The stars have descended a little lower, to keep us —
My kinsmen and I —company on this night watch
On a newly roused African night.
We filch a little bit of the effulgence of the waking moon,
Reluctant, with the invasion of jealous clouds, their plumes
Fragile with inconsistency.
We rely on the luminescence of each other’s eyes and the trust
In our hearts
Tinder, broken by flying flickers of fireflies,
Shine through the breath of darkness, dis-virgining the chunky yolk
Of secrets and the clout of night, so corvine.
Every breath keeps us warm and frightens the monsters lurking
Around the lean corridors of the enchanted thresholds.
The heavens stare downward —witnesses to a stifling explosion of
Will; so are the crepitating crickets and cicadas —in prayers they
Egg us on, and through borrowed liturgy of nocturnal canticles.
The heartbeats in us make silenced music —loud only by the essence of
Gaiety and humming drums lightly tapped by ancestral fingers,
Helping to warm our hearts and will in the face of the severest darkness
Made lighter by the glows of slow-running lights — the broad painting of
Dawn.
Categories:
corvine, tribute,
Form: Ode
I'm going to tell you a tale that may frighten you
about the precursor of death that will pursue...
There's iridescent beauty found on his ebony wings
but always of impending death his cawing sings.
He perches as a grim reaper on the fence, taunting
as if on my gravestone to bring fear and daunting
A dance step to his left then quickly to the right
He takes wicked pleasure, but I will feel no fright
for never will I weep and as long as I remain alive
His corvine refrain fortifies my strength to survive
Black as pitch he sits, fluttering wings on my gate
I refuse to accept him as foreshadower of my fate
I'm not destined to be the carrion that he will feast
In shadows, day and night, lingers the black beast
Jeering with an evil stare, are bright beady eyes
His dark presence I've come to loathe and despise
Blackguard! I shall curse him until my last breath
Begone raven! Today, I will not waltz with death
Now you know the tale of what keeps me awake
It's the macabre one whose thirst I refuse to slake
I am still alive and have not yet fallen from grace
So, I will not let him lead me to an unholy place
Categories:
corvine, dance, death,
Form: Rhyme
THE ARDINGLY JACKDAWS
The jackdaws know from prudent aviation
As they scan the land for real estate that's prime
In touch with best of value in location
The venerable old schools pass test of time
While feral doves and hawks migrate to city
Where humanity's detritus scatters wide
With copious pickings putrefied and gritty
The jackdaws, more selective, have their pride
Choosing well kept lawns and sports fields to supply
A table that's both generous and refined
Then from above look down with corvine eye
On a land that nourishes body soul and mind
Like others who discern a deep heart's cry
Their instinct calls them back to Ardingly
Categories:
corvine, bird, nature,
Form: Sonnet
THE CROWS
Neath wintry sky the skeletal trees now flex in fretful measure
Above and ‘tween black crows convene collected agitation
Their factious calls speak of an anxious dark corvine displeasure
What do they know? what portent caused unquiet perturbation
Have they arcane cognisance hid within their cunning minds
That tells of things that only trees and they have yet defined
On such a day would deeds of fateful moment come to pass?
While given prescience as inferred in ancient divination
Or should such signs be granted no more credence than dice cast
Accorded scorn as merited by current news narration
Yet who’s to say - life has no ken beyond what we suppose
We see the past in trees, could we learn future from the crows?
Categories:
corvine, allusion, bird,
Form: Verse
On Lindisfarne, they say,
St Cuthbert took a hooded crow,
A jackdaw and a jay,
And on their strident tongues bestowed
The gift of harmony.
No more did ugly croaks and caws
Dispute above the sea,
Or trouble those sequestered shores.
They sang all day, those three;
And as they drew their corvine kin,
The devil wept to see
His shrinking nursery of sin.
Categories:
corvine, bird, christian, faith, sea,
Form: Rhyme
This is a Burmese climbing rhyme. It needs work. But we have had so much snow, of course, I thought about snowbirds. Haha.
White world snowbird
Hunts lunch blurred under fluff
He heard the seed would be there
Bird didn’t have a prayer; the crow
What share could he give the corvine
Better the bovine give him the boot
Or murine play tag with that twitterer
Crows are for the birds
The best words I can tell you
Two-thirds of them are no good
The seed blew through ice crystals
It flew over the cuckoos nest.
Categories:
corvine, bird,
Form: Rhyme
The jackdaw is a curious bird
He hops and runs along,
His genial “tchak, tchak” can be heard –
Alas, he has no song.
Why look these corvine birds so old ?
Jet black and hooded grey,
With beady eye and black beak, bold,
They chase small birds away.
Corvus Monedula is his name,
It’s from the Latin took,
With habits very much the same
Some take him for a rook.
Poor old Jack, has no collective
For meeting with his friends,
He shouts “Tchak ! Tchak!” and this invective
‘Gainst all mankind he sends.
Most creatures have collective nouns,
It really is an oddity –
No way to name this gang of clowns ?
I’ll christen them JOCUNDITY !
Categories:
corvine, bird, funny, humorous, nature,
Form: Verse
Through dense cocoons of swirling sleep
and drapes of silent night,
long winding dark brings shivers deep
neath skies bereft of light.
A haunting breeze begins to moan
as age-gnarled branches creak and groan,
a haunting breeze,
a haunting breeze,
exhales a breath as cold as stone.
Black feathers shroud a moonless sleep,
malignant auras swell,
dank undergrowth begins to creep
where dying leaves once fell.
A glint of eye from shadows bleak,
a hooded form, a corvine beak,
a glint of eye,
a glint of eye,
to prey upon the frail and weak.
Then plummet into wakeless sleep
amid satanic fire,
where life and hope will slowly seep
to hell’s eternal mire.
As midnight chimes and dreams turn sour,
observes the raven from his tower,
as midnight chimes,
as midnight chimes,
all souls await the witching hour.
Categories:
corvine, angst, death, imagination
Form: Rhyme