Hunger

Hunger is that sinuous stringy thread

Stitching flesh to barren bone

Living by death and death alone

Wandering upon unyielding ground

Offering feasts of dust and stone

To the empty sockets in the pockets

Where living eyes used to see

Horizons vaster than the inertia

Indwelling in its life free zone

Of crumpled cloth in human form

Stripped of life on a broken landscape

Bereft of nourishment or escape

From the endless sunrise of sorrow

Where death anticipates tomorrow

And memory is the food of yesterday

Unserved upon the plate of today.

Reviews

[r. f. jordan]

Dear Duncan.

Please permit me the honor of welcoming you to this site. Please, also, permit me the privilege of informing you of my opinion that, after my first read of the first piece i've read of yours, i believe you to be a most welcomed addition to this site. where to start with my belief in this glory of this piece you've submitted...hmmm. there is a strikingly original tenor that immediately springs forth from your use of imagery. it is obvious to me that you have a gift of expression that you have honed into a craft. upon the reading of this first and second line, you had me on your hook for good, and you had me pleased to be on your hook. opening with a reference to hunger as a "sinuous stringy thread stitching flesh to barren bone", and following it up with a self-contradicting patent word twist of "living by death and death alone" brings me to the reassurance that my morning is worthwhile. i can't help but garner a recollection of a long ago lyric from Sting "There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread..." you voice is as individualized as your fingerprints in continued yarns such as "vaster than the inertia" and "endless sunrise of sorrow". your use of rhyme, off-rhyme, stressed, and unstressed is the mark of a creator that loves that inherent nuance potentially available within creating. you have tapped the maple tree of that potential, and the resulting sap makes for a delicious syrup. Kudos to you, dear bard, and thank you for splattering your Pollockian genius on this site.

[Duncan Brown]

Thank you...more on the way

[Kathy Van Kurin]

"Hunger"
Duncan Brown,
This poem is something which is hard to touch. The ability to feed oneself is a rare and glorious gift for so many and unattainable to the masses also. We here in the west and wherever else should never, never, never, ever take this gift for granted. Iv'e been hungry before but never to the point of death. That little bit taught me a little bit. A person can also be hungry in many other ways. Desires and dreams unfulfilled. So meaningful a a write!
Blessings,
Kathy