In honor of National Poetry Month 2011, we will spend the rest of April revisiting some of the fine poems published in Ninth Letter in years past. First up, "Great-Tailed Grackle" by William Wenthe, originally published in 9L volume 3 no. 1, Spring/Summer 2006, and forthcoming in Wenthe's new collection Words Before Dawn (LSU, 2012).
Great-Tailed Grackle
Had the Greeks such grackles,
Socrates might have cackled
with proof, to hear you squawk
you name. But speak again
and rebuke him: such barbaric
banging on a brazen pot,
such clatter as Cratylus
could stuff down the wattled throat
of the bickering Athenian.
Let them prattle of truth. For who
is more surprised than you
by your own voice?
How you huff your shoulders
like a bodybuilder, lower
your head, crane your neck
till feathers prickle,
and yellow eyes boggle
at--what-the-hell-was-that?
--two whistles, lark-sweet,
a radio static crackle
and hiss, a bacon-fat
squeal and gurgle, punctuated
by a sort of self-inflicted
Heimlich Manuever.
At home in the most
unheimlich of places--
airport and parking garage--
you drag that purple
prow of tail feathers, magpie-
proud, and promenading, stage
your courtship display, pointing
skyward your beak,
as if to gimlet
a hole in heaven
until that telltale tail
molts away in autumn,
leaves you strutting
like a stunted, bobble-
headed chicken;
but even then, you wear
a minor goddess
on your back--Iris
of iridescence--and you
who stand for nothing
else: you wallow in your noise.
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