Hawks Poems | Examples

Respect from the hawks

Near the yard, I heard the mother bird's loud cluck, 
A signal to pull a sly trick on the hick. 
Yuck! Her chicks all ran wild and scampered amok, 
Scattered by the bumpkin swinging a big stick.
 
The dispersed chicks drew a cast of circling hawks, 
That were happy to see meals within their grasp. 
The hick and the hen, they must quickly outfox. 
One hawk swooped low, its talons poised to clasp.
 
A chick grasped, the hawk then tried to fly away, 
Mother hen ran after the hawk, eyes fire raged. 
Fight ensued; chick-hunting again went astray. 
The chick broke free when hawk and hen both engaged.
 
Like incense in a flower's heart, the chicks hid, 
Their clucks hung like heavyweights on their weak necks. 
Unseen tears of fear welled in their thin eyelids, 
At least, from hawks their mother earned some respect.

Winter Hawks

An advent of raptors loiters over mall roofs.
hooded eyes scope the neon-lit spaces,
the concreted waste lands.

We wake to their screams as if this were High Sierra,
not Ohio where parent’s try-out or manage children,
open party stores, hunker through the coming
and going of baby Jesus; de-ice puffer jackets.

Gloom is plowed behind snow dunes.
The red-tails roam in loose federations,
their young, mob-handed and loutish,
the mature work alone,
scything through small birds,
the weakened and walking.

The hawks wing-dance proclaiming their time,
a time of frost-bitten electric barricades,
of bobble hats and mittens,

while unseen, a wind-rattled thorny brier,
recites its litany of seasonal prayers.

Delivered To Baby Hawks

Giant hawk snatched me up
Flew me across the cornfield
I wriggled violently, fighting her talons
Expected to fall into a soft hay mow
We passed dozens of them
I was shocked that her talons had such a grip
She held me for twenty or thirty minutes
I tried jiggling, wiggling
She did not release me
I admired her tenacity
She delivered me to her baby hawks
We were high above the horizon
As soon as she left, I crept away
Angry that she had ripped into my shoulder with her beak
To give them a start.

Birds

seaguls in the sea
   ~low expectatations to reach~
     easy life to live

eagles above clouds
    ~small eyes with a big vision~
                 catch life at first sight

                 Sleeping at daytime
   ~those great strangers in the night~
          owls are heard sometimes

cuckoo bird in spring
           ~its delightful sound to ears
missed with august mist

                  the nightingale sings
 every season, small but huge
               ~he stays forever~

 travellinng always
    ~albatross surfs the blue sky
                coming back to home

              clever hunter hawks
~up from the hights stalking the preys~
 lunch served in the air

ones or the others
  big or small ~the birds' song brings
                         happiness in life

A Hawks Call

Gentle winds, drift
drift gently this
hawk above the waters,
brown like the clay
of earth's marble realm.

I saw the dance of crows
as I rose, far beyond reach
from the sight of golem eyes
of haughty men breached,
by the lies of serpents and swine.

How divine was the moment
when a hand lifted my brow
from the depths,
to the east
where my true call was,
a basilica of wonder
weaving the four winds 
weaving worlds.

Dreaming into another life,
into another realm
I do best
than walk the streets as a beggar
in a world not my own.

Hawks and Doves

Did you shout out in shock that day as she suddenly stuck 
her spiked heel into your spine kicking you to the curb 
through the open car door before slamming her foot 
on the gas and speeding away tires shrilly squealing
leaving you lying there by the roadside 
red faced in disgrace
your heart shattered 
your brain reeling
struggling to process what it was you were feeling
she having planned in advance which card she would play
to proclaim her innocence 
You should have known better
She was just a young kid in a cashmere sweater 
so to do the same for which she condemns men is ok 
she would go on to say
I knew what she intended to do
though if I could have warned you 
I doubt you'd have listened anyway
for who am I but a woman who knows very well
what her kind is capable of
That hawks such as she soar in circles above their prey 
pretending to be a dove

Forecasting Hawks

Unhindered by birds or stars, hawks fly over the sky. 
In his fanciful glades, pursuing a fog growing heavier.
A cloud, he realizes, will fall in an unfathomable spot. 
Thunder rumbles afar away, and my heart skips a beat.
The mists are moving toward the stirring leaves. 
The mountains are also home to young and ibex. 
Nothing isolates us from the everlasting cloud. 
Where the water fills parched rural areas and hearts.


Written: July 20, 2021

Counting Hawks

Counting perching hawks
trying to watch what they watch
while a speeding car 
beneath tense feet
races to overtake whatever blocks
each sideways glance.

