"cawed" poems
Today a blackbird gave me inspiration.
It floated casually towards the ledge.
Inches away, only a thin piece of glass between us.
It stared, looked me in the eyes,
Opened my soul with its piercing eyes.
Gouged away until it found some real meaning inside.
Twitched, no, that wasn’t a twitch,
It was a motion, a signal,
A glorious method of communication –
No pigeon could mimic that!
It ushered my eyes towards the beauty of the lake,
And away from its black and grey and blue
And (I’m sure many other coloured) body.
My eyes were dragged from this beautiful, overweight creature
To the forever-moving, forever-living lake,
Then to the fountain.
Six shoots of white water kept the sky where it belongs.
They held it – of course! The sky!
The blackbird had given me light.
The sky was alive, the clouds were rolling,
The sun was breaking through,
And as I re-adjusted my eyes to thank him,
The blackbird leapt from his perch,
Cawed a “you’re welcome”
And soared towards heaven.
Feb 20, 2011
Feb 20, 2011 at 2:26 AM UTC
gulls cawed, so loud their calls
echoed off the cliffs behind us, a ghost flock answering,
though not shrill enough to rouse us
they flew crisscross patterns
and dove into the surf, but not one landed
on the carrion strewn across the sands
not like the vultures of my youth,
ravenous black hawks that began their devouring
at the first scent of death, or a moment before
no, these creatures merely called
to one another, a curious conversing
about the carnage below
perhaps their strange song
our dirge, as they swooped to and fro, wings
slicing currents carrying our souls
Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944
Sep 25, 2016
Sep 25, 2016 at 11:45 AM UTC
The Ravens
On a rainy night so boring
I heard Munin soundly snoring,
I grew tired of my poring
Perched above Valhalla’s door.
“Munin!”, screeched I to the ceiling,
Sending the poor fellow reeling,
“Let’s deal out a joke to Odin,
One that he’ll be falling for -
Just one joke, and nothing more.”
After barrow ghosts-invoking
Odin entered, wet and soaking,
And I started with my croaking
From the dark above the door:
“I’m the first and oldest Volva!
All my secrets I could tell ya,
For the right price I might sell, yeah”,
And I cawed, “Would you know more?”
(He is crazy about lore.)
“What!”, cried Odin, “Quick, be talking!
At the price I won’t be balking.
Searching wisdom, I’ve been walking
Wandering from door to door.
Let my need for knowledge reach you,
All my own skills I would teach you;
Tell me all now, I beseech you!”
Quoth I grinning, “Nevermore!”
(Just a jest, and nothing more.)
Odin with frustration sputtering,
Munin laughing, wildly fluttering,
I was dead-pan and kept uttering
Nonsense about hidden lore.
For his need he found no quelling,
All Valhall woke from his yelling –
Oh, the fun to keep on telling
Him that one word, “Nevermore!”
(We thought it was a joke, no more.)
In the morning ceased his raving,
But that did not end his craving,
And we saw our master waving
To our roost above the door.
“Friends”, he said, “Now I will ride out;
Over Midgard you shall glide out:
Seek the Volva in her hideout!”
- Then it felt a joke no more.
(And Munin, to this day, is sore.)
Every day we must keep flying,
Always for that “Volva” spying,
Acting as though we were trying;
Well, the joke’s on us, for sho…
To escape a rightful chiding,
To this day the truth we’re hiding;
By this tale we are abiding,
And we’ll tell you nothing more!
Apr 7, 2014
Apr 7, 2014 at 3:22 PM UTC
I laid nose-to-nose, in tall, old grasses, with a spirited coyote, some nights ago.
He said to me, with lips unparted and low, shiny eyes - to listen.
Hesitantly, I inched forward and nudged that coyote with my face, prodding him for something more.
But, nothing came.
He simply stared back at me, unblinkingly.
“I listen!”
I shouted with a heart on fire.
“I listen more than anyone I know!”
The coyote continued his staring game, quieting my bosomed flames.
Stubborn - they erupted, something ugly, from the valley, into the mountaintop.
Spilling from eyes, in the mountainside, I screamed back into his so loud,
The mountain ached from its shut in echo.
