"grackle" poems
meditation retreat -
breaking silence to talk
to a deaf dog
chasing dragonflies-
the little boy stops to check
his empty hand
loosening the rusted gate
in the grackle's throat -
rare winter sun
a passing bus
fills my window with
its emptiness
pear blossoms scattered
on the pavement -
white petals drifting
on an oily stream
london
sunday morning, empty streets -
the clicking of unseen heels
against damp pavement
blind man
old blind man on the
street - a pretty little girl
tosses you a glance
only the wind
only the wind flows
through this dry creek bed-
it was your glance
that set me adrift
westcave
echoing against
the walls of the cave -
the silence of our embrace
one by one these words
fall - paper stars burning in
the fire of your arms
cow creek
silhouette of pine
against the moonlit sky -
from this motionless cloud
the voice of an owl
winter sun
stretching out to fill
a sliver of sun
as it arcs across the floor
the cat watches me
through narrowing eyes.
cold front clouds
cold front clouds
blown taut across the sky -
blue grey skin
stretched thin
over the exposed ribs
of the season
empty branches black with rain -
but the stream is filled with gold
Tom Spencer © 2018
Feb 17, 2018
Feb 17, 2018 at 6:07 AM UTC
We felt as if we’d been born in the desert
Passing shoelace factory prostitutes
Veering memories of Crab Nebula up-skirts
& Slowly obtained convoluted attitudes
“(In our sleep) We let the lizards lick our teeth”:
The grackle chatter from Four Hand Weaver
Met the ears of Guest, who’d arrived in Portsmeth
Riding on deep banjo drones from within the ether
What else can words be but propellants?
They are TLC to mad minds of the 90’s
Coaxing the Guest out of hell with mad chants
& we, the kids, following blindly
“He tried to get me to turn off the electricity
Chanting Southeast Asian Countries with Four Hands
Somehow part of an insane Sun/Moon allegory”
Cries Morgie Saturday morning &
We saw a vision: the Guest up in a crescent
Cast down from the sky and into the sea
Cascading over into a flooding depressant
& cut open the fat man who whispered of banshees
As his steaming intestines float down by the riverside
The boys were passing jolly jokes & joints
“They’ll never figure out how to catch a bride
When they’ve forgotten how to find the celestial point!”
Screeched the Guest with his candle strap
Attached to his banjofrigerator filled with Game Fuel
“It’s in my veins, it’s in my blood like a death cap!”
No longer just a Kentucky Gentleman covered in drool
All in all, a teacher, a preacher, a joke
A gravel eater, unlike the lizards underground
“I don’t eat dirt! That’s a lie I’d never invoke
Lizards eat dirt & I ain’t like that crowd!”
Men are lizards & lizards are men
“& I ain’t a lizard no way, no how!
That’s the truest fact there ever has been
Aside from something being seriously wrong with me"
Mar 18, 2013
Mar 18, 2013 at 10:23 AM UTC
birthed into a golden birdcage
safe behind upstanding spindles
endless nectars and suet at your beckon
knowing only the showcase of your plumage
and the sound of your tunes
layers remain
between you and the grackles
painted a nuisance
yet they stay unshackled
only poisoned and disregarded.
still they know the freedoms
not found atop
swings and perches
dig deeper
until you find what lurches.
the gate can be opened
when you realize yourself
to be the gatekeeper
yielding what's mine
using wings of more than feathers
making up for lost time.
looking back at the captivity
you couldn't see from inside.
entering a new world
with the grackle as my guide.
Nov 19, 2023
Nov 19, 2023 at 4:29 PM UTC
Blackbird your wings like ashen skies
iridescent as blue morpho butterflies
the impaling of your sharpened eyes
all knowing, you cackle
shapeshifter Yaqui man
desert bird, a grackle
Stirring, you stare me down
shaking mesquite leaves to the ground
the air is thick grey sage
smudged with prayers of peace
a wish to cease
the wars we wage
a vision pure of heart
this message of love unfurls
breathe peace - peace
in this world.
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 7:57 PM UTC
I am fond of "Spackle"
and all "ackle" words.
That makes him cackle
and it tickles my tackle
I scream like a grackle
and my ******* crackle
which raises some hackles.
Nov 28, 2013
Nov 28, 2013 at 3:38 PM UTC
crossing from
the park
to the bank,
stepping over
the remains
of a grackle
on the grass
that glides
into the sidewalk
and
suddenly
dissolves
at the verge
of the
road
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 4:38 PM UTC
waiting weightless
waitless
1/18/15
8:43am
' hand rest chest
thumpthump
thump ''
' that heartbeat is a
metronome of waxing and waning
rhythmic tides and it's an '
everchanging time signature
to my overture overture and '
hand off and unsettle and '
thrown into uncontrolled rubato~ ''
' fizzy brain
spinnin dizzy
spinnin circles
spiral spiral ''
' life over my shoulder
strapped to my back and
I'm flowing like a river
down the elevator ''
' opening down
the seam and out ''
I step and roll heel toe
heel toe '
eyes flick side and side
glass door push open and
box and glass door push open and
push open push open and
open... ''
' cold streets are
the downbeat to sleet '' — '
it's frozen roads going backwards
and I'm going backwards with all my lackwords ''
...slushroadslick. '
I'm returning and leaving
like a medicine wheel spinning
and there's a dead grackle soaking
next to the curb slippery
with toxic runoff... '
...crystal water
melting '
my shoes slide from left
to left and I've up and left and
I'm climbing down the
right side of a staircase
and it's a case and it's a way
that stairway
and that last step
is 9:13am last step flat
and platform dead and
sleepy benches waiting for
the listless waiting
for the waitless ''
' waiting , waiting ''
I hop on and hide... '
the silence is sacred ''
the eyes are averted
and it's one of the
thousand different silences '
it's one of the rumbling ones
but then it's broken and
it's broken by an angry one '
and we're all alone in a railcar
with seven others, we're all alone
and she breaks it, ' she breaks it by
spilling angry nothings into the phone
that she pushes tightly to her skull '
and she grips it and she breaks it and '
and she breaks it and '
I hop off and run...
