THE WOMAN named To-morrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.
2
The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
3
It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
to warble: We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation,
nothing like us ever was.
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
there were rats and lizards who listened
... and the only listeners left now
... are ... the rats ... and the lizards.
And there are black crows
crying, "Caw, caw,"
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
We are the greatest city,
the greatest nation:
nothing like us ever was.
The only singers now are crows crying, "Caw, caw,"
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are ... the rats ... and the lizards.
4
The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.
And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.
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Caw! Caw! Calls the crow on a crisp fall morning
Nevermore! Nevermore! Yells the ravens forewarning
The mist lifts into the air
As the sun begins to rise
The priests are sending up a prayer
Babies shouting out their cries
The dog down the street going bark! bark! bark!
The canary next door gives a little whistle
Out of the brush in a hurry ***** a swift lark
Away dashes a bunny, straight into the thistle
A squirrel chatters away
At a cat prowling close
Diving in, a daring jay
Caught by the cat, almost
Never was there a morning
So busy as this
To hear the birds all chirp and sing
To describe in a word…bliss
Dec 30, 2015
Dec 30, 2015 at 9:27 AM UTC
Sunday's bell broke the recess
And three times as professed
The gavel rapped before the rooster's caw
The horn was blown the drum was beat
And in the top of every street
We swooned with the wounded at the wall
And we said nothing just our prayers
But if someone's heard something
Nobody cares
And now with the yellow moon
Fixed beyond the clouds that loom
It soon would be a day the devil owned.
High on horseback thru the mud
They came and bathed their hands in blood
From the thumb up to the funny-bone
And we said nothing just our prayers
But if someone's heard something
Nobody cares
And by and by
We will crawl
Before we fly
High above
The middle of
Utopia
Lightning made the thunder ring
Until the dawn when suddenly
Light divided darkness in the east
Thus once more the wheel has turned
And proved itself a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the beast
And we said nothing just our prayers
But if someone's heard something
Nobody cares
And by and by
We will crawl
Before we fly
High above
The middle of
Utopia
May 21, 2018
May 21, 2018 at 9:24 PM UTC
~
*Apathetic city skyline
This must be Drum Street
There's critical thinking
Digital tendencies
Pigeons on the roof
Kids in the library
Hail and flashpoint
Homeroom
Their final resting place
Who of you misses the bleak missiles of youth?
And how they used to hit like needles?
I can count your sufferings on my fingers
See them hidden in the tall grass
They move in secret
With shadow blister
As much as the caterpillar:
Elusive and eruciform
Sixteen crane wives
Collect on the guide wire
Their weathered plumage
Strangely displayed
Airplane debris on an uncharted wild
Macabre flowers growing out of air masks, gone quiet
The magic word is drear
It's a sorrow-filled caw
As if feathers from the grave
Clothing our fears
I can count the flock on my fingers
See them separate in mid-flight
Each a solitary path
Fusing rage and grief
Each a solitary path
Fusing rage and grief*
~
Jun 23, 2022
Jun 23, 2022 at 4:08 PM UTC
They say it's cliché, writing
a poem about being alone on your birthday.
Cause how could you be alone, with the not-so-faux paradise of the gently swaying lush greenery that sprouts tweety-bird yellow over your head,
complete, with the insistent ca-caw of the Red-throated beak that doesn't let you sleep on the anniversary of your birth.
How could you be alone with the contrast beneath, the contest of of somnabulism between the rickshaw and the great grey suzuki, that perfectly encompasses the colour of Europe.
The barking stray dogs in the Pune streets, the rustle of the parakeet palms in the monsoon breeze.
You're stuck in a shell of unending continuity, howling canines and Hindi beats, honking cars and the buzz of your mind.
alone. and old.
Aug 7, 2015
Aug 7, 2015 at 5:58 AM UTC
Gleaning of the Owl.
