Owl: Second Poem in 'Reincarnation' Series

[Sweet Pea the Malamute]

Owl

They don’t see you
sitting perched
on the branch,
eyes still as mirrors
until it’s too late
and your thick body
swoops down
trough the tangled branches,
navigating this leafy maze
without sound,
the squirrel struggling in your talons
born aloft to his death.

We don’t see the oncoming headlights swerving over the double yellow lines
the figure in the dark waiting to drag us into the bushes
the one drink too many
the tumor before it forms
the life running out from us.

The owl knows.
He waits for you
at night
as you toss
and sweat
in dreams
where teeth crumble apart like chalk,
and vision dims to nothing
and none of the lights work
and what is that thing in the basement?
Unable to run,
or even walk,
ground gives way beneath you,
you plummet to the pavement from girders over the New York skyline,
waking for an instant,
as the waters rise and
the current sweeps you away,
drowning in the rapids,
tangled in the covers
of the bed where you will someday die,
caught in talons
that have always clenched you tightly in their grip.

It is already too late.


SP, 2009

Sorry for the black on black text last night! I cut and paste from Word with mixed results!

[Benevolent Pudding]

dunno if it's this music (The Mars Volta) speaknig for me or not, but do really like this. There's really just one thing wrong with it, which are these two lines:

"your plummet to the pavement from girders over the New York skyline,
and land in the river"

For one, there's a typo, 'your', and two, it seems... contradictive, to plummet into the pavement, and then from there, land into a river. Other than that, though, it's really quite descriptive.

[Sweet Pea the Malamute]

Hey Mr. Pudding, thanks for your comments, I really appreciated them. I went back and made a few revisions...I tend to be the type who never stops revising. The transition you pointed out was clunky, I had to admit, looking back. I was an English major, but my typing is lousy, I'd be lost without word...and my vision is also iffy, so I make typos a-plenty.

I'll take a look at some of your writing in the coming days, and make a few comments, and again, thanks for taklng the time to reach out.

Now I'm working on another 'animal' poem: Aardvark!


SP

[Benevolent Pudding]

It's much better, albiet I had to highlight the text to read it. No worries about revison; Robert Frost, and others, revelled in revision. Really, Robert did.