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I flick them off a forearm
or a thigh, squish them
under heel or thumb
the black ones
small and large alike
one time saw a critter
crawling across
white kitchen tile
vigorous and struggling
under the broken body weight
of his dried up comrade
and felt nearly awestruck
by his valiant efforts
to carry his brother
to safety
as I crushed them both
under my toes;
the traps in the corner
are insufficient
and the man fixing
my front porch shows me
how over years
the destructive devils
have chewed through
the thick joists
supporting the deck
reduced them to sawdust
it’s an unwinnable war
he says smiling -
carpentry is his sideline
most days he plays
double bass for the
city philharmonic and
on weekends
directs a church choir
I don't know where
he finds time for woodwork
but he needs
the extra cash
and it 'keeps me sane' he says
in steady measured tones
between buzzsaw screams
(he wears ear protection
goggles and gloves)
I holler at him
aren't you worried
about severing a finger
it could happen
in a split second
of inattention
the mind does tend to wander
life is filled with risks
he answers offhandedly
and I say to myself
he's right
he’s a good guy
I think
I'll let him live.
7 comments:
I love the random and brutal violence in this poem, which works both ways, man to ant and ant to man ... which species really has the upper hand? ... we are so much more powerful and so much smarter than our insect rivals, but they are so inscrutable and unstoppable, kill one and there's a million more to replace the one you've killed! And the final "punch line" ... where the narrator nearly falls into the trap of briefly regarding his human counterpart as if he was an ant (and all the connotations that arouses, from Kafka to the Holocaust!) ... but stops himself just in time! Nice ending!
In this companion poem, which I wrote many years ago, and is admittedly somewhat overly forced into a rigid meter and rhyme scheme, I, like you, try to evoke the random and brutal violence that we see in Nature ... this time revolving around the horrifying idea that, in the Natural world, mothers often eat their babies. Should I say ... enjoy?
Rude Awakening!
There’s a frightening number
Of species
That eat their own babies.
And how do these babies
React to their mothers?
Sustainer to rival
In a breath.
Fight or flight? life or death?
Terrified, bled of strength,
Compulsed to survival.
Dreadful revelation!
Monstrous crude!
Surprised, attacked, subdued.
Transformed into a food.
Utterly forsaken.
Stab of astonishment!
The newborn -
Warmed then burned, loved then spurned,
Devoured without concern.
And no acknowledgement.
Some neat rhymes. But this poem has me wondering if it would be, I'll say, less claustrophobic, (although that may be part of the the meaning) if it were in a different form, one that let's it breathe (pun?). And some of the end-rhymes were transformed to inner rhymes, feels like you've got pieces here, I'm playing :
There’s a frightening number of species
Eat their babies and how should these babies
Respond to their mothers?
Sustained turned sustenance in a breath,
Or rival, will it be fight or flight? Life or death?
Survival the primal lesson
The newborn loved then spurned,
Devoured without concern
Or acknowledgement of a transgression
Birthed and then attacked, subdued
Transformed to food
This dreadful revelation so monstrously crude!
Yes! I like the improvements! The end result is that there is less distraction from the rigid form and more opportunity to convey the underlying message of the poem. I think I read somewhere that one of the biggest challenges for young poets is too much "poetic presence" (bringing too much attention to the artifice, which of necessity detracts from the art).
I wrote this one a few years back with seems to have the spirit of your poem, the brutality of Nature, tinged with a little ironic humour:
PIGEON
A pigeon is dying in my backyard
Watching it is very hard
Her wings are broken, feathers torn
I've never seen one so forlorn
And in my heart the helplessness
Feels too close I must confess
I want to scream, It's undeserved
For a creature harmless and reserved
To suffer this predicament
Is unjustified I lament
If there’s a God possessing mercy
He’d relieve her of her misery
And then as if my prayer is heard
A cat arrives and devours the bird.
I love the ending! You pray and your prayer is answered! Deux ex machina. Also reminds me of Chad Gadya! I've been reading "The Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay". She has a line which resonates with all of these "brutality of Nature" poems ... it goes: "In the shadow of the hawk we feather our nests." I can't get that line out of my head. Hitler. Stalin. Now Putin. All these hawks which prevent us from feathering our nests.
Now I can’t get that line out of my head
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