Beneath dark storm clouds thundering over
mountain lips, harvest-grains shrivel uncut;
lawns once placid green revert to clover;
and asphalt highways crumble into ruts.
Silence hangs. Promised brightenings hover
unfulfilled. No motion, save fluttered struts
of barren limbs. Dank prodigies cover
sightless windows lurking void and shut.
There should be children, games, kites soaring bright
skies. There should be roiling laughter. Instead,
crows and ravens plump on bitter gall,
rank starlings glitter in their sunset flight,
sable swans glide on lakes as flat as lead,
and bodies lie in state for blackbird fall.
Author notes
A bit of post-apocalyptic gloom.
A contest entry
- The TITLE contest...show me how clever you are... by Demington.
700 points, ended March 24, 2008, 11 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 6 of 6
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Well, congratulations ...
on your Gold trophy. Not that I expected anything else, of course. -
Oh my! You opened your closet and you chose the cloak of the dark genre and you wear it well. Perhaps your wife made you sleep on the sofa the night you wrote this? Well done!
Love,
Amera
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Interesting write ...
but it will be worse than that. There will be no clover. The honeybees are dying off, and there won't be anything left to pollinate the clover.
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Bravo! I have been working on a story set in such a world. This resonates with the emotional setting of the place I am in the process of envisioning.
The punctuation is a bit distracting, but I put the blame on my personal bias and not necessarily a right or wrong.
The word choice is wonderful and I find the imagery quite magical, like a fairie tickling your ears as you sleep.
Best of all though is the one great reason why a post-apocolyptic setting is so darn appealing to so many people. The appeal in such a landscape is not found in that presence of the ruins and the bodies, but rather the lack of the presence of the aspects of normality that one would expect to find in say the suburbs of a city. You seem to stumble across this revelation when you say...
"There should be children, games, kites soaring bright
skies. There should be roiling laughter. Instead,
crows and ravens plump on bitter gall,"
Wonderful, just wonderful. Perhaps too wonderful to be merely a creature of chance and circumstance. The only thing I would suggest in this, the strongest part of the poem (in my opinion) is a word other than "roiling." This adjective seems too robust, too out of place with sharpness that might better serve the examples of normality preceeding it and the razor sharp cutting contrast that follows. I may be wrong, but I submit to you this suggestion as just that, a suggestion...food for thought.
I applaud good sir. I am impressed.
Blessings,
C
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Thanks for such an extended commentary. Both the time and--more importantly--the thought are much appreciated. As was the contest in the first place. This is one of those pieces that wouldn't have happened without the prompt.."blackbird fall," a fall, a season for things of blackness, scavenger birds. From that image the whole thing emerged. Thanks for the title.
Word choice was highly self-concious and equally difficult. Just the right feel and sound. "Roiling" might not have succeeded, but it felt like the missing laughter would have/should have filled the empty sky, twisting and curling on itself like a rushing stream. It's the last word that tries to conjure the world that has passed...and a hint of the turmoil that triggered its disappearance. But, as you suggest, it bears thinking further about.
And again, many thanks for the impetus. It took several days for this to come together, but each was a pleasure of discovery. -
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Your interpretation of "roiling" and its place in this poem is indeed well stated. I retract my comment on it's supposed "robustness." Perhaps the size of the word's punch when it comes to imagery creates a lack that serves nicely what I liked so much about the poem.
Thanks for the poem, I did so and do so enjoy it!
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