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‘We see death when we see crows’ and other poems by Lola Stansbury-Jones

By: Lola Stansbury-Jones

We see death when we see crows.

And so the murder gathers,
with the break of dawn’s light.
I wake with the crows,
little winged messengers
with coats as black as spilt ink.
With what news do they greet me?
That the agony of life is
in itself
our only promise.

The disturbance of my unconscious
leaves me reeling,
staring at the ceiling
for hours afterward.

We see death when we see crows.
We see that which forewarns the all-dreaded fate;
a sleepless dream
where morning never comes.

###

The Feral Woman

The feral woman is an omen
like bug infested fruit.
Spoiling on the inside,
spilling out across the attic floor.

Ravaging lace and flesh,
she impersonates a female.
A martyr of motherhood
masquerading on the moors.

The wilderness of womanhood
is a utopia for the lamb
pretending she does not see
the slaughterhouse before her.

Ungodly, she stares down car headlights,
possessed by the notion of freedom.
Soul rapture;
like pulling trash out of a lake.

The seed of submission
nesting in the belly of a god.
This rampage of tenderness
will make a woman of her yet.

###

A Liminal State of Being

Antebellum ghosts
with accusing eyes;
Avert thy mortal gaze.

Romance and rotting lingers
among the reeds
and the glades.

The cherub and the cockroach,
both sacred and profane,
perform voodoo on the bayou,
exalt praise upon the rain.

The rain fell hard
and made the swamps holy.
The chimera slain, limp
in the jowls of the coyote.

Death brings no mercy,
marauding a barren land.
The curtain slowly closes
on a south once grand.

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