Thursday, June 24, 2010

when sparrow faked eight to cover

There was an eyebrow of cirrus
stroked black above the sun,
black over white morning,
as I stared at garish clouds
and watched the soffets drift
under the steady clairvoyance
of two sage and observant crows.

I could smell the pitch to come,
a pitch that would hide the cones
under a white diguise of freedom:
if I had been halfway smart
instead of dumb all the way
then that downy woodpecker
would not have guessed right then
that I was smug and thus unguarded.

When I watched the flock
from the hemlock boughs
the traffic of wings
was appealing at first,

so ripe and bold and bracing
in late spring when wild beaks
peck fragrant nuts on bleak bark
and the mating flutter begins,

so behind the green facade
to mount eight pleasures
was almost numbing to do:
but in striped joy red ploys
were fadged in cackles
or plotted with a catlick
before the feathers bloomed.

A clam shell luna of night
illuminated her solstice of flutter
but a wet bird never truly flies:

when the new eggs hatched
they were tiger striped with lies
and I was not amused.

There will always be a bird
to fuck with a sparrow's head
if the blue jay is there
to bribe with timely trinkets.

There was only one truth she chirped
amid a burst of later trilling

a trilling never ending.

9 comments:

  1. Oh Gerry Boyd! You had me laughing by the second stanza but looking behind me by the last to see who might be laughing at me. I really enjoy this one, Gerry!

    xo
    erin

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  2. @WIAW: Good. I'm glad the humor works. xo

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  3. Gerry,

    This is my most favourite/favorite piece of your writing to date. I love the orinithological references throughout.
    Amazing....imagination!

    Eileen

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  4. Eyebrow of cirrus! What a fabulous opening line. Loved this.

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  5. Clever and shot through with some killer lines:

    "when the new eggs hatched
    they were tiger striped with lies"

    Have you read The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds? Your poem compliments the memory of that book in my mind.

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  6. favourite line: a wet bird never flies
    how many contexts can this apply to??

    and loved the trilling ( never) ending.
    a clever and lovely thing you have done here.

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  7. @Megan: Thx. No, I haven't read that. Will check out. Plowing through Gravity's Rainbow at the moment so it might be a while.

    @Harlequin: An oblique reference to an old Jackie Vernon routine. thx.

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Yes?