Songbird/Raptor Rhapsody

We appear center stage aglow,
To waltz divinely with their songs,
For an audience austere, estranged,
To what could not be gilded alive,
But now we dance our masquerade.
"Dear composer, strike overture."

Confining costumes impress,
As the quickening waltz takes off,
The distant audience distorts wildly,
As the spins you heave spin lose air.
And as we dance-
"Evelyn? Are you fine love?

High notes lost to vaulted heights,
While you stagger from your steps.
The audience inquires darkly,
While you leave the golden tunes.
A sweeping violin stays on,
And follows your graceful fall.
"Don't look at them Evelyn"

Swirls of tafetta aflame,
As I pop your corset stays.
Audience agasp and angered,
As you sob for unbroken air.
Your mask cracked upon the floor,
A chasm through the shallows.

And you,
And you...

Curled naked upon the naked stage,
Bare threads upon bare boards,
More truth in your form than they,
Who could never understand,
They who lusted after songbirds,
While musing a rhapsody of raptors.

Author's Note

Please ignore any grammar/spelling errors.

Reviews

[Wildecat]

This is a exquistite piece of poetry. Ahh to be able to captrue the dance. Well done.

[Brandon Lee]

Applause. That my friend was a work of art, grammar/spelling errors aside (which doesn't really matter to me anyways). I love the struggle before the crowd, the hunger for assimilation, approval and yet the sudden downfall; what it is to be stripped of everything by the crowds, by the hungering masses. As if they only want you for what it is you do, and are willing to feed upon you until your demise.

the last two lines are quite amazing, breath stealing in my opinion. Your poem has a under current of evil. If that makes any sense to you. Human nature put up raw in form. It speaks more to poetry than you might have noticed. You write; I write; they write; Although in the end when the form is out there to be read, to be witnessed by the lurking denizen, it is ripped asunder by countless opinions etc etc. I prove my own point here with myself, taking what I see from it. But if I am wrong in my assumptions, then I am thankfully wrong. Powerful lines are a few and far between. This page of words has left me reinvigorated.

-Brandon.

[John M. Hammond]

This piece makes me wonder, once the art is witnessed by the world (or audience, as you say), does it belong to them, or the artist? Have they the right to gasp at the performers, performing? "They who lusted after songbirds, While musing a rhapsody of raptors." is stunning. Well done.

[Siddartha Beth Pierce]

A moving and eloquent piece. To capture the dance is a difficult thing to do but you have mastered it here. Thank you for sharing.
Light,
Siddartha