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The Ravens by Keith Allen Daniels
The ravens
in the city dump
are loud today, and brash.
A pterodactyl's joined their ranks
to scavenge in the trash.
A
flapping tarp, a fallen kite,
it out-competes for food
the raucous birds that claimed the site
and copped an attitude.
The
ravens keep their distance, though,
in deference to kin.
Instinctively, they seem to know
their ancient origins
titanic
pterosaurs that flew
unpinioned through the sky,
and bony crested, proudly held
their caudal pennants high.
They
feasted, then, on carcasses
of sauropods descried
from high atop the thermal plumes
volcanic vents supplied.
Somehow,
somewhen, their fortunes dove,
precipitously fell,
descending into fumaroles
like doorways into Hell
but phoenix-like
they rose from ash,
full-feathered, beaked and clawed...
to feast on heaps of human trash?
I'll stifle my applause.
The
ravens in the city dump
are loud today, and brash.
A pterodactyl's joined their ranks
to scavenge in the trash.
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Atlantic City Idyll by Kate Bernadette Benedict
Come bet with me and be my luck
and bring me gimlets tart with lime.
We'll chase the wily holy buck
and toss
the dice and sneer at time.
And we will dazzle in our clothes
and neon dazzle us as well.
We'll strike a sleek
and moneyed pose,
we'll yell a blithe, ecstatic yell
until at last we've squandered all,
shot the wad and maxed
the cards,
until we've quaffed till dawns appall
and hoarse are velvet-throated bards.
Come stroll with me and
be my muse
of feckless hope and vain desire.
On the boardwalk the huckster woos
and Armless Annie tongues her lyre.
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