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A scientist says that

Crows can recognize

Human faces

After

He released those

He’d tested in labs

They’d harass him

Whenever he took

A walk

I guess that’s why crows

Don’t talk to

Me any more

Strolling along the path

Of the Emeryville Marina

We used

To be good buddies

They’d do three caws

And I would do three

And then they

Would do four caws and

I’d respond with four

But now they’re silent

I must have said the

Wrong thing

I guess they’re on to me

I guess they’re saying among

Themselves

There goes that fellow

Who thinks he’s one of

Us

I never got as close to

A crow as Marlyse

Her mother bought

Gustav for five Swiss francs

He used to follow her

To school,

And would perch on a

Tree outside her

Classroom

He’d stand on her

Shoulder when she

Went horseback riding

Her step father

And brothers hated Gustav

When he flew into their

Bedroom window, the

Brothers smothered him with

Linen and laughed as he

Struggled

After that, the brothers

Were objects of his furious

Pecking

He’d tear out their hair

He crow-sacked the kitchen

Broke dishes

Cover himself with

Flour

When Marlyse returned from

Catholic school

She found that the step father

Had shot the crow

She never forgave him

© Ishmael Reed, July 10, 2009

Ishmael Reed has been nominated for a National Book Award in poetry, and in 2007 received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco for his “New and Collected Poetry, 1964-2006.” He is also a songwriter and in 2008, received an award for Blues song writer of the year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame. In addition to reading from his poetry, he will show Mary Wilson of The Supremes performing a song of his and Taj Mahal singing one of his songs from a CD that will be released in November. A poem written in Seattle in 1969, “Beware: Do Not Read This Poem,” has been cited by the Gale Research Company as “one of the approximately 20 poems that teachers and librarians have identified as the most frequently studied in literature courses.”