Today I am a sparrow,
hopping through your yard on toothpick legs.
I eat the crumbs of your stale bread
and think them better than seeds.
I look like male like female
and nest in neon letters.
Today I am a cardinal,
self-assured in my call:
purtypurtypurtypurtypurty
A flash of poinsettia-red in the trees,
Christmas in July.
I crack cicadas with my beak and chase after females
who wear drab more confidently than you
wear your own naked skin.
Today I am a hummingbird,
ruby-throated and shining,
beating my wings fifty-three times a second.
I live on nectar and flit to Mexico each winter
the way I flit from carpel to carpel:
Penniless and without luggage,
the way you never would.
Today I am a raven,
black like your funeral dress.
I croak my condolences for the fear of your tangled life,
more complex than a spider’s web
and the fly-eyes caught within it.
Today I am an eagle,
with dark wings stretching from tip to tip
longer than the length of your hollow body.
I feast on trout and conies,
alone because I am strong and unafraid
and in all other ways unlike you.
I soar high over the plains,
screeching my song for all to hear.
I am a bird,
winging freely through the blue.
Human,
what are you?
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137,660 Literary Works • 672,057 Reviews
Oh my word, I love this. It's beautiful.
The one criticism I have is this: what's the point? Why is the speaker a bird, and why do they keep changing species?
It doesn't have to have a point, though, because it's poetry. :3
......yeah that's it.
Aaaah where you been?! I miss you being in my crew!
I checked out the picture and explanation and I dig it for being a catalyst for this poem. This has a lot of super good elements and I can already see how far your work has improved since the last time I concentrated on your poetry. Don't ask me when that was, I can't remember breakfast, but I can recall the style and the skill of your writing and this is showing growth.
The simplicity works super well for this, not just because of the direct nature feeling right in flow and rhythm but also in how the bird thoughts work. I think of birds as flighty, weightless and a little haughty (you should her me tell off those ones what won't move in front of my car!) and your poem covers all of these elements really well. I can see each of these birds and I can see where they are sitting, how they are moving through the poem.
I want to say don't capitalise each line, but that is always so up to you. It distracts me and puts me off a bit but that isn't super important, it's just a note. The ending is what disappoints for this. There isn't any finality, there isn't even a feeling of more, it just feels suspended in the middle of nowhere. I'm having trouble connecting to this beyond how lovely and pretty it is, you have some really solid lines that I'm impressed with - often the last two of the stanza - and I think you meet the prompt very well, but I also think that we need a sense of narrative. Or... not so much narrative because I don't care if anything happens in the poem, it is a beautiful look into the bird and the thought. What I care about is that this is floating in mid air, waiting for something to come along and finish it. Even if that finish is ambiguous or lost, we need a little more structure to the finale.
I don't think it would surprise you now to know that I like this. I love the sounds and the visuals, and I think they work really well to throw your reader into the eye of the bird. These birds are talking to us and we want to listen, but they are so very gloating and then nothing. Maybe you don't want a resolution, if so I will appreciate the experimentation even if it annoys me. xD
Thank you so much for writing this and remembering to post it. I have missed your writing and you. Please, post more!
~ Pen
Hey there this is Drew 89
And this is my first review on YWS so i am trying not to be to judgemental,
but here it is in the sentence I look like a male like female you need to put the word and there,
I liked how you used a different bird for each day and added the bird sounds my opinion is if you are going to do it for one bird you need try and do it for all the birds like the old saying goes all for one and one for all.
Over all i liked it though keep writing