Patient " the coyote waited.
So, I stopped.
Somehow surprised, I found that, after the flames subsided into greys of ashes, in silence, I had begun to listen.
That coyote’s eyes were urging eyes, unmoving " unrelenting.
Obedient, I drew forth my worn, careful bag out and placed it, gently, in the dirt between us.
The coyote snatched it, in the grain between our breaths, and held it between clenched teeth.
I glared at him with challenging eyes " he stared back at me, just the same.
I reached out to grab it, but halfway there, I heard the coyote command me,
“Stop.”
The coyote lay there, my ashes raging about loudly " still silent, my bag between his teeth.
As the ashes settled, his glaring eyes mellowed, and I watched as he gobbled it up.
--
A crow cawed somewhere.
The full moon shone down approvingly.
My soul sighed once.
My body followed.
The coyote slept -
I bowed my head in silence.
Jul 27, 2011
Jul 27, 2011 at 2:09 PM UTC
I walked along the fence line,
hands in my denim-jeans,
headlong into the warm-breeze.
Windmill-blades spun,
squeaking through rust,
wildflowers fluttered
as the sun bore down.
A flock of birds hung
on the top strand
of kinked barbed wire,
scattering as I approached,
spinning up
into a spiral above.
Cool-sweat dripped
down my spine,
reminding me,
reminding me of her,
my dream girl,
the sweat we created
in fields of clover.
The crows cawed,
mocked me,
reminding me
it was now over
and I,
I was all alone
in these empty fields of clover.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 7:08 PM UTC
I stood in the garden
In the still of the wet morning
And watched the leaves twitch
From the pounding of tiny droplets.
As if some small creature was racing for its life
From me.
The intruder.
A chickadee found its landing pad
Just in front of me
At my feet,
Unaware of my hulk.
A miracle unto its own.
Crows cawed,
And eagles screed,
Not breaking the silence
But contributing to it.
Rhododendrons,
Astilbes,
And wisps of grass
Missed in yesterday’s weeding venture
Waved in response.
And the only thought I could dare
To bring to my mouth,
Lest my puny effort to describe
This cacophony of beauty
Destroy it utterly,
Was “Amazing Grace.”
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 11:40 AM UTC
Was it my fault that I asked the larks
your secret whisper-name?
A small mistake, I won't regret,
yet I am ashamed.
They said it was Mountain Laurel
who opened the morning for song-
I was happy,
half convinced
They were not wrong
The rain could come
or bubblegum.
I'd smiled as the flower
of our nakedness bloomed,
Then withered in the bower.
Mountain Laurel Girl,
what wilts your cheek of rose?
Why switch those crimson lips I kissed
with blue umbrellas?
Later, confronted by nightingales,
they blamed the larks of lies-
"Moonflower is she
of the slender wrists, she,
of ocean eyes"
And when I asked those dapper chaps
how sweetly she did love me
They cawed a song of sunset
beset with storm, and ugly
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 1:02 AM UTC
He yelled
*Out **** spot*
to the freckled boy from next door
and
*out **** spot*
to his own black labrador
he wolf whistled and cawed
to all the lambs on the moor
yet
he had never seen or thought
of the blindspot in his own eye before
Oct 26, 2016
Oct 26, 2016 at 5:38 AM UTC
A crow rested on a fence
and I wondered what this story-book fiend
with his dark, beady eyes, clever sense
and his feathers well-preened
wanted from someone as hollow as me.
I couldn't do anything but wait and see.
What did one say when faced with a crow
who had no appointments to rush to
no place he must go?
As if speaking was something I could do.
So with a wooden arm I gave him a little wave.
Pleased, he came closer, that fabled young knave.
I could not move much and I could not speak
as the crow stopped right at my rooted feet
and prodded my foot with his beak.
I'm a listless liar he deemed worthy to meet.
So I did not speak and I did not move
an inaction of which the crow did not approve.
He flew back to his fence that creaked
and shifted when the wind pressured its joints.
The forceful draft stung my eyes so they leaked
tears, I found I always disappoint.
