Pretty Pigeons

I walked around my Brooklyn neighborhood today, scouting for handsome pigeons. I am partial to the piebald ones that have patches of iridescence. Although pigeons rarely seem to stay still for long (at least when I am trying to photograph them), some paused long enough for these portraits. Click to enlarge. 

Two-toned bill! 

And a poem -- 

Pigeons by Richard Kell

They paddle with staccato feet

In powder-pools of sunlight,

Small blue busybodies

Strutting like fat gentlemen

With hands clasped

Under their swallowtail coats;

And, as they stump about,

Their heads like tiny hammers

Tap at imaginary nails

In non-existent walls.

Elusive ghosts of sunshine

Slither down the green gloss

Of their necks in an instant, and are gone.

Summer hangs drugged from sky to earth

In limpid fathoms of silence:

Only warm dark dimples of sound

Slide like slow bubbles

From the contented throats.

Raise a casual hand -

With one quick gust

They fountain into air. 

 A puffed up pigeon on my porch celebrated the relatively warm day... 

With a nap.