Fifty percent of all bird songs go unrecorded.
Multiplexed avian modulations leave us
questioning our own questions.

Pylons loop their feelers,
thread fragments of electric birdcalls 
into sun-slashed glass.

Eyes wide 
trying to stay alert to the dangers
a highway offers as it dares all to slip
and slide 
into a higher gear of insanity.

Taking in all possible flickering’s,
peripheral snap shots ticking off images
as they disappear into the gone.

Hawks don’t sing or warble,
their voice is hidden between
screeches 
of triumph and fear.

Maybe there is a soft voice
for hawk chicks, and their mates
ritornelli sub-sonically cooed through
a razor tongue,
songs never heard 
above the roar of our own ears.

The flashes of sound and sight
are blocked by tall trucks
the idling utterances of
stalled traffic
as we wait for the call of the wild
to filter through 
a sparking matrix of thought,

but the wild does not call 
it only looks at us.

San Fernando

A handsome hacienda down San Fernando way,
Whose curled sunburned tiles once gleamed from Apollo’s rays
Was home to gentle farmers who worked their crops each day;
And slept in peace while brown night hawks would flirt and play.

Furrowed flowing lines full of fruits and crops, row on row
By workers in torn jeans, with strong hands, made to grow;
Clearing weeds, harvesting as soon as they were able;
To fill up trucks to haul crops for waiting tables.
 
Big wheels rolled progress in bringing asphalt and cement.
Bold builders paid out cash to further their intent
To turn land beyond agricultural revisions
And erect malls, high rises and subdivisions.

The nurturing life of dirty hands in days of yore 
Left for bountiful crops of Valley Girls galore.

Touches of Warmth

gossamer is the breath
falling in heated touches
this first monday morning
of autumn's calling

sunrise tipped trees
smile back at the horizon
a reflection of dawn

translucid drops
roll off the curls
of leaves yearning
to quench their thirst

no rain comes
from cloudless skies
just the cries of hawks
as they cincture above
appreciating the warmth
sheathed in this day

The Hawks and the Doves

The hawks are gathered together, pulling apart a dove, eating her gladly.
Her shrieks and screams do not count as she is the wrong color.
She was caught at the border.
They have put her dove-lets in cages.
To be eaten later, at their convenience.

Discussion after dinner turns to assault rifles.
Home-one is against it, but he is “old-school”.  He knows nothing.
The rest are avidly for it. 
Home-one asks why anyone needs one.

“I have one!” many of the younger hawks scream with pride.
“But why?” Home-one asks. “Why do you need one?”
“It is for protection!” Millie, a younger hawk says.
“And for killing those dove-lets when we want to eat them,” her sister throws in.
Home-one tries to tell them what an assault rifle bullet would do to a dove-let.

They shout him down, wanting what they want.
“Is it okay to drag these dove-lets away from their parents?” Home-one’s wife asks.
The hawks get together and decide to throw Home-one and Home-one’s wife out of the flock.
They unfriend them on social media.
Their own grandchildren unfriend them.
They were the wrong color too.

Hawks Into Doves

Why do I like things
I can’t agree with

Why do I listen
when I don’t want to hear

Why am I attracted
to things that repel me

Why are my reasons
more muddled than clear

Why do I often
begin at the ending

Why do I hurt
the people I love

Why are my questions
confused by my answers

Why do my hawks
—always turn into doves

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2019)

Hawks and Doves

To the ladies,
my youth

To the children,
my love

But to forever,
my words

Hawks that fly
—with the doves

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Hunger

Hankering hordes of hungry hovering hawks haunt hoodoos in Utah. 
Underfed California condors cruise canyon cataracts for corpses.
Nesting, starving swallows swiftly search for slime and straw in Saginaw.
Gorging ravenous ravens roam Wrangell’s razor ridges in Alaska.
Eager pelicans patrol and plunge for perch in pallid Pacific waters.
Returning red robins round up ripe raspberries in Rhode Island.

4/1/2019 Writing Challenge 6, March 2019 - 6 lines Poetry Contest Sponsored by: Dear Heart

Highway Hawks

Highway hawks perch regally
On branches way up high,
Surveying their surroundings
As the traffic passes by.

No leaves to offer camouflage,
They're easier to see
And heading to New England
Half a dozen I did see.

Though immobile, I imagine
Any second they might swoop,
Plucking rodents from the roadside
Which their talons swiftly scoop.

Glad I'm spared of such theatrics.
I enjoy their haughty pose
Which majestically inspires
Much more poetry than prose.

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