The crow flexed his black wings
eyes closed as, for him, the gale sings.
I croaked out a question from deep in my throat
the wind became a whisper as the crow paid attention
"Are you here to jeer and gloat
over my bad decisions and poor intentions?"
He shook that dark head and said
"You're a terrible liar. I'm here to help instead."
"But are you not a portender of death
here to show me I have the illest of luck?"
Why can I not catch my breath?
Wondrous wings glide on waning wind then tuck
neatly against his back for he chose my shoulders
to better speak words that doused what smolders.
The crow rested on my shoulders and cawed
a sound soft and broken
and I thought it terribly odd
that the crow would caw when it was well-spoken.
So when the pressure of panic permeated my chest
the crow spoke again so my horrible heart could rest
"If I were just a crow residing on a fence..."
He gestured with his wing to where he was before.
"Then I'd have left you to your own offense
and not show you what you often ignore."
His black wings pushed my head 'til I saw the gate.
Hope swung at my roots freeing my feet from their hate.
"I believe you have many apologies to make."
I nodded my head and the gate opened.
The crow continued, "The right choices often take
an ax to your tree, to your roots. With hope and
desire to change, you can grow something new."
I stepped into the world beyond the fence and away the crow flew.
Dec 24, 2019
Dec 24, 2019 at 11:28 AM UTC
"Fuuuuuck!" groaned the Tortoise.
**** spat the Hare.
"Son of a ***** barked the Fox.
**** on a rooster!" cawed the Crow.
***** of a bison!" growled the Wolf.
***** of a llama!" brayed the ***
**** on a termite!" squealed the Ant.
**** of a cricket!" grated the Grasshopper.
"THE HUMANS KNOW OUR STORIES!!"
cried the animals in unison despair.
"Yeeeees," hoot'd the Owl
with an evil-wicked grin,
"but only the ones with a moral."
May 26, 2018
May 26, 2018 at 8:04 AM UTC
It's been a lonely morning, but perhaps, I was in need of one.
After staring at shaded yellow walls, at every hour of the night,
and feeling anger sharpen to some light,
At 7 a.m, I finally fell fast asleep,
my walls were slowly becoming bright.
I woke up 4 hours later to the opening of a door, one that was expected for long ago.
The sides of my head were biting my brain, and my teeth on lip bites gave way for pain,
I got up and got dressed, no coffee, no rest, I went for a walk, in need of a talk,
but sat in a park sipping black alone, and watched the white on which sun softly shone,
and the air slightly breezing, this bone of mine freezing,
a dog interrupting, I headed down the lonely street,
staring at my lonely slow feet,
counting my numerous steps,
and seeing a nest?
I saw a beautiful bird in a tree, and it's true a lot of memories came back to me.
It hoarsely cawed and gave me attention, another passer-by, just one of the Menschen.
I stood and watched its desired Display, He stood on a roof and gave flight a nay.
Tucked its wings in for the very last second, he dropped beak-first
and I have to admit, I was a little afraid.
When cement was an inch away, his black wings rose, and extended from his small body
the wind pulled him back, his head prostrated backwards, his eyes met my own
and he cawed.
The three of us we belonged to each other, with wordless agreement that said She, the Mother.
"Have trust in me, you will fly and and you will fall, this time is not yours,
However, this here, this is your call. I know it moves slow, and it gives you a shudder, but have trust in me, I am your Mother."
I ignored Her words, and descended the road,
felt the earth flicker, a disrupted candle-
The wind, was to blame for its cruel games.
A door opened after many steps,
the flights were long, and the wind did not help.
I opened my window, gave breath to the tree,
and She crept in,
She humored me,
"One day your shivering bones, will be under those stones, and that bowl will be full with your fleshy Müll.
You'll feel the stillness, see the Flicker for you, this cement all ready and new, awaiting your beak, hopes for your red leak."
"It'll be me with your breath, and your longing thirst, but first,"
She gave me her hand, and I saw wrinkles of ages,
and so that I might repay, or perhaps even Replay
I gave her my hand and said,
"Lead the way."
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 2:33 AM UTC
The crows cawed out with harsh, sorrowful cries as we drove up.
