"starlings" poems
Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?
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Consider Icarus, pasting those sticky wings on,
testing that strange little tug at his shoulder blade,
and think of that first flawless moment over the lawn
of the labyrinth. Think of the difference it made!
There below are the trees, as awkward as camels;
and here are the shocked starlings pumping past
and think of innocent Icarus who is doing quite well.
Larger than a sail, over the fog and the blast
of the plushy ocean, he goes. Admire his wings!
Feel the fire at his neck and see how casually
he glances up and is caught, wondrously tunneling
into that hot eye. Who cares that he fell back to the sea?
See him acclaiming the sun and come plunging down
while his sensible daddy goes straight into town.
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do you recall
the crunch beneath our feet
a gesture small
as we ambled down the street
dirt and gravel
I felt pebbles through my shoe
I unravelled
When I looked at you
Where did you come from
Are you real?
Is this how I’m supposed to feel?
A dreamgirl
In a dreary place
I’ve counted every freckle on your face
Sunlight peaked through maple branches
in such a tranquil way
missed chances to make advances
I always hoped you'd stay
a fork in the road ahead
we went different directions
I used many different methods
to try and snag your attention
Where did you come from
Are you real?
Is this how I’m supposed to feel?
A dreamgirl
In a dreary place
I’ve counted every freckle on your face
you never seemed to notice
you just stared ahead
heart bloomed as if a lotus
while I tugged at a loose thread
sometimes I'd begin to speak
but choked upon my words
so I walked next to you without a peep
and together watched the birds
Where did you come from
Are you real?
Is this how I’m supposed to feel?
A dreamgirl
In a dreary place
I’ve counted every freckle on your face
it's odd and super subtle
the synchronicity
insignificant and pointless
yet means the world to me
quiet walks every afternoon
past the garage and dead leaves
we watched the starlings courtship
do you remember me?
Where did you come from
Are you real?
Is this how I’m supposed to feel?
A dreamgirl
In a dreary place
I’ve counted every freckle on your face
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 2:29 AM UTC
I am ten crows, twenty-three starlings,
one tree, a world of racket, every dusk that ever was.
I am a holy heart four angels defend,
other times I am nothing but flesh and fingertips.
There are four seasons, three necessities,
two sides to the moon.
The window has eight panes;
I am in them all.
Jul 23, 2025
Jul 23, 2025 at 6:23 AM UTC
*Dull grey starlings come
Parade on gardens not won
Never too soon— gone*
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 10:54 PM UTC
Delightful march
breathes in on the sound of the swallows
chirp, and in the pungent scent of lemonade.
Daffodils brave the curtain call
and splash in yellow fountains which
powder the grass canary
and rich caramel.
Boughs of cherry trees burst
once more with indulgent,
fatuous blossoms of sugared coral,
Their marbled paper florets billow
in the gusts rising and falling like
the flocks of starlings.
The future is close, wide and happy.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
The tractor stands frozen - an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.
It defied flesh and won't start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails were all just torn off.
I stare at it in hatred. Beyond it
The copse hisses - capitulates miserably
In the fleeing, failing light. Starlings,
A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over
Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice.
The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive - but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother -
While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites
With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined
In one solid lump.
I squirt commercial sure-fire
Down the black throat - it just coughs.
It ridicules me - a trap of iron stupidity
I've stepped into. I drive the battery
As if I were hammering and hammering
The frozen arrangement to pieces with a hammer
And it jabbers laughing pain-crying mockingly
Into happy life.
And stands
Shuddering itself full of heat, seeming to enlarge slowly
Like a demon demonstrating
A more-than-usually-complete materialization -
Suddenly it jerks from its solidarity
With the concrete, and lurches towards a stanchion
Bursting with superhuman well-being and abandon
Shouting Where Where?
Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-shit.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks -
Fingers
Among the tormented
Tonnage and burning of iron
Eyes
Weeping in the wind of chloroform
And the tractor, streaming with sweat,
Raging and trembling and rejoicing.
