A Beat Of The Wings

Antenna and feelers picking up scent

Descends upon flowers, the honey well-spent

Hops bed-to-bed, escapes vent-to-vent

A meander on breezes

with hovering intent

Its vacuum absorbing all that is bright

Consumption for colour, all red, black, and white

Flawless, yet fragile, a glorious sight

Fearsome to predator

Evasive in flight

Stuck in a cobweb, caught in a net

Energy burnt like a quick cigarette

Blood-letting, conflict, deep-red in debt

A gamble of moments

On a destiny bet

Life is short and existence small

Life is a butterfly perched on a wall

Fly away Peter, fly away Paul

A beat of the wings

Then it's death to us all

Reviews

[Sara]

okay, this is going into my favorites, like, right now. :) it's very beautiful... there is just a delicate sensitivity about it that immediately speaks to me... that last stanza leaves me speechless ('fly away peter, fly away paul' = is there such a thing as religious romanticism because that line is fantastic)... today i overheard someone say 'the universe doesn't give a s**t about us' -- i think you're saying the same thing here, just in a more gentle, intricately woven way... wonderful rumination on the frailty and transience of life. total love.

(ehh, just reread what i wrote, and sorry if i sound off, i'm very tired... to bed nao. bye.)

[Beccy]

So very much enjoyed this wonderfully wrought and exquisitely rhymed poem.

We are indeed no more than a blink of the creator's eye, but in that blink, if we care to look, there lies so much.

The last stanza truly is a poetical master class


Beccy.

[imawriter]

I cannot review this wonderful poem as it has left me speechless!
love it love it love it

[.]

your use of descriptive words is wonderful..you rhyme is tight. This is another spellbinding piece..covering our whole lives in one poem and the last stanza which for me ties it all up..lovely

[R J Askew]

Marvellous stuff. And we are in the butterfly month now. Should be a good year. I used to raise small tortoiseshell caterpillars in an old fish tank when I was a kid. Watching them emerge from their in-between state was always a marvel. But there are not so many around now. As for your poem, tis a delight. I like the rhyme, but don't recongnise the form. I started counting syllables but gave up as it seemed against the free spirit of the expresssion. The observation of Nature's great art is acute. I esp like the sense that nothing is quiet what it seems, esp the notion of Nature creating the image of ferocity in something so fragile. But it is the notion of life flitting away before our eyes, esp in the last two verses, particularly the stinging dismount in the the last one.

[mirabella]

This is wholly beautiful and definitely thoughtful amidst it's intercontextuality and wonderful butterfly imagery and metaphors. I love the quick rhyming pattern, and i suppose it could be reminiscent of a quick fleeting worldy life in a big universe? Which then in turn could relate again to the ideas presented by the watching perched butterfly.
I really adore this poem!

[Sweet_pale_cacophony]

This as always..is a lovely poem.There are so many reviews that i see here,I just hope i do not bring up the same observations.
I like how your poems always gather momentum and peak in their emotion as they reach the end.Here too the last stanza,sums up the poem very very well.It brings forth an unusual note,an almost unpredictable turn.This could have been another poem on butterflies,but what you say in the end raises the poem from good,very good to a category where adjectives are hard to find.
Its vacuum absorbing all that is bright
Consumption for colour, all red, black, and white
Flawless, yet fragile, a glorious sight
Fearsome to predator
Evasive in flight
The second stanza was very eloquent,it describes the fragile beauty of these winged creatures very well.There are two specific lines here which caught my attention,Consumption for colour, all red, black, and white
Flawless, yet fragile, a glorious sight..you say a lot when you say flawless yet fragile :) and for a moment i am compelled to think this could be for humans too..a flawless physical beauty might be equally fragile.
Then as we come to the second last stanza,
Stuck in a cobweb, caught in a net
Energy burnt like a quick cigarette
Blood-letting, conflict, deep-red in debt
A gamble of moments
On a destiny bet
I am extremely in awe of the neat contradiction you have etched between this stanza and the one prior to it.From the almost majestic beauty of the butterfly we are transcended to sudden death,destruction.I love the line energy burnt like a quick cigarette and also deep red in debt.
Then,course the last stanza which undoubtedly is the best.It brings together a justified conclusion to the prior two stanzas which had evoked contradictory images in the reader's mind.Life indeed is a butterfly perched on a wall.
Very introspective,beautiful and so very well structured.

[Antonio Valentino]

It does go by quick doesn't it my friend. One second we're a fluttering flower in the breeze, the next, we're a Rorschatch ink blot test on a windshield..

What does it all mean? Why does it have to mean, anything?

This meant a lot, fly low, be careful for the webs!

Enjoyed this.
Antonio

[Fran Marie]

Fly away Peter, fly away Paul
A beat of the wings
Then it's death to us all

A most profound of piece of writing, the ending sums it

all up rather nicely in this well crafted verse,

Great Pen!!

[Alessander]

fantastic indeed. the structure very consistent never sounded unnatural, and you superbly rhymed and presented vivid imagery and textbook "extended metaphor". The entire last stanza was really the strongest "a beat of the wings" really struck me because it so perfectly captures the fleetingness of life, almost book ended by such theological heaviness...the one part that read a little awkward for me is "A gamble of moments/on a destiny bet" rhythm wise, and because "destiny" seemed so grandiose compared to the rest of the theme...other than that small detail, bravo!

[Stammers]

Fantastic, maybe it's because it's late at night but I didn't feel the metaphor and discussion of death being built until it was said literally 'life is a butterfly'

Beautiful, endless idea, that on the second read just becomes even more intricate. Well written, liked the connotations of the cigarette being stubbed, there was an ordinariness about it.

Going in my favourites, subtly done :)