and once again I'm a
thousand different faces waiting '
but right now we're two
watching watching the
hopping sparrow ' and
it is so alive with it's
warm fluffy feathers
soaked with life ''
'
and everyone is shuffle shuffle pacing ''
' but every body stands still with eyes saccading...
sweep sweep, '
stay where you are,
in your lateness ''
and your action
is in your inaction
weightless... '
waiting to
hop on
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 4:41 PM UTC
In the basement,
I dance
the five animals
every day,
and one
of the animals
is a bird,
so I become
something like
a grackle
with its purple head,
and soar
in the mind
as I am walking
in a figure eight
around a small area
with my arms outstretched,
and this exercise
is an trip to wonder land
for me
and it's good
for the old ticker
which could use
some help.
Mar 31, 2012
Mar 31, 2012 at 11:16 AM UTC
Dawn will crackle with
madness, and a sad
soul sickness, that
breeds an all too
familiar
incomprehensible fear.
It's such hard
work to get that
click, to be okay;
to see the squirrels and
smell the leaves,
to lick the lice off the
sparrows and the grackle.
Sep 6, 2021
Sep 6, 2021 at 9:57 AM UTC
It's so very quiet tonight,
The mist makes no sound
The creatures are bedded,
Not a soul to be found.
There's a stillness around,
A spirit could get lost
Above the ground.
Only the glam of stars
Pierce the velvet backdrop.
Like a slender grackle,
I **** my head
To hear distant horns and whistles.
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 8:57 AM UTC
***** mist
hiss of tires
wiper blades reveal
a jet black grackle
landing lightly
on the overpass rail
Tom Spencer © 2018
Feb 17, 2018
Feb 17, 2018 at 5:54 AM UTC
My redemptive acts float
above recognition.
They are rooted in desire,
and need, and love.
They are impossible to eulogize
because they are as common as
shrugs or affirmations
delivered by my timid eyes.
You all know these acts.
You have no life without them.
A baby knows them soon as he, or she,
grabs teddy, and bites
his soft brown nose.
They are nothing moments.
They are valueless commodities
disregarded on the markets
of pride and sentiment.
They give no lessons.
They're just dumb and true
and they fear the advance of death
no more than boulders fear
the waters of a lake.
During a good long life you get
about a thousand or so such moments.
In one of those brief, tragic lives
you get maybe a hundred,
maybe even less. But of course,
tabulating them near or at the end
is about as smart and useful
as shoveling that lake.
They tell me that I am,
just like you, the way a grackle
is just like a grackle, or a lion cub
is just like all other lion cubs.
They tell me, that yes, life is pretty cool,
and that I will miss it,
and I will miss you.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 12:23 AM UTC
The annual avian
stormtroopers and
Luftwaffe have attacked
allied fortresses
of our smaller
fine
feathered friends --
Chickadees
Finches
&
Wrens --
and have taken
many of their strongholds
this spring here in the
Far North pillaging
needed and perhaps
unneeded sustenance
from our allies
storehouses leaving
nothing in their wake
but an avian version
of empty nest syndrome.
These black-clad
Heckle & Jeckle
Grackle Gestapo
with their click click
machine gun
sputtering sounds
think we don't notice their
clever tricks as they
nonchalantly hop
downward from branch
to branch and shuffle
side-ways on our fence
whistling as they move
one way but their
manipulating gaze at
food supplies plans
another.
But our smaller brave
fine feathered friends
hold their ground to
fight the good fight of
faith propagating
their species as the
human species also
struggles with and
against the odds of
blind and partially
blind instinct.
May 27, 2025
May 27, 2025 at 9:03 AM UTC
Iridescence on the neck
of the boat-tailed grackle
is a trick of light.
Much the same
as the swirled acid
rainbow slitherings
of oils on water -
slick - metallic
the call.
Much the same
as the prismed arches,
aloof,
heavy airs slashed
by gut level
blades of low suns -
never there, but chaste
and chased by the eye.
The blue jay hoards
no pigment blue,
but gray conspires
the barbules,
interlocked
to lift the remains
of the speckled shell
under any light or lack,
slackened back,
flashed on limbs and wire:
back to the clutch,
back to the hatch,
back to the wide red cups,
back to the ratcheting call -
the screech of all things blue.
Aug 27, 2019
Aug 27, 2019 at 5:53 AM UTC