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As the warm days of summer give way to chill, and shadows grow longer as days shed their hours.
High winds and rain storms scrub the tired landscape down.
Colours are changing from rich green to gold, from yellow to red and orange to brown.
The grain has been gathered, wheat, barley and oats, cut and collected, sifted and sorted and put into store.
Grown by God, and by man with machine and by effort of hand.
Poppies and stalks now mark the spot, of the return for their labour. The wealth of the land.
Birds follow the tractor, rising and falling, swirling and soaring they move like a cloud.
The farmer is out and turning the stubble into the ground.
Rooks and crows, gulls and wood pigeons, starlings and magpies follow him round.
Hay long since mown is now bailed and in barns, or rolled up and bagged, ferments now in high silage towers.
The countryside has yielded reward for all Adam’s toil.
Work done in rhythm with the seasons, sowing, growing, reaping, ploughing and tilling the soil.
Gathering goodness, from garden, and greenhouse, carrots and courgettes, tomatoes in bunches.
Fresher than any you can get in the shops.
Picking the bounty gleaned from the hedgerow. Rosehips and cobnuts, damsons and hops.
Elder and sorrel, mushrooms and puffballs, sour green crab apples, and brambles in tangles.
Sloes that were missed by the late winter frost.
Not all are pleasant and some really can hurt you, pick only those that you know and trust.
Take full advantage of God’s generosity, share it with gladness, with thanks, there is plenty for all.
Sticky syrups and cider, wines, cordial and beer.
Pies, puddings, sorbets and ice creams, jam, jelly, and chutney and enough pickles to last into next year.
As the warm days of summer give way to chill, and shadows grow longer as days shed their hours.
High winds and rain storms scrub the tired landscape down.
Colours are changing from rich green to gold, from yellow to red and orange to brown.
Oct 23, 2011
Oct 23, 2011 at 3:16 PM UTC
.
*Dull grey starlings come
Parade on gardens not won
Never too soon— gone*
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 7:17 PM UTC
Murmurings of words
so long unspoken,
now sent out across
the curved expanse
of our spherical home.
Murmurings of all our
voices and languages,
coalesced into one.
Winging out into open
space, like the nimble
murmurations of birds,
never quite touching,
yet deftly creating
virtual shapes,
markings recognizable
only from a distance.
*Do birds' own souls
unfurl and unfold in
these undulations?*
Starlings find aerial
corridors, travelling
together swiftly, so
to stay warm. Do we?
These murmurings,
our word-murmurations,
fly out into the space between us,
swiftly curving back, and then back again,
before dipping low, then nesting deeply,
so very deeply, into sweetest sleep.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 5:09 PM UTC
where will they take me
this thick, whirling cloud
of birds?
I lower my shotgun;
my targets were to be
a skein of geese
(corpulent, impertinent
avian freaks I have seen
peck children's shins)
these smaller birds
perform a choreography electric,
black against blue
now I know the meandering
meaning of mesmerize--my eyes
glued to the skies
more agape than the hunter
in me--wishing to watch this wave
undulate an eternity
but alas, the flock turns
into a naked sun; I am forced
to shield my eyes
my hand blocks the blare
of light, with it, the whipping tail of
their liquid flight
when I lower it, they are
but a haze near the horizon, performing
magic for another audience
Jan 9, 2017
Jan 9, 2017 at 8:16 PM UTC
*.
Dull grey starlings come
Parade on gardens not won
Never too soon— gone*
May 18, 2017
May 18, 2017 at 10:08 PM UTC
I like the smell of cut grass and dew in the morning.
Sunshine and rainbows and when the sky's dawning.
Coffee and baked bread, and crunchy leaves in the autumn.
Singing and dancing, and anything that cures boredom.
Roast chestnuts in winter, and painting and reading.
Skipping stones on the water, warthogs and weeding.
Going on adventures to places unseen by my eye.
Also, cheese and onion crisps and chocolate, at the same time.
The smell of the rain and a good thunder storm.
Blue sky and the starlings when they gather in a swarm.