I fumbled to pull my phone out of my pocket,
and asked my mom to pull over.
She gave me an odd look,
but did so all the same.
It was a true ****** of crows,
like none you have ever seen in your life.
Black on the gray sky,
they swooped,
each feather a silhouette against the shades.
They sat on street wires,
balanced on wobbly tree branches,
and pecked at the ground.
Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? Three hundred?
Too many to count.
I walked around the sidewalk in awe,
as in waves they would lift from the ground,
soar as one,
before lighting back down,
as if nothing had happened.
The busy cars whirred by on all sides of the small, road-boardered area. What a great welcome to your new home.
Would you have taken it as a bad sign?
Something of that majesty?
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 9:51 PM UTC
Drip drap drop my blood on these white tiles
I feel the pain but it would be for a short while
Another person who cut of their life line
Nobody can say that I would live for a lifetime
Hahaha! I wonder if I'll finally die. Every single time I ever tried I failed and did it miserably. Is it wrong to have suicidal tendencies? NOPE!!! My family says that there is nothing wrong with me. To believe or not to believe who cares? Well certainly not me. It is said that thinking that you have a mental disorder when you don't is a mental disorder. How can it be? Humans are very peculiar; they are not understandable.
Red river coming out of my body
I guess I'm just another person to bury
If there was anyone who really cared about me
They would suffer bad when me they'd see
Already seeing the white light.
I never thought that it would be so bright.
I never thought that's so much it would shine.
Numbness now coming from my wound site.
Hope it was my destined time to die.
Can't really breathe, on my knees, clutching to my side.
The red streams are so dark; they make me start to cry.
Is there another way other than suicide?
***** blood on the toilet seat
Wish somebody would come here and rescue me
That somebody would most likely not be real
My fingers and toes I cannot feel.
Gurgle, gurgle
My life I just burgled
Wish people wouldn't say that I looked like a gerbil
I wouldn't have to face the fact that I am in trouble
Blarh, blarh!
A black crow at me cawed
I barely see I'm encircled by blurry vultures
My eyes closed, my last breath I draw.
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 5:46 PM UTC
I saw five blackbirds perched on a telephone wire at six am
They were black as the blackest of nights and as big as Caterpillars
They were looking down on cars taped over with blowing plastic bags
Floating in the hot pink wind like tornadoes made from lipstick
Their talons were long daggers looking to pierce the deepest part of my heart
To open my eyes with their meandering meaningful meaningless
They had shipwrecks adorning each obsidian feather and crooked teeth
Capped the nightmares that lurked behind the glare of their eyes
They watched solemnly at the scene below of closing doors
Of rustling papers and stained tears tarring the summer ground
They had secrets cawed in a language of screeched whispers
Warning and educating ears that were too deaf or too self involved to listen
We’ve got no chance to escape this drudgery of modernity
We’re stuck in this self-built prison of black and white prisms
Of three dimensional reasoning and the attitude that follows
Never meant to be but it’s what it is when we think we’re free
How can the one blind bird perceive things differently
If our shortsighted near-death experiences have left us numb
Numbing us to the presence of the stars in the morning sky
Or the Sun exploding torrents of fire during the night
Wrapping us in a chilly warmth like blankets soaked with gasoline
We've left ourselves to wander the desolate land thinking of the obscene
I saw five blackbirds blacking out the sun as they took to the sky
Laughing their murderous laugh at the awkward bipeds down below
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 11:35 AM UTC
Crow
-------
A crow cawed, inviting visitors
While I was translating my country in my dream
When I got up
A pigeon was sitting sleeping
On the window of the flat on the other side
Not saying anything
O visitor, go back
Don’t stay in my dreams
Without a visa
Coconut trees
------------------
Date palms asked
Why are you staring?
We are the coconut trees
After you translated us.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 8:44 AM UTC
He took her by the wrist and gently placed a brush in her hand.
She dipped it in a bottle of pastels,
And under His watchful eye
She drew a sky with all the colors before her.
A shade of blue glowed on the page,
And in the distance birds cawed.
