Running as fast as I can
heart pounding
I can feel his wings beating
by the wind swirling around me
my lynx instincts are alive
as I try to escape this hungry bird
but I’m no match for his cunning
speed or strength
My breath rasping and out of energy
I know I’ve lost this race
as his claws slice through my body
I am his to devour
hidden wide eyes peer
through leaves and branches
at the raptor who tears me apart
with wild abandon
They watch as his razor sharp beak
pierces my chest and rips out my heart
tearing it to pieces between beak and talons
only to drop it on the ground
unwanted
Watchful hidden eyes stare at the bird
as he takes to the sky with his prize
carrying what’s left of me away
gripped in talons to his feeding place
and they gaze at my heart in tatters on the ground
Spring turns to Summer
days of blistering heat that dry everything
turning my heart into dust
that disintegrates into the soil
Summer turns to Autumn
this place of dying lies buried
under brightly colored layers
Next comes Winter
with its punishing winds
and blankets of snow
freezing the ground
hardening the tiny pieces
of my heart
The raptor continues
his never ending obsession of the hunt
year in and year out
though now he's after much younger
more tender prey
completely oblivious that
a gentle sparrow dropped seeds
that got stuck to his tiny feet
as he fed amongst the grass and flowers
and landed where I died
But in the pounding rain
these seeds sank into the ground
and were fertilized by the shredded remains
of my unwanted heart torn apart
so that one warm sunny day
slowly through the lush green grass
beautiful deep purple violets burst forth
that sway gently in the wind
making beauty out of devastation
Most powerful poem I have read so far this week. You have an amazing playwright way with words, situations and style. I loved it. Will make it a fav. What more can I say that I have not said in my previous comment to you just now? Raptor is always relentless seeking prey – the younger ones are less experienced and do suffer more. Resist!! And as you so beautifully expressed it – out of your ruins grew as beautiful garden because in your hearts of hearts you cannot die. You will always grow stronger and your garden more beautiful because the everlasting seeds of Eternity even Raptor cannot destroy. Yes little birds may spread the seeds and grow it will. Raptor knew it as well!! The portrayl is also great. Regards Jm.
I'm a country boy that grew up on a Grain and Cattle Ranch in the Panhandle of Texas. I find this prose verse to be amazing, and absolutely fascinating, with a story of death, destruction, and ultimate rebirth and renewal.
I had never visited your site before, and I find your alias fascinating! If your alias is an indication that you might be interested in poetry about the sea, I have many poems at my site about the Sea. Please check out "A Stranger In Paradise", "Shelter In The Storm", "Alone On The Shore", "The Siren's Song", and "The Sand Castle"! There are many others as well, but I would be flattered if you read even one!
I'm fascinated by the photo with your lovely prose! We have mountain lions around my ranch in the Panhandle, although they are rarely seen and rarely a problem. One of my poems which has a Mountain Lion very prominently as a part of the drama is "A Highlands Love Song"!
I hope I don't scare you away with all of these references!
I drank blood
from the harlot souls
of those who trusted
my witty disdain
assuming me charming
as an elegant phrase
when in fact I love nothing
but the sweet tatse of prey
It isn't difficult to find predatory undertones associated with a brutally abrasive relationship in this post. Whether the relationship itself was cruel or the breakup was the actual source of pain is another matter. In any case, there is a sense that the 'prey' was betrayed as much by the need to be loved/appreciated as it was by the predator that victimized it. And roses appear to be the hope that something better may come and restore the pieces to an unbroken condition.
But that's just my babble. I believe you could revise this slightly in places for more elegant word choice, but the bulk of this write is fine as it is.
This is a wonderful story of Nature's cycle of re-birth. Something dies to feed the living and fertilize the soil. In that place something beautiful grows. Your rendition of this story has a few original phrases: "breath rasping," "hidden wide eyes," "brightly colored layers," and "unwanted heart." I sensed, I hope correctly, that you were attempting symbolism, perhaps for a failed relationship, one that yielded something beautiful, perhaps a child. What goes wrong are the symbolic relations.
The picture is of a young girl, and you use the personal pronoun, "I." Though in S1 you refer to "my Lynx instincts," this does not set up the balance between hunter and prey. If "I" refers to you, the girl, or the Lynx, none of these are something a "raptor" would attack. They feed mainly on other smaller birds, small mammals, like chipmunks, shrews, voles, or frogs, lizards and fish, also insects and rodents. About the largest thing a raptor would attack is a rabbit.
How to get around this? Somewhere near the beginning of the poem you could say something like, "If you were that raptor, I was your prey." You could take on a different persona, say a small bird, sparrow, lark. There could be an unsuspected clash of wings in the air and you fall mortally wounded. The rest of your story fits from there. The seed could be dropped by one of your own kind onto that fertile ground. What grows needs to be beautiful and majestic, something more than one flower (no matter how beautiful - you are justifying a life lost). Maybe a tree, to provide shelter for many of your kind, would be something to that would offset the loss. And a tree is also beautiful.
I also think you are using common phrases to provide familiarity to your reader: "heart pounding," "wild abandon," "razor sharp," and "lush green grass." Avoid this at all cost. Find new, original ways to say the same thing. These new phrases become the "you" in the poem, the things that reflect your slant on things, on life, love, whatever. They are you.
Well, sorry for having taken up so much space, but I enjoyed your story-poem, and wanted to give you my sincere appraisal, after all that's why we are here. I also want to encourage you to keep writing. You have a great imagination and it will yield some great poetry, of that I am sure.
To have loved and lost seems to be your theme here, but it is a theme you seem to be attempting to force on yourself rather than one you already believe. You seem to be convincing yourself rather than convincing your reader. I hope you take this as it is meant to be taken. It is a good piece, but it needs to be more honest to the truth in your heart not the truth your mind wants you to believe.
this is about rebirth to me after a painful and messy breakup. love is such a... well, a [insert an expletive here].
this bird/raptor, symbolic of all of it; i immediately thought of ravens and crows, harbingers of doom and death and destruction and corpses left to rot to be picked over.
and this is how it feels, i know. but then, we all grow again, bloom again, become fertile after a spring rain, rejuvenated, ready to love again, no?
i agree with your powerful last line. there's always hope, always that fleeting knowledge of fragile love touching us divinely, if even for a moment.
Submission Name: Beauty
