War
Sentinel guards pocket the rockface,
Hide tied deserters that prickle and drip
Blood and honey, descend into deep red.
Banished dark side measures its losses in rubies and gold;
Scarred crags and banishment.
Light refracts, losing its way;
The nest stirs.
Unreal steel creates window, closes doors.
Thrown stones amplify this battle and shatter;
Nudging the grounded claw.
Little pitchers open their mouths hungrily
Before they are closed.
Light shimmers across the bridge, an aquiline horizon.
Mirror image universe where water cools the crisis;
Numb Aquarians pool their resources.
Heads crack over this naïve nuclear button;
Lying green in this sullied gully.
Organisers retreat underwater;
Over the hill, nothing but watchers remain.
Cyclical justice administers this perennial wipe-out.
The shadow of a debt-collector
Declares a winner.
C is for Conflict - that might bend it a little to fit the alphabet!
ReplyDeleteYou and Zoe both conjure up such strong images for me in your writing - I love it :)
I love this - I still vividly remember the day we went to a seminar and you came out with a black war poem and I wrote that sweet little love story... Something in the air that day!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jaime, the images are fantastic but perhaps what it needs to finish it off is a slightly clearer line of narrative - who's on what side, for example. You have a repetition of Banish and banishment in the first stanza, which either needs a re-write or more repetition - banished, perhaps? - to mmake it seem like a judgement that weighs heavy on them.
Oh, and "Little pitchers open their mouths hungrily / Before they are closed" is both devastating and beautiful.
Also, I don't think you need the "Cyclical justice..." line, because the rest of the poem shows that. and the two last lines are corking (get me with the clever literary terms) I'd put them in a stanza all to themselves.