Anything purple, walking my dog in the evening.
Randomness and laughter, all of these are appealing.
I like music, my long hair and wearing a hat.
My high tops, my guitar, cheese and also my cats.
I like the drum of the rain on a caravan roof.
The thud on the ground from a horses hoof.
The warmth of the sun upon my face.
The crackle from a log burning in the fireplace.
I love my family and friends, and my happy places.
Meeting new people and putting smiles on their faces.
I like birds, all animals and frost on the window.
I love the look of the countryside when it's covered in snow.
A cobweb with raindrops, taking photos and nature.
My book collection, seafood and the blue of a glacier.
I like making cakes, playing risk, and flowers and trees.
Writing poems, walking, reading, and I love bees.
I like the crash of the sea, and the trickle of a stream.
The sunset in Africa, crypic crosswords and a good dream.
I like a lot of things, as you can see.
There is a lot more you don't know about me.
Maybe another poem will pop into my head.
Always at the time when I should be in bed.
When it does I'll write it down somewhere to show.
Then more things about me you shall know.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 11:57 PM UTC
I am sun and you are moon.
Caressing countlessly
Cranes and Starlings swoon
With love effortlessly.
I paint the daybreak flawless
with color sinking in
Moon is gathering the waves
while Mantas sink and swim.
You wrap yourself in darkness
with holes and craters deep,
Orbiting a world that has you
shackled at your feet.
I can see it spinning, with
everything it holds.
And I'm afraid that one dark day,
it might just steal your soul.
I can't control your presence
parading atmosphere,
And must not always worry
That the waves will disappear.
Nor reminisce on memories
so many "moons" ago,
That orbit other planets,
of which we'll never know.
And maybe all this warmth
inside my soul so bright,
is overtaking judgment
and misjudging moon at night.
The heat within me rising
might be unwarranted.
So I will just shine brighter
and make flowers bloom instead.
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 12:50 PM UTC
Twilight's melody rises
mournfully dressed in lilac hues
she grieves for the glory of the primrose sun.
The rise and fall of waltzing starlings
mirror the final breaths of the day
as with glorious mirth they beckon to the silvered chill of the moon.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 2:13 PM UTC
Dull grey starlings come,
Parade on gardens not won,
. . . Never too soon— gone.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 10:32 PM UTC
watch the starlings
synchronizing
their collective dance..
each bird deciding for the all
each on the edge of
chaos and fall..
local decisions on moving
coupling a mysterious
non-local intuition..
all spurring our wonder
our disbelief
are we forced to consider
our analogous place
each one of us poised
on a delicate line..
each needing to master
a courage to reach
transform near fear
take that one step our own
trust knowing all steps..
holographic truth at last
each differing step
stimulating
new wholeness and light
watch the starlings
once more..
locate where you now stand
my edge in my time
absorb the starling's miracle
murmuring our own
murmuration
Jun 7, 2012
Jun 7, 2012 at 11:50 PM UTC
The morning sun screamed out there
And longing was here
Longing for all that I thought I had
as starlings wept inside out of all storm clouds
For it was only infatuation and he left me out here inside of a shambled horizon
lost to the breaking of dawns harshest breath.
jo.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 3:21 PM UTC
My rib cage struggles to contain
The tornado of butterflies
That thud off the glass of my chest
Like a bird on a freshly cleaned window
They then take a sharp turn, in synchronicity
Like a flock of starlings over an open field
And dive into my stomach,
Pulling up just before they hit the bottom
I reach into my head in hopes of salvation
But what once rested between my ears is gone,
Leaving only a post-it note that reads
“be back soon, went to market”
Each breath that leaves my body is on fire
And my legs get heavier with each step
My vision is blurred, my voice is small
And I am not a man, and I am not a human, but I am a feeling
Panic
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 4:52 PM UTC
The moon dangled hard through the city
and the moth-lamps hummed discord with the wetness.
The dripping stars like accidents in spilt milk,
waited for a mop.
Walking home I hallucinated men
coiled up with the smoke-stacks.
