18-30 Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk

A raven’s like a writing desk
Because it’s wearing quills
Feathers dipped in ink take flight
And feast on what one kills

For quills are sharp to stab ideas
And nail them to the pages
Like entomologists pin bugs
To little tiny stages

Define ideas to make them dead
The writing makes them static
The flow of ink can murder thoughts
That rattle in the attic

Nothing ravens like so much
Than feasting on the dead
Inky feather quills are drawn
To what’s inside our head

Writing desks festooned with wings
Can glide and swoop and soar
Until the ink runs dry and then
The desk cries ‘nevermore’

While drinking tea, Mad Hatter, he
Might just have asked in jest
But ask poor Edgar Allen Poe
And that man will attest

Expunging words through feathers dark
From brain to hand to page
Prose and poems, fiction, fact
Of love and glee and rage

Is living through a killing spree
The quill facilitates
Feathers tickle people too
But ink annihilates

The irony of writing is:
This killing of these thoughts
Inspires more to do the same
And puts more ink in pots

For once the dead all leave the head
It just makes room for more
So every artist’s noisy brain
Is just a killing floor.

The pen is stronger than the sword
But when they’re used together
The tool that orders swords to kill
Is lighter than a feather

A group of crows is called a murder
For ravens, an ‘unkindness’
An understatement for what authors
Do with all their slyness:

Immorally, they sneakily
Wreak slaughter in their tales
They massacre each word they write
On quite enormous scales

Ravens are like writing desks
Because creatively
Every piece of writing ever
Is a murder spree

Dead ideas scratched down by quills
Attract more quills to write
Wings of quills to dip their tips
In ink the shade of night

Writing desks are ravenous
The writing that’s produced
Is tempting mental carrion
And every desk’s a roost




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