Bird Calls (A Sunday Post)

There’s a crow in the tree
He’s looking for a payphone
He’s got to make a call
The crow saw something fishy
That made no sense at all

A dinosaur stepped out
From a shadow by a wall
And then transmogrified
Dinosaur-into-a-car
It drove to the corner
And then signaled to turn right
The dinosaur-turned-car
Disappeared into traffic
Looking like all the cars
In the surprised crow’s sharp sight

There’s a crow in the tree
He’s looking for a payphone
He’s got to make a call
The crow saw something fishy
That made no sense at all

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



Parking Lots


Ghosts Aren’t What They Used To Be


Los Angeles, Nonetheless, Is





Behind The Scenes
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Late Friday (3/16) I took the photograph
of the crow in the tree. I liked the way
the photograph looked like a watercolor
painted with a limited palette—The background
is just blue and white, and the foreground is
just black and gray. I couldn’t figure out how
I wanted to use the photograph. I couldn’t
think of anything to write about it
except: “There’s a crow in the tree.” On
Sunday morning I was in a store talking
to the owner when a woman came in
to ask if they had a payphone. The owner
laughed and said nobody has payphones
anymore, but he gave the woman his
cell phone to use for her call. So everyone
talked about payphones for a while and
on the way home I thought: Hey, cool,
of course, that’s what the crow was
doing in the tree— He was looking
for a payphone! And so he was.

I like that this is kind of a sequel
to “Parking Lots” which I wrote
six years ago!