ALLEGORY: "CLAN OF CROWS" BY J.M. SAVANNAH

A ruffled parliament of wings

Blots the sweating summer sun,

Not thieves, but titled heirs

Practicing claim over what fear forsook

Polished wings count mercy’s absence,

Perched on the ribs of a failing truth;

Patient as licensed hunger,

Loyal only to ruin

Before rot learned speech,

They gathered, casting black ballots

In the court of dead silence,

Weighing breath against leverage

They caw the grammar of hunger,

Beaks click like closing ledgers;

Each wingbeat votes for survival,

Each eye a mirror without mercy

The council feeds on aftermath, not war,

Dropping once courage leaves the field.

They do not kill,they refine

The profit of corpses

The state calls it stability.

The church cloaks it in mystery.

Vampires name it growth.

The crows nod, fed by consent

I stood among them, counting,

Silence mistaken for wisdom,

Caution dressed as virtue,

Learning how easily one blends

When wings are no longer required to scavenge

 J.M. SAVANNAH INKS

-Zimbabwe

This poem is a dark, powerful allegory where crows symbolize opportunistic systems that thrive on societal decay. The "Clan of Crows" are "titled heirs" exploiting vulnerability, feeding on "the profit of corpses" – critiquing how power structures (state, church, capitalism) justify exploitation as "stability" or "growth". The speaker's presence ("I stood among them") suggests complicity and unease with this harsh reality, highlighting how silence enables such systems. The poem's stark imagery and irony ("Loyal only to ruin") expose the grim mechanics of power and survival.