the jackdaws of chapel street
don’t care much either way
for weddings, births or funerals
or what the people say

they perch on roofs and chimney-stacks
and watch processions pass
the drunken and the dead man
the crowd from sunday mass

they cast a grey and empty eye
upon the play below
they nest and feed and squabble
while generations go

the grieving man behind the hearse
looks up to see them pairing
above the cold stone statues
that wind and rain are wearing

the jackdaws of chapel street
don’t care much for the people
but blithely shit on tombstones
and fornicate on steeples