between the crow and its croak

the general’s breath curls cold
  over the blasted heath in death

metal’s blast bleats of the hot
     cramped Volvo I find darker shades of decibel and speed



       where the garage TV myst glows in the same bad movie I hear the phlegm-

stuck throat call of the crow



   let them come



to hover to peel cheese from plastic in paved floodplains to let wind
spell billow my black silk shirt as I amble



      the drought-struck concrete sunburnt scheming another day raw and eaten by critic
children     I see a red bicycle halved by flood
                      crow             let crow come



let crow come click in subsong and drown gun



snuff flame with wing cloud let kevlar molt let them

click open bursting mega-mart turkey in basements of cold America let us zone further out
on storage wars in a concerted campaign let crow come from roach electroshock into undeath
   every buried thing let wingbeat eclipse our hallowed yawp

the crow is always new

     they come in 2s, 4s, 8s slanted infinites in 16s doubling harried flaps cup

          salt-spray dissonant warbles pilfer op-eds from columnists’ gloom-filled navels




let torn bullet money adorn their scrawled nest let crows feed their crowlettes–tongues pointing in need
   fed from scavenged stolen light

let the squall come pell-mell in clouds to slip



     over berg-cold sea with slick black wings and crag coast coughing
              let crowfoot be quiet on peat moss soft as they walk black-taloned



        green as rain hastens pine
     let their plumes block satellites beaming data
let midnight spill over creek the path let them open me like teenagers twitch-born



let their looping math beam through me mad down through my gut drum
let their raw youth speedrun my whole life concoct
       operas in shared worlds
let me nod in approximate communion
       as I catch open klieg lights beckon
       let me fall into the crow’s abyssal lake-cold eye let it burn a look to pluto locked in dance with charon
 two shards huddling with lesser moons hydra styx nyx dangling mass
I wade flooded bomb shelters
in storm drains we play at drowning
    where the wire sparks hot a headless snake through puddles



let the weird come switched on
    let hell clean
                     let their siren croak crack cragged rock
   let me shovel corn in the wastebasket movies   let crow choke the poison
cough repeal with legal and brute grunt
       let crow call run their voices’ hoarse
   let flap beak hold their eyes forever
let crow croak fight for honest life
let crow call in krill in awk- in coil in malcolm hecate



         shock clock crock
talk pocked
in skulk in cawdor locked its skitch beckoning beak of mate
      let speech-weeping eyes stick in the crow’s beak vacant
          rubble aswarm with crows crawl
over ears with rake