There’s a crow named Crow
who flits about my dreams at night.
Settling in the shoulder-grooves
of Edward Hirsch who commands
A firing line. Crow –
The knowing sop –
Speaks English like a Geordie,
French like a fop,
And tells me to scorn the Cape
Of cleanly rhymes
And churn my boat to the cleverer climes

of slowly
dripping and
meandering
rengas who
descend like cherry
blossoms
or civilians from
dangling trains.
this, he insists,
is the key to success.
which must be
swallowed
with utmost
restraint.

In the midst of a neighbor’s pillow revelry
and carnal canoodling
with the sainted Yeats,
Crow beckons
And suggests a new identity:
‘Italian’s old hat,’
He charmingly caws.
‘May I suggest Chilean refugee?
Perhaps a parent with crippling disease,
and how firm are you on your sexuality?’

So I crush this oar of a pen through the swiftest seas
And scramble across the rocks of ignorance - How comfortable they seem.