These Winged Things

A poem about two dead pigeons, life and death and life's little mysteries

These Winged Things

I took a walk to clear my head
When I observed the birds who both lay dead
Not touched by death not a single scar
These lives we lead are so bizarre

One fell from the heavens first
And peacefully she lay
The other hurtled to the ground
in it's moment of dismay

The vigilant dog did but sniff
And dared not disturb
The poets thoughts fell in line
All equally absurd

One concerned soul moved the birds
Lest they be maimed
The scholar's regret
Was that no knowledge was obtained

all trace of the birds vanished from sight
leaving much like life will do
to me and you 
no insight to a poor soul's plight

Author's Note

Written a couple of years ago as part of a long lost collection entitled "Poetic Autopilot" and re-written from Memory

Reviews

[icomeanon_13]

Here are my updated thoughts regarding your poem. Much like my first review, I found the poem's theme clear and thoughtful. I did however notice, your poem uses the two bird's demise to correlate to one soul. While asymetrical is in these days, I think it would be a bit more powerful if the poem spoke of the life/death of a couple of people. This is not a math problem, so there doesn't have to be a balancing out, but I felt like the dead birds (female and male) would be an excellent metaphor for the quiet relationships of the common man. Or, just as easily, it would be simple to speak of one bird to match one person. This is, of course, my opinion and not scripture. Please take the advice or do not as you please.

Just a few technical thoughts:

1st Stanza, last line: the rhythm is off with the words "can be." In my head, I was trying to say "are"- it has a better cadence.

2nd Stanza, last line: "it's" should be "its" sans the apostrophe as the it is not indicating possession.

4th Stanza, second line: "Less" should be "Lest"

4th Stanza, third line: "scholars" should either be "scholar's" or "scholars'" depedning on how many you are speaking of (as it is possessing "regret").

5th Stanza, last line: "souls" should be "soul's" (as it is possessing "plight")

[Wórdsmíth]

One of my favorites poem! The IInd stanza`s very nice. I must say, you`ve plotted different different versions of "diff-diff. verses of poems." In other words, every stanza you`ve pen`d having own pattern. And, I liked it. The depth of the thoughts`s well poured into your words. Indeed. I`d be looking forward to reading your stuffs!

[Daniel Maguire]

Thanks, this is a bit of a work in progress but thanks for letting me know that I'm headed in the right direction

[Wórdsmíth]

Pleasure.
Well.. I don`t think, there`s any need to work upon this write because, this poem`s itself dispersing the shades of your insights in disguise of such a "pattern" you`ve used in this piece. So, Let it be as it is. The rest of.. is up to you. But putting some more efforts into this write to make it more powerful reading, you can work upon this & then put that one in a new version of this write so that the readers could read the "Sequel" of the poem. All the best.

[icomeanon_13]

For me, reading a poem is like staring at a painting or sculpture. My first instinct is to ask myself, "how does this feel?" As I read your poem I felt a disconnected warmth.

Technically, I have some issues with the rhyming schematics, which is more "willy-nilly" as we say in the states (reckless; without thoughtfulness). For instance, your first stanza has a rhyming structure of AA, BB, your second and third stanzas follow A, B, C, B, and your final stanza doesn't have a rhyming structure at all (because "maimed" and "remained" don't actually constitute a rhyme). While I thoroughly enjoy a rhetorical "middle finger" to the establishment of old farts who insist on structure, I must say this didn't feel intentional.

Technical concerns aside, I liked the poem. I think with a little more persistence in developing a structure (or none at all), the themes you noted in the headline will flow seamlessly to your reader without the distraction of structural chaos.

[Daniel Maguire]

Firstly Willy-Nilly is not an American thing, it doesn't even sound remotely American. As much as I(as an Irish person) usually hate giving credit to the British for anything, I'm fairly sure that any phrase containing the word "Willy" is English in origin.

Secondly, you are completely correct in your analysis of this piece of poetry. I don't know if you read the "authors note" but i had to re-write this from memory. I agonized over posting it because it just didn't sound right, which was extra crushing because this used to be one of my favourite poems. I'm aware that the rhyming scheme is a bit out of whack, I did think the last Stanza didn't fit but I gave up mainly due to frustration. The first stanza has a different rhyming scheme and i have kind of come to like that about the re-write. Thanks for the well written review I'll make sure to put some work into restoring this to it's former glory