Time for a Blackbird Break

[SoDesuKa]

Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird


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

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 shadows of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

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
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

[Jim Sagle]

1. Walkin' In Rhythm - The Blackbyrds

Walkin’ in rhythm
Movin’ in sound
Hummin’ to the music
Tryin’ to move on

I’m walkin’ in rhythm
Singin’ my song
Thinkin’ ‘bout my baby
Tryin’ to get home

Walkin’ in rhythm
Movin’ in sound
Hummin’ to the music
Tryin’ to move on

It’s been so long since I’ve seen her
I’m tired and so all alone
I’ve traveled so very far
I’ve got to get back home
Got to get back home

It’s been so long since I’ve seen her
I’m tired and so all alone
I’ve traveled so very far
I’ve got to get back home
Got to get back home

Walkin’ in rhythm
Movin’ in sound
Hummin’ to the music
Tryin’ to move on

I’m walkin’ in rhythm (Walkin’ in rhythm)
Singin’ my song (Singin’ my song)
Thinkin’ ‘bout my baby (Thinkin’ ‘bout my baby)
Tryin’ to get home (Tryin’ to get home)

I’m walkin’ in rhythm (I’m walkin’ in rhythm)

[northofdenali]

2. Lovely. There is a reason I've chosen the Raven as

my symbol (not to mention naming the motorcycle Raven1).

[tigereye]

3. aaah one of my favorite poems

thanks

more poetry, more poetry!

[SoDesuKa]

5. Bird Poem (2)

Robinson Jeffers

Hurt Hawks


I
The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,


No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.


He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.


He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,


The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.


You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.

II
I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.


We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.


I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.

[opiate69]

4. Blackbird

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.