Best Blackbird Poems
beautiful blackbird
chirruping the sweetest songs
morning has broken
Poem inspired by this wonderful Beatles song sung in Scottish Gaelic by Julie Fowlis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzetQfKwbE
05~20~17
In dream lone blackbird sits on telephone line,
pleading, what more do I have to give.
Wing once beat out a metronome in time..
leaving thoughts lost through a sieve.
I swore to rebuild our earthen dam,
and hold the waters at bay.
Your dream found a different plan,
left nothing more to say.
Race, now long finished, deemed total loss..,
left my prideful soul entreating.
Waste heart's song diminished, too high the cost,
ask why the day so fleeting.
Last candle's light gleamed in his glowering gaze,
Write journal'd fate, no answer would he belie,
September's temper teamed in shortened days,
to kiss late remember'd lips good-bye.
My father was a musician, with a beautiful tenor voice. As we seven siblings witnessed his coffin being lowered into that cold earth, a blackbird sang his heart out on the church steeple.
his pure spirit rose
on the softest summer breeze
blackbird into thee
(Elizabeth II 1926-2022)
Are we - crow, blackbird, sparrow -
aware of what's occurring?
We cannot tell, they assume,
but gape and gaze from up here.
This is a land with a departed monarch.
We - sparrow, blackbird, crow -
flit or sit above the richness
of that marching red regalia.
Thousands of arms stretch, sinews strain,
cameras are held aloft
to catch the start of this queen's obsequies,
such elegance, such grace.
We - blackbird, crow, sparrow -
observe orb and sceptre on the magnificent pall,
witness the splendour, the spectacle,
delight in the sound of vocal souls.
Millions have viewed that coffin.
We - crow, blackbird, sparrow - see them gaping, gazing,
with its eight pallbearers, in their blood-red flame,
as this Abbey welcomes what they carry.
(Sep 2022)
(You may wish to see also "Trooping the Colour" of June 2022 and "Coronation for a King" of May 2023)
You’ve got a lark on the brain
I’ve got a ghost in mine
Shape of the shadows of things to come
Half started is only half begun
In the distance I hear a violin
Loosely based on ragged knee
Shades of grey floating free
Insipid dreams are following me
Took the tragic risk
Death served cold
On a porcelain dish
Whitest whites darkest nights twist of fate
Winding roads you can’t navigate
Empty room bereft of grace
With frozen eyes his lips embrace
Sold your soul for the title role
The bill’s come due
What’s happened before you can’t undo
You’re gonna pay his price
The valley of deaths’ a fools paradise
Nosferatu walks with death
His dear dear friend, walks as death walks
His dear dear friend
Shapes have no form shades have no color
Don’t need it no more, the almighty dollar
The knifes in the block, the axe it swings
Listen to the bells as they ring
In for a penny in for a pound
Penny for the old guy
Leave it where you found .....it
Strawmans’ head is full of hay
Nothing new has come your way
Treats you as his enemy
While wearing a mask of integrity
No ones gonna bring you round
Black birds cry the perfect sound.
Blackbird sings shrill at night, before day's dawn,
not now drowned by traffic's rumble sound,
nor returning early morning flight from Costa's Benidorm
to Heathrow's duller, grayer ground.
Now all is empty beach, and quieter lock-down street.
This strange unearthly morning still has only just begun,
has only just begun its start, is nowhere near complete.
And blackbird sits on hedge row top, or higher branch,
dark shadowed shape to rising glow.
And does he notice those below no longer make their way to work,
or turn the key where car is parked beside suburban curb?
Has he found this finer voice now humankind has lost its choice
to mask this far sublimer task of glory choral sound?
So sweetly sung, so sweetly hung between each silent pause.
It gains Creator's ear, soft ringing His applause,
while many sit in fear, shut still behind closed doors,
first hearing clear for many years this greater sound composed.
First hearing clear for many years: Creator's sound composed.
In the wink the suns rays turn black to silver
In molten precision
He leaps; hopping
A mystic dance around his meal
Cloaked in glistening pitch
The whisper of each immaculate feather
brushing against the others
No more a flawless symphony could nature compose
than the sounds of a raven, being
I felt like it was coming,
not through buds breaking open,
but through a softness in the air,
like a soft napkin
forgotten on the chest
of an old icon.
No one announced it
not the wind,
not the birds,
not the old woman at the corner window,
threading her days together
with a broken needle.
This spring has no footsteps,
no voice,
only the faint scent of resin
and something holy
that’s already turned to ash.
I asked my mother
if God still has seasons.
She looked at me,
then at a flower in the window
that hasn’t bloomed in years.
“I think He lost them,” she said,
“or keeps them locked inside,
like letters
He can’t bring Himself to open.”
And I understood:
not all springs bring life.
Some arrive
only to teach us
how to stay alive
without shining,
how to die
without vanishing.
A blackbird watched me
with the eyes of a child
who once saw too much light
and now
fears the sun.
And I said nothing,
like a prophet without a mountain,
carrying a single line
pressed against my ribs:
It won’t be long
before the grass
learns how to sing
about us.
Trapped like a bird in this filthy cage
Where I am starved of compassion and understanding
Left to survive on meager crumbs
Of affection and tolerance
Held captive and unable to fly and be free
From the physical and emotional restrictions
Placed upon me by my keeper
Who’s only reason for my presence it seems
Is to stay its loneliness and insecurity
To feed its selfish need for control
Through its twisted concept
Of love and adoration
I am looked upon as a possession
Other than the living, breathing individual
That I long to be
So now I sit upon my proverbial perch
In my so called gilded cage
In the confines of my seemingly mundane existence
And walk though my mind confused and alone
Aimlessly wandering through the now empty spaces
That no longer hold the dreams or aspirations
Which I once thought gave my life purpose
Memories which were bright and alive
Full of promise and hope but have faded away
Into a past that is now grey and bleak
Devoid of anything worth remembering
My footfalls echo in the silence
Giving testament that these memories
Have been empty and forgotten long ago
My only hopes now are that my keeper
Will grow tired of my deliberate silence
And obvious disdain and release me
Whether through life or by death
At this point either would be welcome
How I long for the freedom
And comfort of the clear blue sky
The ability to soar like a bird
High above the reaches
Of those who only want to keep me
And fly towards the bright and colorful horizon
Where I know my future waits
And new memories and dreams can be made.
life flies, so quickly away
As I sit and watch from an old window
Where I love to play
So fast, in your dreams you go
In the evening hours, by the old window
What do you want to know?
A child’s cry, breaks the silent hours
The beginning of new life, at a new window
Where a new soul grows
Bright lights flash into your quiet dream
From distant stars, through the old window
Where their reflection screams
I sit by my own old heart
And dream it flies, out the old window
Landing safely into its own shadow
love flies so fast away
on this frozen day, by the old window
love warms my heart today
A blackbird cries, as it tries to fly
where I see her try, by the old window
And I feel her cry
Weather beating wings falling open wide
A shivering heart eyes like an old window
In the frozen snow
I know she will have her day
As I watch her fly away thru the old window
Where we love to play
written 04/02/2012 by: cynthiaFerguson
haikai
******
the buddleia
a diurnal kingdom...
butterfly courts
a coronation
the orb brightest of orange...
painted lady crowned
bees flowerflies wasps
most grateful to their host...
the gardener
nocturnal bats moths
hedgehogs if lucky a fox...
a hidden frog croaks
dusk a blackbird claims
no doubt a choral master...
may bugs abundant
the Scots pine maypole
cockchafer fly... encircle...
black headed gulls dine
sun rays horizons
belies wonder starlit night...
late rooks kark their way
slight cooling breeze
female mosquitos' biting...
still the blackbird sings
Eight (NEW) ways of looking at a blackbird
Inspired by the poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens
I.
The blackbird tilted its head
and lakes froze in anticipation
II.
The blackbird is self aware
I know this
The blackbird knows I know
III.
The blackbird shifted its wing
and the sky shivered
IV.
The blackbird can only dream if it fly’s
the blackbird can only fly if it dreams
V.
The blackbird broke the silence
all things are now possible
VI.
The morning glories bloom
In late autumn
In my throat is the song of
the blackbird
VII.
Frozen pine cones,
falling in slow, cold motion
into endless white
the blackbird watches,
amused
VIII.
A thin horizon halves the earth
one of woman, one of man
both dwell under a watchful eye
of the blackbird
PB/JPN
Red-winged Blackbird
Look! There in the bulrushes,
Perched at an angle to the reed,
Is the Red-winged Blackbird
Keeping a close watch on his territory.
How do I know it’s a “he”? Easy.
By the jet-black plumage
And the red and yellow epaulettes
That distinguish him from a “she.”
The female’s feathers are rustic colours
With white patches underneath
And white streaks on the back and wings
That blend in with the surroundings.
See! I spot her sitting in the nest,
All snuggled in, keeping her eggs warm.
Quiet—not moving, not wanting
Anyone to know where she is.
Listen! And hear his three-syllable
“Conk-la-ree” cry piercing the air,
Which can only mean one thing to his mate:
Love! And he will be there for her.
Slowly, I back away,
Not wanting to create a disturbance
Or cause undue stress
For the birds.
One beautiful girl, one thousand faces
Anthrax of the tongue your deadly poison
A wake o'broken hearts, o'broken glass I run
Because I have seen her empty spaces.
That beautiful girl, time turning faceless
And tracks soon begun to sit and stay unsung
Awake from slumber and my dreams undone.
Tears mackle disguise, while grey eyes confess.
What identity lingering cry implies?
Just a few glimpses I've been blessed to see,
Her Ruby white pale no make-up from lies.
All varnished in tears yet somehow you're free.
Love, don't take this wrong just take it from me
Be yours, my dear, shed fully your disguise.
Blackbird
Atop a pine
of perfect symmetry-
a blackbird
where a star should be.
Suzanne Delaney