Gimbal eyed and shrugged
on Oaken bough
before the bluffing of the Crow
before Rook caw and Raven croak
before the shriven threaded dawn-
to glean a silent measure.-
thrawn.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 1:25 AM UTC
Toxic paradise, the land of the plastic,
Where beauty is painted and smiles are elastic
A planet that's built on staying youthful,
While we lie and we stab, and we're far from truthful
How can we tell the next generation this?
We're all outcasts yet we cast out the misfits
It's a bit suspicious, a name on a bad list,
Naughty or nice, doesnt work, won't exist...
There's just a blank canvas, hanging on the mantle
Above a dusty fireplace, with the light of a candle
Hope is kindling, so spark our dying fire
And watch us all get high on the smoke of hope's pyre
I didn't ask for this,
I didn't want to turn to you
But I guess the time has come,
Step to the looking glass and see the truth
Oh, such bitterness...
Stemming from an old abyss
With withered lips,
I'll curse you with a pity kiss...
***** winds, along the shore,
Here marks dead, the lonely crows caw
I cannot seem to sleep,
With the messenger of Him, waiting to reap
I see, what you won't,
And I feel, what you don't.
You came here, searching for more,
But all you found was a chemical
Up it goes, so lonely now,
Everything is warped and you're slow to sound
Curse afflicted, curse is addictive,
And when the bad days come you know you're protected, oh...
I didn't ask for this,
I didn't want to turn to you
But I guess the time has come,
Step to the looking glass and see the truth
Oh, such bitterness...
Stemming from an old abyss
With withered lips,
I'll curse you with a pity kiss...
Rot is plenty, not yours to perceive
Falling victim to your greed
Painful, true, but it's not to you,
Just the cause of a fallen few
She comes swift now heed her gift,
Bottoms up when she gave you this
Whiskey on the rocks and you're gone again,
Slumped on the table like you lost a friend.
In a way, suppose you have
Now the whiskey is down and it's all so sad
Poor me, pour me one more
And I'll go stumbling out this door
I didn't ask for this,
I didn't want to turn to you
But I guess the time has come,
Step to the looking glass and see the truth
Oh, such bitterness...
Stemming from an old abyss
With withered lips,
I'll curse you with a pity kiss...
Curse me, hurt me,
Doesn't matter what you do
Curse me, hurt me
In a toxic world with a beauty feud
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 8:00 AM UTC
LET the crows go by hawking their caw and caw.
They have been swimming in midnights of coal mines somewhere.
Let 'em hawk their caw and caw.
Let the woodpecker drum and drum on a hickory stump.
He has been swimming in red and blue pools somewhere hundreds of years
And the blue has gone to his wings and the red has gone to his head.
Let his red head drum and drum.
Let the dark pools hold the birds in a looking-glass.
And if the pool wishes, let it shiver to the blur of many wings, old swimmers from old places.
Let the redwing streak a line of vermillion on the green wood lines.
And the mist along the river fix its purple in lines of a woman's shawl on lazy shoulders.
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Secretly believing someone is watching
And will benevolently arrive, relieve the pain
When planets collide, lots of stuff goes awry
Every breath you take implicates you deeper
The constant cry of babies being born
Expect monsters worse than you can conceive
There is a dark alley deep in hell
Where strangers go
She was swallowing a horse who
Stomped its hooves
Kicked her in stomach pregnant with you
As soon as you enter
Someone points a finger
Hollers, “Horse child, ****** child!”
Hen-pecked men and angry haughty women
Shame is the only love i know
A murdering mob descends upon
Somebody lynching Christmas tree ornaments
Why isn’t there God?
It’s disturbing to think
We’re all acting out of chump sensibilities
Explain to me again about sociology and greater good
How long can a smell last?
A week? A month? Thousands of years?
What if higher powers exist
Unbeknownst to themselves?
Death fashionably attired without face
The importance in showing teeth
“Caw, caw!” old crow calls, anticipating winter’s squalls
I fire up cigarette, blow smoke in the faces
Of those who said no to my dreams
I’m glad i didn’t know then what i know now
The cost of joy
Tomorrow is magnificent new beginning
If only everything hadn’t happened
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 11:22 AM UTC