Raven Realization

Commoners quarrel in the culturally dejected streets

For a flimsy thing like ‘love’,

Claiming violet gowns of sweatshop fabric

To feign royalty and soak

In the cliché pulp of up-chucked emotions.

 

Though, from the shabby pub rooftops

In this suicide obituary

A harpy leers, so lovingly, for war.

 

The pigeons flock atop high palace walls

Across the obituary

To meet her crater gaze: a blink of time

And a bundle of black heavens

In the burned corneas of her gaze

Baits paralysis--

Causing the pesky pigeons to plummet.

 

Empty-eyed, a baby raven takes her hand and caws quietly"

Children’s whispers:

“Oh, Vulture Queen, why do these peasants die?”

“It’s an honor,” spoke she with moon-tipped tongue, “for the world to burn.”

“To burn?” Blue-eyed baby calls, breaking vocals.

“To impress.” Said the Vulture Queen who is never hungry.

 

Black-eyed baby raven billows smoke,

Forms to feathers,

Rises as an incubus into the ether"

No name spoken, no ‘love’ found;

The harpy forgotten as the monomyth pursues

And the teacher falls forward into the obituary

Now horizons away:

Gone are its violent streets

And glass bottle based bargains

For an alcoholic in a bell jar.

 

Phoenix flares drip from gone-beyond beak

As he splits the reborn into final decay

And recreates the world

Into a chronicle of blistered bones

So that he may now leer at the honorable obituary.

 

With a hymn of satisfaction,

A voice like bleak amnesia and the dread hour,

He hums dirges to the western world,

His hunger sated. 

Reviews

[Alskar]

This is truly wonderful. I really mean that. I'd go far enough as to say this is your best work and one of the most beautiful poems I've ever read. The medium of the different birds to tell the story through their associated myths or colors was incredibly intriguing and clever. 'moon-tipped tongue' was a solitary image that stood out to me- beyond beautiful. The dialogue between the Vulture Queen and the baby bird (and the contrast is wonderfully stark there, by using their titles alone) is bone-chilling. I assume the 'he' figure in the poem is the phoenix revealed at the end, and that too sheds an unusual but welcome light on a typical symbol of bravery and rebirth. It's like the phoenix is a God of this world, and has the power to kill it and renew it whenever he pleases. You do an exquisite job of blending a very real world with a very ethereal world. You have the shabby pubs and dirty streets leading into a high fantasy realm, perhaps a God realm watching the earth? And that leads us into the dialogue which tells us the situation in a way, then we get the gradual decline into rebirth and omniscience of the phoenix. I love this, seriously.

[masqued_muse]

You; my dear Indimeco are brazenly, wantonly, passionately insane. But....let me tell you....only the "best" really are. Therefore; should some read that phrase, they would instantly become insulted. We cannot become insulted....we can only keep knocking on doors of (perceived) sanity, kicking a*s and taking names. I have a feeling that you are of my ilk... so, here's to ravens and phoenix's.....watching from the aether...."I SEE you"....thanks for looking.
masqued_muse^^
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