Once He nodded in approval
Her brush painted a scene of love and silent tears.
Houses appeared on the page,
Each with more meaning then the next.
Gradually the scene changed,
As things do with age.
Her brush faltered,
Painting a scene in all blacks and blues.
She shaded her face until only the tears showed.
The painter stubbornly looked down,
Ignoring the face of beauty looking down at her,
Ignoring the gentle touch on her wrist.
She painted scenes of confusion and pain,
Worry and death.
She became ignorant and blind,
Forgetting the setting she had once loved before.
The painter suddenly noticed her mistake,
And once again found Him and the guidance He gave.
He whispered his plan to her
And her brush danced across the page with a renewed hope.
She painted all the joys in colors of yellow,
All the little hints of love in various tints of red.
Times of growth and understanding leaped off the page in vibrant greens.
She didn't hesitate to paint the sorrows,
Knowing that was what He wanted her to see.
And on the seventh day, He rested.
The girl, old and wise from the life she led,
Became a lifetime younger.
She curled up into His arms,
Like a child on a cold night.
He smiled down at her and she set down her brush,
Retiring to heaven
To admire the painting they had created.
Jul 17, 2011
Jul 17, 2011 at 7:23 PM UTC
*eerie plover cries
and night jar acrobatics
in broad daylight
were a sign of something amiss
especially coming so soon
after a barn owl
had pecked his fruit bowl at lunch
and a crow had sat on his head
and cawed lustily for an eternity
it's *** for tat from nature
when we think only of ourselves
without doubt we demean our stature
when we upset nature's designs
one of these days an ape will come visiting
and help himself to the fowls*
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 5:31 PM UTC
Me, up on the snow-rock white glacial cliff hedges mountaineering my way in the moments-after-twilight-sweeping-black. Execrable cold, a death-making quiet, Not a seal, not a hare - this Earth of gelid death. I climbed out above the snow Where my expiration left sinuous brandings in the copper light. But the Weddell was siphoning the darkness to the katabatic deep valleys - piceous lees of the brightening umber - cleaving the moon in two like the split eye of a winter lynx. And I saw the penguins: Little specks of black in the limitless white - fifty together - obelisk-still. Their inaudible coo, they sat motionless, nearly mute, With creamsicle feet and amber-eyes, incomparably mum. I proceeded: not one chirped or swiveled its little fur cap. Black silent fragments of a black silent world. I hearkened in the barrens of the desiccate plains. While the wooly bears came from the sea to see of the silence. Slowly edges oozed out of the darkness. Then the moon ivory, porcelain, azure erupted Quietly, and halving to its heart and shot mist, shaking and the ocean opened, crying blue, And the giant mountains lunged-. I stopped Scrambling, as if up from my voice at the mouth of a nightmare, down towards the snow-rock, from their glacial sheaths, And came the penguins. There stood they, still-, silent, in the river of blue light: Creamsicle feet and amber-eyed Thwacking the ice in a grand fête While everywhere was gray and rimy. And still they did not speak above a breath, Not one squeeked or cawed, Their nestled shining beaks dug into the polar rim, Low into the valleys, in the blue shimmering rays - In throngs of the congested cities, living among the years, the faces, May I some day greet my memory in such solemn a world Into the estuaries and the azure-skies, curious wooly bears, Listening as the ice tholes.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:40 AM UTC
“Ring-a-ring-a-rosie,” we screamed
holding hands in circles. We laughed,
fell, tumbled when the end came
and rolled about in the thick grass.
Mothers would scold us and click
their tongues. Big sighs came;
we knew the games were over
and retired the evening inside.
At night I played the game myself,
pulled on my teddy bear’s arms
and loudly whispered the rhyme
as I danced around my room.
Like a possessed child I danced,
fully drunk in the night’s vigour
until there came the trumpets,
slowly gathering pace outside.
They became louder. So did I.
I twirled as the house shook,
span around me and laughed
until it all blurred violently.
The sound was deafening
much like my heart in my ears.
Ba-doomph. Ba-doomph.
The explosions rattled me
as wailings came and cawed,
but I carried on in my fever:
“We all fall down” I said, dizzy.
