Blackbird

in the dead of night

Blackbird

 

inside

there is a blackbird

sinful and dark

his needle bones crisscrossed

beak a shadow-bloodied sword's point

piercing heaving lungs and the dripping red meat of her spleen

 

whimper whimper, little child, for he cares naught of your pain

 

locked with iron key, the blackbird is kept

a mystical oracle with beady eyes

night sky plumped and fattened with rain-rich clouds

christened by mother moon's starlight kisses, it goads

tempting as adam's hands spidering down eve's back

 

he sings to cheer his own solitude, the forest solo echoing her loneliness

but never joining

 

in dim animal thought, he remembers

leaving the warmth of the nesthome

free -- freedom -- flight!

stretching out across the moon in a silhouette of grace

for the first time knowing the beauty of the wind

 

but she will crush his scaly legs before she sees him fly again

 

twist his tear-stained wings around her arms

a midnight prism scattering across her skin

force him to submit to the mortal, the earthbound

selfish girl, forging in the icy heat of her isolation

a monstrous pterodactyl from nature's purest onyx

 

the torturer has become the tortured has become the torturer

and there is blood everywhere

 

veins cut and songs rewritten

and still she clasps him even tighter as they spiral together

into the devil's darkness

the great poets say everything that rises must converge

but she knows everything that falls must break

 

Author's Note

i saw chuck bukowski's 'bluebird' posted up on somebody's profile and thought it was such a cool poem i had to do my own take on it :)

for the original inspiration see here or here

Reviews

[...]

… ah … it’s a haunting tale … narrated with skill and passion … it breathes as much as it bleeds … the vivid descriptions are as lyrical as they are violently volatile … the pain almost palpable … the darkness almost awake and alive … for me this verse is a metaphor for something that is mourned with intense emotion … riveting but only because it is rampant … the deathly screams embedded in this verse are devastating and mark the morose and mal-intentions of mankind … the nearly nullifying attitude towards nature … this is the anatomy of demolition … of succumbing to the negative spiral … bit by bit … step by step … and in waves … a brutal mourning of a blinding fascism … where one controls the plight of another … writes it … rewrites … embossing misery on existence … a very dark write … potent and lethal yet exquisite poetry … an immensely enriching read …

(serah)

[Ruth]

This is great! I personally love the structure!
The metaphors are wonderful!
Excellent poem!
xx

[Truly Ross-Wisehart]

This is excellent. Profoundly good imagery and depth. These lines:

"the great poets say everything that rises must converge
but she knows everything that falls must break"

ring about as truly as anything I have read. Wonderful!

~True

[alesuriko]

Wow... really liked this. As soon as I read "piercing heaving lungs and the dripping red meat of her spleen" I literally and verbally went "OoooO" and leaned in closer to my computer screen. So dark and descriptive and gory... with spleens (which are strangely enough my favorite organs simply because spleen is fun to say and not many people know what they're for). And then I did the "OoooO" thing as I read the Adam and Eve reference. The perverse parody is so alluring.

The line "but she will crush his scaly legs before she sees him fly again" reminded my of Stephen King's "Misery".... such brutal and descriptive, creepy and dark imagery within this piece... it's packed full of all the things I love to read. I adored reading this and the line "the torturer has become the tortured has become the torturer"... epically twisted, in several ways. Your style and structure is flawless and further adds to the morbid imagery. Perfect writing.

[zombiikillah666]

oh, you must have seen bluebird on shanes profile..lol.
i liked this.
really good write. (:

[Liza]

thank you for sharing; an insightful expression of a dichtomy of a wondrous bird; i shall never see them the same.

[R.S. Wilder]

Well...I had to read this several time before I could form a comment. It's detail is overwhelmingly symbolic - and there are several ways to interpret it. Very imaginative.

[Devons]

This is an incredibly enigmatic poem and a terrific piece of imaginative writing..
(you see, Dark IS better!)..
The powerful yet intangible meaning behind these verses symbolizes to me the ever-lasting catalytic turmoil triggered by the 'black and white' of existence..
There are very many superb lines created from the emphatic and black imagery within this poem, and it is not easy to discriminate between them in order to pick out an outstanding example... However, I am never the one to shy away from doing so:-

"night sky plumped and fattened with rain-rich clouds
christened by mother moon's starlight kisses, it goads
tempting as adam's hands spidering down eve's back"

...There is a wealth of crushing detail within these words which mirrors the entire poem in handsome relief.
Excellent.

[--]

Holy smokes! This is so dark and descriptive; what beautiful imagery! I'm a huge fan of alliteration too, and you really use it so well in this poem. And the lines "the torturer has become the tortured has become the torturer / and there is blood everywhere" are so...I don't know...perfect, honestly. This whole thing is absolutely wonderful.

[Z. Smith]

Very well written. I really enjoyed the two intertwisting lines of thought in this piece and the imagery was great. "beak a shadow-bloodied sword point." GREAT metaphor. This poem reminds me of a song by the Decemberists, "We Both Go Down Together." But in the song the lovers went with each other willingly. Anyways, brilliantly done!

Z. Smith