1

The chards rising.  Am I the praying bird?
In the gleaming sun my bones are negative,
My flesh a cypher walking through the plains
As ghost I move, my dark lord, above me
Flocks swirl and spike. I stand accused,
Your pointed face divining oblivion,
And no redemption in the rains of my
Cliff walk days.


2

I see my shroud pinning on the wires
His legs are razored forks spinning my
Compass from True North. Your dark brush-
Fire wings, the swept wind, wheels and strings
My fate. Such black rhetoric in a burn,
Your caws, loosed perches, on the stakes, picks
My crowning grave. Black dove, your feathers finger
As they slice.


3

Smoke, the cardinal blood caries my teething
Bone, spades my hand without a flight.
Taut, the pulled noose my hooded one
I see my scarecrow’s reflexion, the scar,
Let blood, the seeded droppings end trailed
To my door. Feathers, ferry to carry on
Dowsing downward, black knight of down, to sticks
On extended wings.

Hard rain tapping head  .  .  .
Winter gales come from nowhere,
  .  .  .  What are they saying?

.
Others would scream,
The burning, the flame—
Such seering cold and hollow
Open grave, if they could ever
Breathe in as the dirt piled on
And the graveyard rushed, fell
To bury all that was, doffed flesh
My torment and pain, of my loss,
A name as even the wind forgot
As it wailed, lost, lone, keening
After banshee had spoken,
No— in my skin, others
Would pray, forgive.

Rain fell in commotions—
The birds would have none of it,
The moon bellowed in ghostly white,
Faced in the sprite, ringing indifference
Of low fading stars, trees in posted dark
Scratched the grasslands of the fallen
Firmaments and the small creatures
That are holed up in days, scurried
With the creep of night and moan
Of oceans slide, mangled clouds
Clutched the murky burn of sky
And smallish eyes everywhen
Shuddered in the frosts
Of a shuttering rose.

Four crows, black on cloud,
Dark, sordid wings parry and ******—
Murdering white skies.