Black shadows hover
by the roadside,
eyeing up carrion
as traffic thunders by.
The splatted carcass
of a young deer,
unused to passing vehicles,
is a temptation,
an invitation
to peck at exposed innards,
a banquet for carnivorous birds,
a murder of cackling crows.
Kim M. Russell, 27th October 2026
This Tuesday at the dVerse Poets Pub, our host for Poetics is Punam, with the art of irreverence, which she says “often sits at the intersection of humour, rebellion, freedom, power, and common sense” and can be “a form of courage, a tool of the powerless, an expression of intelligence and sometimes , simply an excuse for bad manners.”
Whereas reverence asks us to treat certain things as sacred, beyond question, or deserving of deference, irreverence asks why. It “reminds us that a king is still a man, a bureaucrat is still a mortal, and an institution is not necessarily wise simply because it has endured.”
Punam reminds us that “artists, writers, poets, film makers have often used irreverence as an important tool to make a point. Think of Socrates, Aristotle , Plato, Oscar Wilde, The Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin, and poetic examples include Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’, W.H. Auden’s ‘The Unknown Citizen’ and Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’.
Punam asks us to write irreverent verse, possibly about “something that cannot bear to be laughed at like god, nation, family or traditions, or about an ordinary person’s accidental act of rebellion, like laughing during a solemn occasion or asking an inappropriate question at a large gathering.” We should keep it irreverent and not disrespectful.
I love this, Kim! I was driving earlier today, and my admiring the autumnal foliage was broken up by a deer carcass alongside the road.🫣
I like how you combine visual aspects like black shadows, and splatted carcass, and elaboration on the black shadows perhaps in an invitation:
“a banquet for carnivorous birds,
a murder of cackling crows.”
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Thank you so much, Melissa, I wasn’t sure if I’d fulfilled the requirements of the prompt.
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Kim I love it and will be reading it again later.
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Thank you so much, Lisa. Crows are so irreverent.
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I love this visual write, Kim! And the closing stanza so perfect for the times we are living in.❤️
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Thank you so much, Punam. Corvids, especially crows, are so irreverent, and so much like the kind of people who are pecking our world to pieces.
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Absolutely, Kim! My pleasure.
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I think it’s enticingly irreverent; instead of extolling the bucolic nature of the countryside’s flora and fauna, you illuminate the darker side of the road. And how fun to use “a murder of crows”.
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Thank you so much, Kim!
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So visual… and yes it works for me so very well… I almost imagine RFK licking his lips.
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Cheers Björn!
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