Long Grackles Poems

I miss the nuances of daily life
while weeks are frozen in this quarantine.
I miss the lost normalcy of my days
in all aspects, obvious and unseen.
I miss turning my head to read the spines
of the novels...

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Birds seen flying together in large flocks tonight
Words of warning sounds emit as coos and cackles
Herds of cows start running toward the barn door light
Blurred together as a murder of black crows and grackles

Snow starts...

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I am monster
the Osiris of lost souls
lurking in the moonlit shadows
I am Frankenstein unbound
among hungry crows and grackles
I creep over the scared ground
of good and evil...

Where lies my monster bride?
I am kneeling and wailing
for her...

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A flood of grackles,
black-leafing the tree
who seem to’ve forgot
that its not
Winter;
it’s Spring and everything
is about to flower.

Eva says they are starling
and they may be.
She says they crowd the uncrowded 
barebranch trees and blot out
the sun...

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After an age, I found myself in her presence, 
Struck again by her simplicity, her very essence. 
A mathematician, now on a spiritual path, 
Her life, a testament to a transformative start.
A practical spender, a...

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Just outside my window,
As I sip my morning tea,
The crossroads of the local bird world,
Rain or shine, is there to see.

It dangles from a shepherd’s crook,
A dear friend gifted me.
Squirrels climb up to have a...

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In the depth of the night, a concerto commenced,
With drums of thunder and a melody of rain.

Wind flutes played loud sniveling notes,
Carrying pulsating tunes in blustery tones.

Streaks of lightening, with their baton of light,
Led the...

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'News' may simply be
an acronym,
North, East, West, South,
Space-time continuum

Headlines capture minds—
Imagine the water cooler buzz
if the front-page news was:
"A Plague of Grackles!"
"A Murder of Crows!"
"A Conspiracy of Ravens"
"A Parliament of Owls"

Bird's-eye views of
All that's news!




3/26/2023

Poetry...

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Grackles

I rambled along a city street
Going nowhere with no one to meet.
When I espied grackles in a tree,
Stretching and heckling between the leaves.
Purplish headed, black feathered beings.
Perched on the branches, stately and free.

Undaunted by my...

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This week our play at self-distancing and living amid a pandemic became real. Before the empty shelves and cancelled events were annoying but we had sufficient toilet paper to last a good while and there...

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Start with words
pick up their sticks
make a now-man.

                          No eyes...

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The American eagles left their warm nests
before snow fell on the evergreen pines and spruces,
so did the ravens, grackles and petrels...
hidden among the white mountains, the river still flows.


So peaceful, so cold is this winter...

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The summer has thickened,
it has turned the hare into a dervish,
the raccoon to a pantomime villain,
made mice sing in the beaks of owls.

The woods are bare now
trees rattle, grackles cackle,
blue Ice chimes in the deep...

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Waiting for the light to change
(A busy urban street),
I noticed quite a gathering
Not far from my two feet.

Upon a sewer grate I saw
Some starlings pecking ‘round
Although I didn’t even 
See a crumb upon the ground.

Their...

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The Great Hall of the People, Beijing.
Mozart tonight.

After the opera,
she appears above us,
stepping out of
a Chinese painting of heaven.
She is the Queen of the Night,
an Ibis arriving amid grackles.

After the performance
she descends into the foyer.
Camera’s...

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The pigeons bob their heads and strut
And pause to do some pecking.
Their throaty conversations
Interfere not with their trekking.

A sudden startle sets them
With a flutter in the air.
Ten seconds later they alight,
Unbothered by the scare.

Their iridescent...

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Atop some long ago rusted train trestle
now rests a forgotten broken clay vessel,
shattered where only ghosts of ancient freight trains run.
Such was the wish of one forsaken man among men;
to disperse his cremated remains there...

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It started with the usual
crows, grackles, starlings,
even the chickadees 
were appropriately capped.
Broken up a bit by 
a red winged blackbird 
and again by cardinal. 
But in the woods, 
early Mourning Cloaks flitted
while a turkey vulture...

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