John Glowney

Crow Eats This Rotten World Every Day, Circa 2022

That cawing. That ragged voice

of old, old earth. Craw gorged chock-full
on discontent, marrow choked

with umbrage. Dandy’s swagger, pitiless frame. Murder
or outcast, doesn’t matter. Cracked

furnace of his throat, coarse call, slag of a song. Oracle
of small deaths, connoisseur of rancid

things, putrid forget-me-nots. Gleeful gossiper of entrails,
butcher of viscera, eater of secrets

pecked. Heckler. King of the dregs, dealer
in tin cans, strut-hopping shop-

keeper of the ripped garbage bag, satiny feathers
riffled to dusk, darker, coal-

dim sheen of dust, lord of the blacktop and all
the torn, spilled miles.

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John Glowney's work has appeared in, most recently: North American Review, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, 32 Poems, The Baltimore Review, Cloudbank, The Cider Press Review, The Bitter Oleander, Juxtaprose and Tar River Poetry. He is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, Poetry Northwest's Richard Hugo Prize and the Poetry Society of America's Robert H. Winner Memorial Award. His full-length collection, Visitation, was published by Broadstone Books in March 2022. He lives in Seattle.