Blackbirds
Inspired by In my Craft or Sullen Art - Dylan Thomas
You pause
As if what you mumble
Doesn’t matter
Perhaps no one can hear you
You look up as blackbirds sprawl
In rowdy rumble
Sublimely near you
Your words subsumed in squall
Engrossed in flit and flatter
Lost in the exquisite chatter
Of their caws
Because
You were born so humble
You must learn to nimbly natter
Ultimately make them fear you
Brazen yourself to brawl
Join the rumpus caterwaul
Dodge the alabaster splatter
Enjoy the resounding clatter
Of their oohs and ahs
Editor's Note: Here's a link to "In my Craft or Sullen Art" by Dylan Thomas.
The Last Stretch
My final rodeo complete
Stetson hat pulled down
shadowing the pitch of my face
against autumn sun’s razor heat
back against a tulip tree
single island stitched in an ocean
of yellow sunflowers –
winter will never again see me
brief trickle too sparse to spare,
switched off, Grasshopper –
you were my first love, I can’t
remember the color of your hair
my sun slowly twangs toward death
I start a small fire, my skin
warmed by moonlight’s itch
my last pipe, deep smoky breath
October hitches up his pants
under my army blanket I shrug
as the chill wind cackles,
stings my face like fire ants
after a year of Decembers
the witch has worn me down
single bullet in the chamber
a finality of embers
flame winnowing the chaff
of life, the end of the world
revolving like a cylinder,
finger on the twitch – I laugh.
Bob McAfee is a retired software consultant who lives with his wife near Boston.
For several years he made an hour train commute to and from Boston and developed the habit
of writing in that fixed time. He continues to try to write two hours every day.
His style is eclectic, but his goal is producing poems with both fierceness and a reluctant sense of optimism.
He has published five books of poetry.
Website: bobmcafee.com.
Poems have been accepted by The Lyric, The Blue Mountain Review,
The Society of Classical Poets Journal and others.
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