In my appointed time, I came and took
My orders again, and a commission
My swart commander, grim, unsightly beast,
Received from the lowermost below
To give to me, instructing that I ply
Earth’s choky air once more, though I’d only just
Returned, unwinding toward our ordo.
“Fly,” it shrieked, like some demon ungodly,
“For no nays or denials shall I brook,
“But use the wings we made you, like a rook!”
^^
Then as I shrugged my hunched-up blades and crouched around to go,
I did receive some prodding words of uplift and advice:
^^
“Take nothing into the easy world. The
“World of matter, too conspicuous and
“Palpable – so obvious to any
“Fool; corporal and somatic; a strange
“Place of gravity, unlike empty space,
“But your faith in Him who sends you, Little
“Birdy, sworn to fealty in a Lake of
“Fire, where your molten-black feathers were forged…”
And it screeched and squawked, on and on, brow-
Beating me, as though I were a three-years’
Child; “Bah!” I cawed, “I’ve heard all that before!”
^^
Its speech, if such it can be called, grew more inchoate, dull,
And banal, as though merely to annoy me, till I go.
^^
At least when here, I’m truly free,
Though bonded to my master,
And here I go, corrupting Hope,
And prying Hope from Faith:
^^
Do you really think
You will live again?
Or, be tossed into a hole,
Where you’ll rot and sink,
When death, resembling a rook
Comes in the night, like a crook?
^^
Ah, look, look, look,
I am The Rook.
^^
What else might I, but a slave of Hell’s own
Boundless dark and deep, show you from below?
What else can I, compelled by law, reveal
That won’t waste time, and make you go away?
Why, then, unlike the crow, whom I despise,
But whose solitary work I admire
On the sly, sleek, costumed jet from tail to
Beak, and mine, a hoary outcrop tinted
Lime, must I, must I breach and bob ahead,
Me, no match for quite the act to follow?
No, no, that won’t due; I must answer plain,
Being obliged to throw some truth your way,
And be done, be done, caw, once you swallow
^^
To master your convictions with relentless casting hook,
And reel in the hearts of men, pierced amidships on the brook.
^^
‘To gain imperium through little things,’
As I’ve been, paraphrasing, often told,
“Well then, well then, I shall start,” I say,
Having got no manual to follow,
But thrown to Earth – ‘Get out! You’re on your own’ –
From Upside-down Land, from dead volcano’s
Porthole belched, into the world’s windy whorls
And murky maw of war. “That’s good,” I add,
“At least I’ve won that much, for my complaints.”
I lay me among my scrutinizing
^^
Brethren, and nestle craftly in their legislative branch
Whence, by marshalling command, I speed them upon missions
^^
To do my Will
Or die in trying
And reign me through them
O’er the lame and poor
Wracked in spirit, twisted
By anguish, diversely diseased, for
^^
By hook or by crook,
It is The Rook.
^^
A soporific mist,
I spread amidst
The infirm of belief
That Death, from where I sit
Sneak up soon and late
To usher in Hell’s Estate.
^^
Or am I just one
Whom you mistook,
Mistook for – oh, I don’t know,
An unemployed, short-order cook?
^^
Oh, look, look, look,
I am The Rook.
^^
Filed by The Rook, February 8, 2026