Author: crow

I'm a writer and a dabbler. I live in Southern California.

bones, sticks, words (20170922)

crow7 Comments

bones are infrastructure
that appropriately wielded
sticks and stones may break

[i typed welded originally
and thought, now isn’t that interesting
bones made of metal–do they rust?
are they riveted in place?]

today is the first day of autumn
i feel i am coming down
with something, something seasonal

i wish it were pumpkin spice
but it puts me in a dour mood
drives me like a trained chauffeur

to the gates of a cemetery
with iron bars that resemble bones
or sticks

we park and wait for ghosts

feathers [and words] (20170920)

crow12 Comments

i keep finding these feathers

enormous black feathers
mostly intact
these feathers that i find

sometimes they have been
broken, tangled and wet with blood
dangling fleshy strings
these feathers belong to birds
who no longer soar

i find them
these feathers
scattered and drifting
they drift
they fall without weight

i once found a hummingbird
that had died
it was like watching a handful
of emeralds and rubies
becoming dim evaporating light
as they sighed in darkness
the humming bird’s body
was lighter than many
of the feathers i find

the feathers
i keep finding them
they keep finding me
i drift with them
it won’t hurt when i hit
the ground
my feathers were taken
from me in flight
i will descend without effort

find me among the feathers

ruminations (20170919)

crow15 Comments

do you sleep in that skin
or do you discard it at night?

what flows in your veins
beside mercury and regret?

what offerings will you accept
once your clay bowl has shattered?

why does the mouse
return to the trap?

when my voice is silent
how do you hear me?

——

for
dVerse ~ Poets Pub
poetics: questions

ashes ashes (20170917)

crow4 Comments

was everything you felt for me
a trick of the light?
some magician’s smoke
fanned to achieve

the appropriate density?
how many parts per million
were enough to make my
eyes water?

was the fire a reflection
in a mirror
without heat,
without the power to consume?

see my ashes for what they are
no trickery here
just crematory soot
bones to grind into flour

the origins of art (20170916)

crow6 Comments

a het up ape
in a t-shirt
swinging a hammer

i break everything
that drifts into
my orbit

i say this is art
but is it art
do animals make art?

what about termites with
their giant rippling mounds?
now that’s la sagrada familia

what was so bad about
living in the trees
what called us down

into the tall grasses
of the savannah?
the sun puts an ache in

my teeth and the taste
of burning ants on
my tongue

hogtied (20170914)

crow13 Comments

tie me at the wrists
and then make sure
to secure my thumbs

primates are handicapped
without the use
of their hands

it’s for your own good
after all, and this time
don’t give me a safety word

or better yet
gag me–i don’t mind
as long as i can breathe

it’s all fun and games
until someone collapses
a lung or has a stroke

of course this is just
a metaphor
we don’t even have rope

upon discovering an old polaroid that should have burned (20170913)

crow7 Comments

i stare out
of the instant photo grinning
in a dove gray tux
a formal high school event
one of two that i can recall

it is hard to look at myself
the me inside recoils
at all of that youth
at that smile

as with many old photos
this one has faded
in a dramatic fashion
along with most of my memory
of that night

my chest
alreadybleached white
is now a blistering snowstorm
a blizzard over my heart
that makes me doubt
that foolish cockeyed grin
plastered on another me’s face

was being happy that easy?
or was that the beginning
that moment when the damage began
the frostbite in the bones?

dove feathers drift down
and i am moving softly, slowly
practicing a display of teeth