I knew I wouldn’t dance again.
Mar 7, 2012
Mar 7, 2012 at 8:24 AM UTC
Yes or No, The Crow Cawed(./?)
What Does it Entail, The Fox Chuckled as it enticingly twitched its hindquarters.
Who, crowed the Owl?
No. What, cried the Crow.
Is it For her or For him, questioned the quail.
This drew the eyes of the Predators and The quail hurried along into the long grass defining the other side of the clearing.
It made a point, chimed in the vulture, Which startled the cat Who Was Lying at the base of the tree, grooming itself as if To Seem to not be paying any attention at all.
But with a flick of a paw, the Cat covered it up, and reached Back to scratch Its Ear.
That Would Be the Question, wouldn't it, yowled the cat suddenly, Startling everyone In the Clearing, save the fox, which glinted with a bit Of Light Just for a moment as its jaws split into a Small smug Smile.
As it It were Expecting it, Harrumphed the Cat,
Settling back down across the roots to resume Grooming.
It certainly is the question, whispered the human in the clearing.
All 6 pairs of eyes turned toward the center, the Sixth seen just outside the clearing. Do you have an answer, whispered the quail.
I don't know.
The fox chuckled again, but the rest stayed Silent. Until the human looked up and the animals had faded away.
Only one pair of eyes remained,
looking back from the mirror,
reflected from the human's own face.
I don't know yet, the human whispered again.
May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 at 1:44 AM UTC
Me, up on the snow-rock white glacial cliff hedges mountaineering my way in the moments-after-twilight-sweeping-black. Execrable cold, a death-making quiet, Not a seal, not a hare - this Earth of gelid death. I climbed out above the snow Where my expiration left sinuous brandings in the copper light. But the Weddell was siphoning the darkness to the katabatic deep valleys - piceous lees of the brightening umber - cleaving the moon in two like the split eye of a winter lynx. And I saw the penguins: Little specks of black in the limitless white - fifty together - obelisk-still. Their inaudible coo, they sat motionless, nearly mute, With creamsicle feet and amber-eyes, incomparably mum. I proceeded: not one chirped or swiveled its little fur cap. Black silent fragments of a black silent world. I hearkened in the barrens of the desiccate plains. While the wooly bears came from the sea to see of the silence. Slowly edges oozed out of the darkness. Then the moon ivory, porcelain, azure erupted Quietly, and halving to its heart and shot mist, shaking and the ocean opened, crying blue, And the giant mountains lunged-. I stopped Scrambling, as if up from my voice at the mouth of a nightmare, down towards the snow-rock, from their glacial sheaths, And came the penguins. There stood they, still-, silent, in the river of blue light: Creamsicle feet and amber-eyed Thwacking the ice in a grand fête While everywhere was gray and rimy. And still they did not speak above a breath, Not one squeeked or cawed, Their nestled shining beaks dug into the polar rim, Low into the valleys, in the blue shimmering rays - In throngs of the congested cities, living among the years, the faces, May I some day greet my memory in such solemn a world Into the estuaries and the azure-skies, curious wooly bears, Listening as the ice tholes.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 4:42 AM UTC
The wall said "not anymore"
Mother searched school to capture the bullies. But the rapture that sang never rang a word to her.
"Capture the bullies!"
No, not anymore.
The father called on his group, but their theories flying south. She needed diagnostics. Something was wrong.
"Something was wrong!"
No, not anymore.
Not anymore because something was gone.
Something was wrong, but could not be diagnosed.
It could not be diagnosed by popping a dose.
The dope on the street,
the sky wasn't blue,
it's just blank.
What was wrong?
Oh yes, something's wrong!
And so the rapture rang, and it cawed and it clawed!
And it scratched at the window with a piece of a shirt, and a scripture to say
"NO! She wasn't okay!"
Does it take you so long to decide what was wrong?
Well it's not your decision!
Yes, something was wrong!
We knew it all along.
Something was soulfully, graspingly wrong!
But before you point fingers,
before you slam doors.
Please listen to the rapture,
"no, not anymore!"
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 9:08 PM UTC