Typewriter Rodeo: Grackles

Each week, the Standard reaches out to Austin’s Typewriter Rodeo for a custom poem on Texas topics.
 

By Laura RiceApril 1, 2016 10:04 am

If you’ve ever eaten on the patio of an Austin restaurant, you’ve probably kept a close eye on the black birds that swoop in on your tortilla chips: the grackles. That was the inspiration for Typewriter Rodeo’s David Fruchter as he wrote this week’s poem.

Grackle

eerie, raucous, clacking cry

shiver and look skyward

glistening black cluster of night

is watching you

as it struts and twitches

chases lesser birds away

preens and glories

and leaves a white slimy trail behind

just so you’ll know

it’s been there, and

it will be back

in black