They pressed through the brickwork and
as shadows flickered in the street-light.
Though my torch cut them down like saplings
and the moon ripped off their heads like scarecrows,
each man was a sermon,
a vastness straining the borders of sight.
A tailored uselessness hung there arms,
waspish currents tore from their mouths.
Starlings turned on their cross-wind,
as messengers of some sleeveless silence.
The moonlight fell on them like whorls,
like hurricane petals, hostile
were the shopsigns, they moved backhandedly.
The gulls raged. The crows filled silence they left.
The shadows all danced to the back of my head.
And when I turned they were gone.
I'm plucking for life and a body.
That shrinks the world to their size.
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 10:56 AM UTC
It’s winter
and the radiators make for hot summer bedrooms,
fake heat for a false season,
high humid air in the canopy,
a western, British, Tunisian bazaar.
But outside the window frame into
the rooftop mouth
of chimney teeth and foggy breath,
a pair of speckled starlings,
with deep coffee eyes and rings
of white for plumage decoration,
nest in the wound of this building.
Surely if they migrate,
to warmer climates, past
the Spanish-African gate, they’d
be able to bask in the dawn desert
sun that’ll drift slowly overhead,
raise their young their instead.
I’d like to migrate too,
leave this town for
somewhere new.
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 3:59 PM UTC
Looking out of the window;
a ribbon of duck-egg-blue sky,
fringed by the sun's late light,
is sandwiched by grey cumulus.
It frames Sycamore tree tops,
red tiled pyramids with their expectant aerials
pointing West, littering clean lines.
It is a mute view;
serried bins wait for the mornings collection,
cars sit dumb, curbed,
their daily commute completed.
Two starlings flit, silent,
and in the far distance a high contrail is picked out
in gold as a thread in blue silk.
For five years this view remains changeably the same;
unspoilt by the entropy of new perspectives.
This is the summer of un-broadcast malcontents,
pacified in Brazilian spectacle. Days simmer here and there.
Soap operas filter through,
made to massage the message
of consume and discard, of holidays and pistons.
And in the mornings, that never come,
we abandon the cars that cannot diverge
from work-honed routes,
taking to the air from Sycamores as Starlings.
June 2014
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 5:05 AM UTC
Cross-petals of daffodils sway to the cries
Of starlings – stark shrieks and minute iridescent
Wing-beats – while the willows whistle,
Tumultuous as feathers caught in the wind.
Like the fragrant taste of rain, you tell me
About mistakes made by people in love,
How temptations of her white heron-legs
And meadowlark voice stole your attention,
Like flies drawn into the range of a bullfrog’s tongue.
Your words meet heartbeats under tremolos
Of wild grasses with olive and mauve sprouts,
Lingering beneath brewing oyster clouds.
You adorned yesterday with honeybee stings
And barbed crescendos of climbing roses,
But tomorrow brings sweet-tongued
Hummingbirds and thrumming choruses
As your soft-spoken daylily promises
Dissolve silence into adoration.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
What a wonder, it must be, just to fly.
Henry had thought, not so long ago,
As birds, looped, swooped and soared,
Flocks of starlings, offering a show.
Jen and Olly, were Henry’s best friends,
Three ghostly bunnies with nothing to do,
Then Olly twitched his wispy whiskers,
Until large mushrooms suddenly grew.
Mushrooms so nice, they sat upon them,
And despite what they had been taught,
It seemed, within this, imagination world,
Creation occurred, with a single thought.
Jen giggled, wiggled, her delicate nose,
And three pink kites appeared overhead,
Swooping and soaring, just like starlings,
But held from a silken, gossamer, thread.
Henry’s turn, so smiling at his friends,
He performed a funny ‘bunny-like’ hop,
Creating a bracing, fresh, gusting breeze,
Making their ears go, all-a-flippity-flop.
On mushroom seats, ghostly bunnies sat,
Their minds twirling with kites, so high,
Henry recalled thinking, not so long ago,
What a wonder, it must be, just to fly.
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 1:20 PM UTC