Poems about Flat Holm Birds
Ode to a Buzzard
Oh Buzzard
Harbinger of death
Augury man above
On your miracle, spiracle of breath
What did the Roman’s make of you?
You man of War, of ides
The soothsayers look up to see you crossing the sun
Of their dark days
Skull as a battle warriors helmet, visor down
Omen days
Buteo, buteo
Occipital holes, below heavy brows
Beyond is the world
Within the oracle of her mind
The subuteo men go walking beneath
And she is like a goddess
Who holds their belief
Come visit this isle of the dead
A suitable repose
To make your hunting ground
And roses’ bed
You are always above roses and poppies
Scavenger, scanner
Of starvation’s horizon
The hunger circumference of your vision
Which fades with the sunset
And its ring is set by the stone
Of the moon.
Ode to a Peregrine
Forward, forward all ye sea cannons.
All ye barrages of the swell
Here I stand in my cliff cabin
Knowing ye intruders well
Forward, forward screech
Ye of impossible reach
The scream of alarm into your soul
So schooled in the art of the fooled,
I am a witch on a broom
A thorough bred racing down a fell
I am an instant in your time
I wear the disguise of death,
My hues and clothes demark me well
I am your first and last breath
Peregrine am I,
The Lord of the sky
The high Sultan of the Salty Perch
In my crow’s nest
I am scare crow, caw, caw
Black the congregation of my high church
Fall in ye gulls, ye gabbling ranks
Commoners take turns to fish the sea with thanks
I thank not the gel,
Nor its green brown pell-mell
I am as quick as honey, I smell with my flanks
These eves of rocks I chose for the view
Those shore leave in the docks show
Where my shadow sheaves
And time me on clocks
I make land fall before Eve
May pluck an apple for Adam
And let it fall from her sleeve
Hunting a pigeon on the wing
It is a smidgeon of a thing
For what I enjoy
Is to play with this toy
As a train racing track
When I attack
I smother and sting
With Talon and Beak
I rend skin from wing
Then back to the nest
I deliver the rest
I am the postman with the fastest letter
I am the messenger king
The carrier of carrion
The bringer of tides
Don’t shoot the messenger if you dislike what he brings
Whether evil tidings
Or indiscernible things
The message did not return one evening
The bird was not heard
The vital war time correspondence
Fell silent in my mouth
Yet its secret I kept safe
For I did not speak a word
Questions Where AM I?
On what enlightened bay
Do the tides of time descend?
On how sweet an afternoon
Of light astray
Can the scarlet pimpernel festoon?
Where do the oysters catch?
And where do the gulls loom?
In the fasted Lapis sky
Beneath the hay making sun
How does the bracken grow?
How weaves the stinging nettle?
Through what thistle do the finches whistle?
Or over what cliff is heard
The peregrines steaming, screaming kettle
How comes it that I am here?
For to tell what enters mine ear?
And why for do the black birds mew?
Or the crow caw, caw
Or why do the rabbits run, lapis lapidary
Lapin lapping the blue from the sky
The yellow from the chicken sun
The silver from the harvest moon
The white from the clouds undone
How comes it the temperate chain lies unbroken?
The wind to cool, the sun to heat
How is it that words left unspoken?
Best describe this nature’s beat
Birding
Can you catch an oyster with an oyster catcher?
Or shank a red, red shank
Can you shell the shell of a shell duck?
Or dun a Dunnock to his bank
And are you the one to witness the whim of a Whimbrel?
Or take cool turns with an Arctic Tern
Oh please tell me what Birding is in the end all about
Will you buzz a buzzard out on a panel show of ornithological knowledge?
To be cock of the walk, rank high in the pecking order of chickens in the run
While the sun is out
Will you gan at a Gannet, like you may gander a goose
Or might you take a puff at a puffin
Before with a sly smile turn him loose?
Might you throw a wad at a wader
Or take a snipe at a snipe
With your lens he is in the eye of the beholder
But do you see an eye for an eye
Or a tooth for a tooth
Can you turn over every stone in your search for a Turnstone?
Will you turn tail and run from a gull
Or gull at him back through the clear light of truth
May you lessen his black back?
Simply by painting him grey like the weather
Or fledge a fletch of his juvenile feathers
In the arrows of a Robin’s Hood
To hoodwink a Starling who sparred with a Sparrow
Tell me kindly if you’ve understood
Did you put the black bird down in your little black book?
Or put down the lark as a clown with a stern black look?
Did you flinch at a finch when he came around?
Was it you who took the voice from the mute swan?
Do any of you really have a choice in your wan?
Or like the grey goose do your clothes have some use?
You may hide in your hides, ride down your rides
Or follow the moth and the fly
For an insect is a gift to the very fast swift
As a wood pigeon is
To the peregrine or the Lord of the Sky
And not forgetting the crow
Who you too well may know
For his corvidian cousin the Raven
Has driven you stark raving Mad
With his gang of dark vandals
Who are no strangers to scandals
In amongst the nests and eggs of the coot
And should you hold a full suit
Or a good gambit of feathery friends in your hand
Please keep them safe and
Sound advice is this :You may remember it is best
To believe you are blest
And unlike the cuckoo who intrudes on a nest
For the others eggs out he will push
But know without doubt
Your life is not worth a short snout
For a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
Dead Gulls
Dead gulls on coal beach
Black lulls the green sea’s reach
Spreading fingers through
Pebbles beneath
Lifting their bodies in tow
Their bodies are flung
Down to the gems in the sand
Where sea nymphs stove treasure
And fairies make foam cakes
And they carry the sleeping birds escort
Out to sea
To the watery grave to sleep
With the tides eternal deep
Buteo
Buteo, Buteo
Where for art thou Buteo?
On what holy wooded hedge
Where you make our hooded ledge
And wherefore do you fly?
Forever a convict of the sky
And conviction yes
More is the less
As with auspices make your pledge
Your blood bond to swear by
Vow your vows
Bow your heads
Here comes the vouchsafe
Of your lives
Give money, give roses, poses of heather
Black is the beak, brown is the feather
The air in some torpid atmosphere
Breaks like breakers of a wild sea
Snapping like a belt of leather
Sends up vapours
On whose thermals see thee
Oh how grubby are the praying hands
When they come together
Beneath wedding bands
And marriage yet between
Sky and land
Though thou art unknowable times of sand
For where do you come from?
Who is your mother?
Thy father is every falcon
Every hunter back to the age of man
But how many mothers can
Give birth to your skill
Your art is the destroyer
How learnt thou to kill?
Who taught you? Treacherous sky and wind
Tempest belly was thy womb
But land that keeps your harboured pledge
Vouchsafe in him
Your meat and bread
Father provider to a son born of the air
Always crossing the sun
But what cares the sun for poor Buteo Buteo?
He is forever a traveller
In search of his carrion loot
In search of dead gold
When the sun is treasure chest
Enough for this pirate
Who sails blue pastures
What more wealth can be searched for?
When wisdom is the treasure the sun has in store
And he but transmuted
The vessel of nature’s law
Sign giver and guide all those
Who worship him and him adore
Yet his auspice given, rewards
Neither love nor hate
But like the majesty of heaven
Reigns down equal upon those from His pearly gate
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