The Magpie
The lone magpie is back this morning, sitting
on the sill outside my bedroom window. A budget
raven, he only quotes Bukowski, leaves occasionally
to rob trinkets from gravestones and bring them back
to me. I’ve told him that I do not want these things,
but he feels indebted having found The Pleasures
of the Damned on the burn pile in the back garden.
I’ve tried to educate him with Dickinson, Angelou,
even leaving Rossetti propped up against the glass,
but he caws that he cannot relate to those poems
of faith or cages or song.
John Newson has had work published internationally, from haiku to prose poetry, in free verse and metrical, formal and informal. His poems have been published in multiple journals including The Lyric, The Moth, The Inflectionist Review, Modern Haiku, and DMQ Review. John often edges towards the pastoral, leaning into the subjects of nature and faith.