Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

  • Waterwheel Review
  • About
  • Masthead
  • Submit
  • Fancy Business
  • Contributors
  • Archives

Jeff Schiff

Bird Say

by Jeff Schiff

April 2022

Has to be meaning in it
right?
a feathery discourse

to be reckoned with
a conference of high voltage crows
arguing climate change

a crew of not lately sated vultures
talking serious turkey
atop ruined churches

and derelict chimney flues
a shout of bushy jays
clearing their flight path

a staccato of acorn peckers
teletyping a homegrown
and quaint credo

an incontinence of rock doves
common pigeons
bitchily iridescent

dripping their chalky
language of disdain
on benches on eaves

on shawls pressed
for evening wear
a displeasure of rusty sparrows

mustachioed and rusty crowned
(the stuff you’d know
if you hadn’t merely come along

for a bit of avian chitchat)
a pester of starlings
glutting the alameda ash

denser than dusk betrays
to the untutored eye
squawking

their leave-your-money
and-go-home
tourist farewells


Jeff Schiff’s work has appeared in scores of periodicals over three decades. His books of poetry include That hum to go by, Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, and Anywhere in This Country (Mammoth Press); The Homily of Infinitude (Pennsylvania Review Press); and The Rats of Patzcuaro (Poetry Link). He has served on the faculty of Columbia College Chicago since 1987.

  • Home
  • About
  • Masthead
  • Submit
  • Contributors
  • Sitemap

Copyright © 2020-23 Waterwheel Review · Website ♥ to BornWilder


Read our Privacy and Data Collection Policy

Support WWR