Poem: Vultures

This poem was published long ago (March 2004) in an online journal called Wings. It is representative of my 'early days' as a poet.

Owl

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Vultures

vultures had their day of bliss,
sawing the air with sloppy wings
and christening wild tombs.
their feathers were black tongues
that spoke to the wind
or mumbled in a headdress.
calm and arcane, they watched
like cloaks the last battles
of long wars, then swooped down
without eulogy or burial
to chisel with slimy heads.

shaman astronomers
watched the weird orbits of these birds,
and divined the flow of galaxies--
that Earth had female curves
and danced around a fire of life and death.
they saw their own world shrink
in a ravenous feast, and then the
feasters stumble away
from cities of bone
to brood above cliffs in exile.
today you can still see
in the gloom of vultures
that they are the last spells
of an ancient orgy, when death
scattered itself about like spent petals
and forgotten clothes.