Poem: Delinquent

Delinquent

Gymnorhina tibicen, Aussie magpie

A neighbour tamed her first. He named her

Delinquent. Ask him why! It’s easy

to train a fledging magpie, born

to beg a beakful with a bleat

at any bigger bird that’s black and white.

She’s not a crower, our Delinquent,

though her tuxedo elegance resembles

England’s Pica pica and America’s

Pica hudsonia, both Corvidae,

nor is she a shrike, Laniidae.

The genus name Lanius

means butcher, slayer, slaughterer

in Latin but in truth the Cracticinae

are the butchers here Down Under,

peltops, magpies, currawongs.

True shrikes, some crows, and butcherbirds

impale their prey on thorns to cache

or shred. Delinquent’s species doesn’t.

Despite its kinship, it’s omnivorous,

a forager of grubs and worms,

a lover of lawns, an opportunist urbanist,

adaptable to co-exist with brainy apes.

Feathered black and white and beautiful,

down to her talons nigra sed formosa,

beak a double dagger butcher blade, eyes red

and beady bright. She tilts her head

and yodels, gargles, warbles, trills

blithely, brightly, blithesomely,

gladsomely, gaily, raptly, breezily,

melodiously. She’s not begging,

she’s commanding! she knows her worth.

She’s no delinquent. She’s Delilah,

seducing me with song. However wrong

it is to feed a wild thing, I give in.

I feed her from my plate and sing along.

Editor’s note: the in-italics Latin wordings in the poem are species and genera names for various birds; except for “nigra sed formosa”, which originates from the Song of Solomon in the Bible and means “black but beautiful”.

Robert Dawson attended Harvard University from where he graduated in American History and Literature. He studied under Robert Lowell, seen as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. He edited the university’s arts and literary magazine, published his first poetry, including his first collection “Six Mile Corner” with Houghton Mifflin. He has travelled, lived and worked variously in the US, Mexico, Italy, Austria, Spain, Japan, during which time he graduated in Law from Mexico’s UNAM university, did English dubbing for Italian films, and had a full-time career in music. Settling in Adelaide where he has family, he has “written more poems here than in all that previous time”, translated some by the 19th century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, and read his own at various Adelaide live venues.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.