13 Ways of Looking at a Circus April 2014 | Page 6

The crows singing their songs
Swirl around me
Round and round they go
Like a merry-go-round
Jessica

I tried to run but I could not
Taken away by the chaos
Jonathan

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

III
The blackbird
whirled in the
autumn winds.
It was a small part
of the pantomime.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the
autumn winds.
It was a small part of the
pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

Almost getting killed
In a lion’s mouth
Is on the schedule
Naseem

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII )$