Jasper Glen

Crowtalk

A murder of crows lives nearby me. 
I’m always afraid when I pass
Their hood, I’ll get shot up. 
Succumb to the pecking order. 
Apocalyptic market. Hand-brake
Parker, prolly gonna get hot
Wheels cruising the spot. 
Picked up by their hot claws. 
Willful peck holes in my tophat.
Scarecrow, scalping tickets to
Michael Jackson, Thriller. 
A punk rock star; a drug problem.
Head scalded; barely shaved. 
All sleek burn- Nike sponsor. 
Inward, exfoliating jet fuel.
Velvet black cannister, dead-on bulbs
Beady-eye black as apocalyptic gets.
A velvet package sent by postmail: 
A Sargeant Major. A Jacketed Blackhawk.
Northwest Pacifican; trained assassin;
Accurate soccer player. Whoa, pump the gas/breaks. 
Two secret government agents get out
SUV from the Apex Forces; trained memory. 
Two Men in Black. Two black alien creatures. 
Black body, black rims, black trims/extras:
Black bulbs and eyelids. Black stall. 
Black tint; can’t see. Back it up. 
Smoke black wood. Proud pecking tall. 
Black prison jackets. Smoking caskets. 
A handgun in a BMW’s glovebox.
Black Helly Hansen winter jacket littered
With the way rain was landing, in the glow. 
The supine crow on a cawing spree. #squadgoals.
Hot street world. Decathlon-ers. Hawkin’ black
T-shirts; all cash talk; $big money; rich hunny 3>; 
Sepulchritude. A streetcorner lesson by thee Jesus. 
I have considered the blackness of the son. 
I have no name for him- blond brother.  
Two of the casket men approached
And handed me the swarm. Post-hoc: 
The sound of a crow is a hyphen; 
Is a girdle caught in the bride’s mouth. 
Her ex-husband’s crack addiction. 
And then what I heard, the death rattle.

Jasper Glen’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Posit, BlazeVOX, Amsterdam Quarterly,
Streetlight Magazine, Tofu Ink, fauxmoir, NiftyLit, Cathexis Northwest Press, and other journals. He holds a BA in Philosophy and a JD, and he lives in Vancouver, BC.