Sunday, February 19, 2012

Crows ca. 2001

Waiting for the phone to ring
from someone who'll hire me
or my lover who hung up on me
last night, I walk to the store
to buy aspirin for my head.

I smoked too many cigars
reading the newspapers
and worrying the crossword puzzle.
The Spring sun melts snow drifts
and rivers gush down the street,
undercutting dirty snow and ice
and funneling into sewer grates
and manhole covers. In the driveway

at the gasamat, a man
in a Vikings jacket
stands beside his bike, oblivious
to me. I'm ready to avert my eyes
if he looks but he doesn't,
attending to nothing
in particular that I can see.
He's Indian, maybe homeless.

I buy bottled tea
in the store and Rolaids.
They don't have the big
bottle of aspirin I need.

He's still there when I leave,
and he looks up this time when I step on
the plastic insides of a cookie bag.
When I turn the corner
onto the street he caws
and laughs like a crow. Then I hear
them all around me rattling the air,
and I think how I heard them at dawn
before the sun came through
the window. I'm happy I saw him.

The trickster
is always the first
to sound a raucous rattle
at anxiety, and make
us laugh at vanity
and the farce of security.

(c) 2012 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

submitted as part of a prompt at MagpieTales.com

22 comments:

  1. "The trickster
    is always the first
    to sound a raucous rattle
    at anxiety, and make
    us laugh at vanity
    and the farce of security."

    It doesn't take much to knock us off balance within. And the closer we stand to feelings of security and confidence, the farther we have to fall when we're knocked off our "high horse."

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    1. that was def a cool write chaz...great way to bring it home in the end...what an eerie moment too with all the crows...but not too far beyond the realm you know...interesting their connection...

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    2. a couple thoughts on your comment...as to why the pastor would answer and only have a good time to offer...was a subtle slap at new age christianity which panders to an easy life based on what you get out of it...or that rely on entertainment over the gospel...

      happiness as the measure...if we measure out life by if we are happy, what happens then when we are unhappy in say our marriage, we change partners to become more happy...fairly common place...so if that is our only measure then we chase a very self centered happiness...

      the ultimate irony is i actually saw those two lines together in a bathroom stall somewhere in west virginia...

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    3. Don't get me started on crows!... oh okay. The weirdest time I encountered a mass murder of crows was when I was standing outside the anthropology building with my Anthro advisor on my MA thesis, a very famous man, who also was a Sacrec Clown at one of the pueblos. Anyway, we were talking and all of a sudden the trees just came alive with crows. I mean hundreds, if not thousands of them. What was weird was that he seemed to be intently listening, or communing, with them. He was definitely on another plane. This lasted a long long time. To make the story short, he was doing research on the Aztecs in Mexico. And he died suddenly when he was there. For me, of course, I see the crow incident as somehow foretelling his death. And I think he knew it..

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    4. you realize soon enough everyone else is going to tell us to get a room...lol...ah wow, yeah on the crows and i can see the direct correlation as well...i wrote a poem a while back on an indian man that had one that perched on his shoulder...there is def a connection there...intriguing story man...

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  2. What a beautifully detailed piece!

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  3. Seems we are always a bit on edge that the crowing will be about us...nice work!!

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    1. Or that maybe The Birds wasn't just a piece of fiction!

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  4. "I'm happy I saw him" seems to me to be the key. I love the derail, even where it threatens to become a red herring - so like life.

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  5. You drew us right into the scene with this piece...

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  6. You made this scene come alive...and those crows...

    gulp

    =)

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  7. Really nice! This is my favorite of your poems thus far. I love how "ordinary" the whole thing is and so full of life. I love crows. Did you know they can recognize people's faces?

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  8. You do draw the scene well, and then Trickster, what a great closing. This is an odd comment maybe, but the font you chose for your blog really works well in this piece, a little unevenness feels 'anxious.'

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  9. @annehedonia writes in a Twiiter cooment:

    "Crows" ~ Charles~ though I've just read a few of your poems thus far, I think I see a theme. (Ha!) The most ordinary details of everyday life are enumerated, and then suddenly the sacred imposes itself upon them ...and you... from another dimension~ one which is always concurrent with "ordinary" reality, but which we all-too-rarely sense. I always love the surprise and the turn! And I love that you were reminded by the Trickster about the sometime folly of earnestness, worry and taking one's self seriously. (Trickster figures are a little creepy to me too - a little on the side of death or maybe dark magic - those two things not being the same, but it's difficult to describe.)

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    1. @annehedonia13 TY Anne, for your detailed comment on Crows. I think you are correct about my modus operandi in this poem, and some others. But there are some that don't fit this pattern, "A Sister's Testament" being the most recent one, though "Cybernetic Warrior," and "Of the Day", seem to have arcs different than this, I think.

      On the sacred, I also agree, though that would be a gift, which we discussed last night. When you say acred, though, I'm not so certain that it's always a divine sacredness, since there are times where what occurs is a simple insight into language or perhaps of language. You've mentioned how mysterious this can be, and I agree in the sense that language tends to bewitch us. This also relates, I think to your comment about filters. I've spent time trying to understand them and dissolve their blinding influence, where that is called for. Some are able to do this thru meditation or prayer, or perhaps other mystical practices. I've chosen to do so thru the study of philosophy of language, or philosophy in general, though I've read my share of mystical thought.

      I'm not sure how to reply to your fear of the Trickster, except to note my own understanding of the figure. That archetypal character does not scare me, since I have met so many perhaps! :) Seriously, in the literature the Trickster is as much the brunt of humor as it is devilish in any way. For me, Socrates is a Trickster as was Kierkegaard. In this regard, I see the Trickster as a welcome character who opens up possibilities of being, though those might contravene the social norms. Even death, I guess, from this angle, is an important aspect of the Trickster's character, since I believe that awareness of it should attend each of our steps.

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  10. I absolutely love your poem and the ideas you share with Brian and others. I have a picture down the bottom right of my blog, of petroglyphs in Ontario and the trickster dancing on a rock. I think it is so wonderful to meet people who have 'connects' with the natural world...crows, dolphins, raptors.... even rocks, trees. We all probably would/could if we let ourselves. It's more expedient to ignore nature. Reading through your poem, my other revelation was that I do "worry the crossword puzzles". Thank you for sharing this, Charles.

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  11. this is solid and sound and complete as a notion or impression or expression.

    kept me hooked right thru and from trickster onward i was cheering you onward

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  12. That final stanza is perfect, brilliant! I love moments like that.

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  13. Lovely evocative slice of life write...I enjoyed this immensely...

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  14. The title sets up an anticipation (the year, the events of 9/11) that gave me a feeling of suspense inside the ordinaries of narration and memory. All very quotidian, daily, time flowing in its usual slow and unremarkable way: and then there is a sound from behind from a street guy who suddenly becomes a shaman of sorts, invoking the cawing of crows everywhere, as if the sacred had invaded profane time, or some big shit was about to happen. Dunno if 9/11 really is what's being invoked here, but I did feel how singular moments can change everything, revealing the mask of the secure to be only that, with chaos staring through. Fine work, Chazz - Brendan (and thanks for adding an additional means for me to comment!)

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    1. Interesting comments, Brendan. The poem was written months before 9/11 and I have not edited it since. When I posted it, 9/11 did enter into my thoughts tangentially, so I think you've pinpointed something strange about how time's big events affect the way we later understand the world.

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  15. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...so said Hamlet...the foretelling of events by a murder of crows...perhaps. This is a fine write, Chaz..looking to nature for answers or meaning in many human events...yup..I buy that. And that last stanza resonates with me.

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