SELF-PORTRAIT WITH CROWS
by Joannie Stangeland
Wings wipe the sky, smear and gone
leave the raw caw cry behind,
a fluid composition after rain
rinses the high gray,
a day smudged, flood by light diffused,
no shadows but these black rags,
murder witness spelled across the canvas,
incantation canted.
Tricksters in triplicate, carbon copies crease
oil shades I blotch below my eyes.
See the years fly, feathers brushing
up against the fence,
the dead tree left.
SOURCE: Valparaiso Poetry Review
IMAGE: “Patched Quilt” by Gothicolors Images. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joannie Stangeland’s new poetry collection, In Both Hands, is available from Ravenna Press, which also published Into the Rumored Spring. Joannie’s the author of two poetry chapbooks: Weathered Steps and A Steady Longing for Flight, which won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Joannie’s poems have appeared in Valparaiso Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Tulane Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and other publications, as well as in the Rose Alley Press anthologies Limbs of the Pine, Peaks of the Range and Many Trails to the Summit. Her poems have also traveled on Seattle-area buses. Visit her at joanniestangeland.com.
Silver Birch Press 