Category: Poems

Poem 20160420

crow4 Comments

pitch beak

you descend in rough spirals
alight on branches
walls

sidewalk hopper
shadowing me
yourself a shadow

coal eye
watching me warily
as well you should

dead eater
oil feather

we share names
if not a mother
surely memories
of sky and nest

clever tool maker
i call you brother

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 20
Kenning

Poem 20160419

crow13 Comments

how to exorcise devils

things you will need:
-holy water or sacramental wine
-communion wafers
-an extra long rosary
-a choir of angels (optional)

offer the allegedly possessed the host
if they only nibble at it or insist
on spray cheese or peanut butter
you know you are dealing with
a high ranking demon

if they are a minor, you can offer
them holy water to choke down
the dry bread, otherwise the wine
have some for yourself

make a double-ended noose
slip one end around your own neck
and one over the possessed victim’s head
stand back to back
count down from 666

run

if the rosary breaks on both necks
you have failed and should start over
if the noose remains intact around either neck
the demon has been expelled
if the noose remains intact around both necks
you are now married

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 19
How To

Poem 20160418

crow5 Comments

mornings filled with the sizzle of bacon
the clang of the cast iron skillet on the stove
and eggs fresh from nests
the coop in the field behind the house
filled with the clucking and cooing of chickens
the eggs not stolen for breakfast
warming in the nest
or hatched into yellow peeplings

when i was four i grabbed a chick
scooped it from the ground
it cheeped in my cupped hands
i knew to be careful but it struggled
and peeped loud enough to alert
its mother who pecked a beak
against my knee
the right height for her anger
i dropped her baby and ran

in the kitchen
someone set me on the counter
while they cleaned my face
and washed my knee
my grandmother’s husband laughed
–no one called him grandpa–
a bear of a man, red-faced and white-haired
with a high-pitched nervous laugh
but a growling, hesitant southern drawl
he said –now you gonna git the chicken pox–

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 16
The Sound of Home

Poem 20160417

crow

i looked for you using the one
fortune-telling tool i knew, gyromancy
i turned and turned until i fell,
sick, to the ground, my head pointed
toward the graveyard

i asked the other ecstatici
if my telling was true
they shrugged–they were always against us

i knew of one dying elder in the village
and offered the service
of salt and bread up on his chest
as he breathed his last
he told me he would answer freely
that i ought not need to eat his sins
that you were now where he would be soon

i heard a leaf fall and on it
your name written in spider silk
a thousand wings beat the air
that night i followed the ignis fatuus
through the cold stones
where fresh turned earth greeted me

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 16
Dictionary

Poem 20160416

crow8 Comments

after dark i sneak out the window
down an old oak that grows
next to my room

i smell apples in the breeze
soon we will all be
filling bushels, dreaming of pie

but tonight, it is still warm
or warm for here
and i button my flannel shirt

this town is filled with smiles
smiles on people
and walls, alleys, the abandoned

warehouse where they used to
ship out gag gifts
that smile has faded now

and i think about leaving
before the harvest
before i’m caught in apple dreams

i look up at the stars
and i only see stars

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 16
Almanac Questionaire

Poem 20160415

crow2 Comments

once there was a mirror in eden
but the first victim
of any hard-won self-knowledge
perfect or flawed
is always the reflection

smashed, resurrected
a thousand, tiny, jagged,
puzzle-piece doppelgängers
each an accurate representation
of the human eye

they paint hell a dark, sooty place

it is polished, clean and bright
every surface shines
magic mirrors that only reflect you
impossible to look away from

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 15
Doubles

Poem 20160414b

crow4 Comments

i watch the rat as he eats
the fallen seed the birds have dropped
in this early dusk. this spring
evening as the sun retreats
i have no animosity for the furry mopped
rodent. he’s not stealing from the finches
and the sinking sun makes him a soft thing
who measures his days in inches

——

National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 14
San San Poem

Poem 20160414

crow2 Comments

an inverse
relationship–
as the space
between us two
has increased
we become less
less like friends, less like ourselves

a direct
relationship–
as the time
has decreased
of all our
conversations
the words themselves grow shorter

like a bird
it’s an event
when you move
my aim falters
you take flight
you disappear
and my field of view empties

——

the secret keeper
Weekly Writing Prompt #32
(5) Words: | SPACE | FRIEND | EVENT | MOVE | AIM |

(This week it’s a Whitney; hat tip to Doug at Elusive Trope for introducing me to this form.)