Attacked by Crows.
Attacked by crows
who are affronted by my dress sense
- I have the temerity to wear black!
Begone, wretched wedges of darkness
do you think I am a giant crow
or that I have your children concealed
in my pockets?
No more shall I praise in verse your
perfidious intelligence
or sleek, coal-coloured plumage
- the glitter in thine eye denotes not
any meritorious craft
but sheer undiluted malice.
Henceforth I abjure thee
and all thine sharp-beaked offspring
croaking in your watch-tower trees
like well-salaried undertakers
or famished ghouls gloating over corpses...
from now on I reserve my poetry
for the nightingale and kingfisher,
the noble thrush and stalwart sparrow
- birds that have respect for poets
and the praise they heap upon them.
Extracts from the Diary of a Crow.
Of course, being a crow is not so much a job or profession as a calling...
Not every bird is capable or worthy of maintaining the sustained sneering and cold, unblinking malice our position demands.
The hawk can be cruel, as can the owl - but both lack the sheer sly enjoyment of another creature's misfortune or suffering to be called a true artist; whereas the buzzard or vulture are merely gross!
Occasionally academics and dilletantes (humans) of the dark-plumed varieties of avians confuse us with jackdaws or ravens - a ludicrous mistake that might almost be insulting if it were not so preposterous.
The jackdaw is a brainless stealer of baubles, the raven a mere philosopher with no practical experience or expertise on or off the battlefield of life! It is no mere metaphor that the accomplished crow is sacred to the Morrigan - the ancient celtic Goddess of Battle and Death...
We play an active role in the theatre of the world: whether it is chiding humans and other inferior creatures, or devouring the flotsam and carrion of the subtle warp and weft of things.
We are tangible wedges of Darkness incarnate, no mere symbolic figurehead like Poe's sinister but, ultimately, toothless Raven.
We are not content to merely sit upon some gloomy portal's lintel and utter dour pronouncements but plunge beak-first into the very meat and gristle of daily events!
This morning, for example, I happened to overhear a group of young humans declare that they were going to have a pic-nic in a notorious local 'beauty-spot'! A jackdaw might have been content to watch furtively and steal a trinket or teaspoon when the opportunity presented itself; a raven might have issued some dour, prophetic warning concerning ominous things lurking in the depths of the woods... but I boldly positioned myself in an adjacent pine tree and berated and insulted them for a good half hour until they were at last constrained to seek some other less pultritudinous locale.
This is the art and unswerving persistance of the crow!
If I take a particular dislike to someone I do not hide it but make it known in no uncertain terms.
There was a certain poet sojourning in Penang who thought he had the right to walk beside a football field that I frequented.
I spotted him at once of course and sent him on his way...
The crow is the supreme embodiment of dark reason and malefic purpose and as an exemplary example of my kind, be warned:
I do not suffer fools lightly!
Attacked by crows
who are affronted by my dress sense
- I have the temerity to wear black!
Begone, wretched wedges of darkness
do you think I am a giant crow
or that I have your children concealed
in my pockets?
No more shall I praise in verse your
perfidious intelligence
or sleek, coal-coloured plumage
- the glitter in thine eye denotes not
any meritorious craft
but sheer undiluted malice.
Henceforth I abjure thee
and all thine sharp-beaked offspring
croaking in your watch-tower trees
like well-salaried undertakers
or famished ghouls gloating over corpses...
from now on I reserve my poetry
for the nightingale and kingfisher,
the noble thrush and stalwart sparrow
- birds that have respect for poets
and the praise they heap upon them.
Extracts from the Diary of a Crow.
Of course, being a crow is not so much a job or profession as a calling...
Not every bird is capable or worthy of maintaining the sustained sneering and cold, unblinking malice our position demands.
The hawk can be cruel, as can the owl - but both lack the sheer sly enjoyment of another creature's misfortune or suffering to be called a true artist; whereas the buzzard or vulture are merely gross!
Occasionally academics and dilletantes (humans) of the dark-plumed varieties of avians confuse us with jackdaws or ravens - a ludicrous mistake that might almost be insulting if it were not so preposterous.
The jackdaw is a brainless stealer of baubles, the raven a mere philosopher with no practical experience or expertise on or off the battlefield of life! It is no mere metaphor that the accomplished crow is sacred to the Morrigan - the ancient celtic Goddess of Battle and Death...
We play an active role in the theatre of the world: whether it is chiding humans and other inferior creatures, or devouring the flotsam and carrion of the subtle warp and weft of things.
We are tangible wedges of Darkness incarnate, no mere symbolic figurehead like Poe's sinister but, ultimately, toothless Raven.
We are not content to merely sit upon some gloomy portal's lintel and utter dour pronouncements but plunge beak-first into the very meat and gristle of daily events!
This morning, for example, I happened to overhear a group of young humans declare that they were going to have a pic-nic in a notorious local 'beauty-spot'! A jackdaw might have been content to watch furtively and steal a trinket or teaspoon when the opportunity presented itself; a raven might have issued some dour, prophetic warning concerning ominous things lurking in the depths of the woods... but I boldly positioned myself in an adjacent pine tree and berated and insulted them for a good half hour until they were at last constrained to seek some other less pultritudinous locale.
This is the art and unswerving persistance of the crow!
If I take a particular dislike to someone I do not hide it but make it known in no uncertain terms.
There was a certain poet sojourning in Penang who thought he had the right to walk beside a football field that I frequented.
I spotted him at once of course and sent him on his way...
The crow is the supreme embodiment of dark reason and malefic purpose and as an exemplary example of my kind, be warned:
I do not suffer fools lightly!
