Swallows Poems | Examples

Barn Swallows

swallows'
cobalt blue glistens 
as they dart catching insects
at dawn against foggy creek rise
freedom to be alive

Before the Rain

The swallows fly too low
The rain is soon to fall
This time, when time goes slow
I’m waiting for your call
And I can wait as long
As my days will come and go
And I don’t think it’s wrong
Though maybe I don’t know
Which fairytale to read
What character to choose
I’m blooming from a seed
You watered with your hose
Don’t take me as a weed
Don’t plough me out of here
Look at the bumblebees I feed
I hope you like them, dear…

Paisley Swallows

That one lost their tongue
somewhere along the way
long ago, the sound,
doesn’t come out the same
anymore, so they roll it up 
like a carpet containing 
a nakedly dead body
of blunt words 
like unplucked violins
untuned to how it all 
really works 
begging to be heard,
and the flowery prose, 
purple and bruised 
like over-ripe fruit
teeth rottingly sugary sweet, 
is now seen 
day-in-and-night-out,
struggling with ease 
way too much 
like madness overgrown, 
the dense overgrowth 
of language unspoke
hides glittering gems 
blushing shamefully
more exquisite than 
the now daily averies
all penned in babel
that flow in glass jarring
anticipated patterns 
of suffocating 
paisley prose,
the simple beauty
in the plainly spoke,
never again 
to be seen nor heard,
the mercurial metaphors
birdfeed scattered
to the begging migrations
of petulant bluebirds
naughty nightingales 
honey trapping 
wet-beaked hummingbirds 
all beating hearts
with their wild wind flapping,
tossing sticks and stones 
to those tongue thirsty 
kiss lapping, lap dancing 
love parched, gargling
swallows





Candide Diderot. ‘24

Love Swallows Hate

as love swallows hate
folks of different colours
 smile, & Angels clap hands 

August 28/2023

Songs of Summer Swallows

I hear serenading songs of summer swallows
and ruffling feathers of roosting starlings.
I catch the sweet scent of heirloom roses 
that have not yet budded upon the bush.
All these things I know have been given to me
as surely as I see you standing before my eyes.

Like a Bevy of Swallows

Like a bevy of swallows released from a fountain
    the pageantry of a balloon race set in the mountains

  A throng of graduates hurling blue caps in the air 
    ~ so, too, passion's first kiss in a fairy-tale affair

Day Light Burst Swallows Up the Night-

Challenge the Oh wrath of day;
Corner light brilliancy to swallow the dark;
All I see, never be;
This the distance height of the day sunlight;
Swallows up the darkness whole;
the nights no more the night is gone away;
Sparrows and Robins nestled in  branches as they sway;
Day light burst shallows up the night;

6/20/21
Written by James Edward Lee Sr © 2021

swallows hiku

swallows' offspring
 
            leave their nest soaring . . .

                        sky is a playground

Barn Swallows

Spring tramples the detachment of cold
          it heals a winter's damaged heart
Buds peddle new beauty as trees poke
          roots from defrosted ground

Barn swallows swoop in the cool air 
          of sparse meadows
To rest, to breed in man made roofs
A barn's hideaway nooks, soothing
          like a Sinatra tune
Birds of blue plummage
          tail feather streamers, deeply forked
          under breasts of white streaks 
          like jet smoke flashes

Witt, witt sounds, cheerful chirps
          that fill dark rafters
          that spice a world pushing itself to spring
Hot specks of flutter
Unmuted yearning
Chirps, feather light, a bounce of canoodling 
Bits of song that come and go
          like lovers kissing in the hay below






Poem composed: February 21, 2021

Nesting Swallows

After winged flight at dusk the swallows rest
I hear their chirping inside my tallest chimney
Where they have found their perfect nest.

The swallows of late do not think me friendly
For chilly air has prompted the fireplace lighted
Without intention to treat the nesting birds unkindly.

Held off as long I could to keep the swallows unindicted
Even while the family felt, oh, so very, very slighted.

Swallows

the swallows soaring
close under dark storm nimbus
while others cower

9 December 2019

Swallows

Swallows
- for the morphologically inclined

No sheep 
to bumble about alone
weighed down 
with individuality
upon the ground
we surge 
in sweet 
and singing swiftness
across the sky
shape-shifting 
all as one
to sculpt the bright 
and empty air
with wings of light

Swallows Houses Whole

Since the earth buried my home
in a sinkhole
I’ve shown signs of psychosis;
feeling out of touch with reality.
One day without warning the ground opened
and my house sank
like a derelict ship
pummeled by waves of dirt.
At first it seemed an illusion!
For It slowly tilted
lost leverage
and slid down
a steep bevel of loose earth
until all that was left
was a fragment of the roof.
I thanked God no one was in it
and though my tears,
I strengthened my resolve
to move from Florida
and never return
to this place
that swallows houses whole.

06,01,2019

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

Mao I

Mao I
(After an ink drawing by Mao I, Song dynasty, c. 1100
in the Freer Gallery of Oriental Art)

Faded, brown, discrete, as flowers pressed
in some antique book or magazine suggest
an intimate mood--fleeting, flown,
perennial, between timeless print grown 
meaningless, his femur sausage-linked
bamboo or supple joint-less trout, lightly inked,
survived the arson and the coup d'etats.
We find no window-sized Madonna
or noble in fluffed moustache
winking across the room at a burgher
winking back.
Here on a silk pane, light-boned swallows 
toss in the wind-sifted willows,
While at wind-arrested edge of flight one flies
caught forever turning in his almond eyes.

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