Rumors of a Hitchcock Sighting in Western Ohio. Poe Denies Any Knowledge.

A murder of crows has convened
in western Ohio,
thousands descending on the town square
each night
after spending the day picking the countryside
clean.

Roosting in trees and the outcrops of old
buildings,
their presence causes unease, superstition
and memories
of black and white movies spread fear
as thick
as the droppings of countless
crows.

There have been no reports of attacks,
or bodies
found with eyes plucked out, no windows
smashed,
but each night residents dread walking
the streets
beneath the mass of dark, rustling wings,
as they listen
for echoes of nevermore carried on the winter
wind.

.

taken from the news

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Misguided

Block traffic, burn buildings,
angry speeches,
perverted purpose —
focus on a symptom, ignore the cause.

.

A new prompt site for me with a call for a form
I really like; a naani. Check it out, give it a try.

 

Emotional Excesses

When the time came,
it fell to me to write
the obituary,
as if it was a foregone
conclusion,
as if I were better suited
to find the words than they,
as if I knew him well
enough to fill a column.

I locked myself in a room,
attempting to overcome
the moral panic
of a blank page
and the trauma of silent keys.

I had written 75 pages
before I realized
I had nothing to say.

.

A quick stab at this word list.

Fifty-Six Bucks -or- The Lamentations of a Common Man Upon Paying for a New Yorker Subscription

I paid fifty-six bucks
for a one-year
subscription
to the New Yorker —

I am usually better at resisting
the supergreatfantasticlimitedtime
envelopes that arrive unbidden
in Monday’s mail —

naively thinking I could enhance
the quality of my writing
if I were to improve the nature
of my reading.

I mean, it’s the New Yorker!
A perineal paradigm of first-rate
journalism, critically acclaimed
fiction and the best of current poetry.

THE place to get published. If you can get
in the New Yorker, well, you’re the shit.
Not that anyone actually in the New Yorker
would put it that way. Much too pedestrian,

if that is the correct term to use
in the context of a magazine
named for a city where almost
everyone walks, everywhere, every day.

Anyway, the magazine arrives without fail
every Monday in my mailbox — coincidence
it is the same day the suckyouinwithagoodoffer
piece arrived? — and I make every effort —

— seriously, I do, take it with me to kid’s swim
meets and everything — to have it read
before the next issue shows up tucked
between the Southern Living and the cable

bill, and I actually succeeded…with the first
issue, even enjoyed the Billy Joel article.
Since then it has been a bit more than this
conservative, family-values supporting,

anti-big government, hack of a writer
can tolerate. Seriously. The fiction
is enough to make Hemingway extol
the virtues of teetotalism. The political

pieces are about as biased as a Baptist preacher
outside an abortion clinic, but in the opposite
direction. The poetry…yes, the poetry. The main
reason I agreed to part with fifty-six bucks…..

Lets just say I have learned two valuable lessons.
First: never write a critique of The New Yorker
unless completely sober. Second: accept the fact
you are not writing poetry main stream critics

will like or accept. I am good with that,
and I had fifty-six bucks to spare.

Star Gazing

The heavens are clearest
on the cold nights

when you stand in one
place
until pain stabs into
hands and feet

lifting your face
in awe and amazement

as you anticipate
revelation of the secrets
and promises scattered
above

.

in this week’s prompt Margo Roby asks for a poem
about the holidays, without mentioning the holiday.