the cat

The Cat

Laughing, on the way to school,
A girl sees a cat in the road.
She laughs; she thinks it’s sunbathing,
But as she walks past, she sees blood streaming from its eyes, mouth and nose.
She realizes quickly that this cat has been hit by a car.
Laughing changes to terror, weeping, dread.........


The shallow breathing,
Eyes stretched wide open,
Stuck, re-living in the exact moment,
Screaming inside its head.

The pain so intense,
Every breath crucifying,
No way to let it out,
The excruciating pain building up like lava in a volcano about to erupt.

No-one can understand,
So helpless,
None so more than a new born kitten.

Rasping, gasping, panting, desperately trying to find air,
Blood spewing from its mouth,
Choaking on blood.

Breathing’s shallower now,
Head becoming heavy,
Voices of people echo’s in what seems to be an empty mind,
Churning together, overlapping each other.

Heat from the fragile body being sucked out,
Like a warm hand on a cold metal bar,
The world begins to blacken…

The girl is seen to be crying,
A horrific sight lay out before her,
An animal about to breathe its last breath,
A mere victim of a tragic accident.

Comments & reviews · 9
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User avatar
Storytale Review

I think it is a beautiful poem, and I'm glad you got your feelings out. I find it saddening at the same time though. Although the structure of the poem is a bit... erratic? It is beautiful all the same. I truly like it. If you want to appease the neatfreaks of this sight, (such as myself) you probably want to change the structure a bit more.

Hugs and Kisses,
Storytale

P.S. We shall mourn your passing mystery kitty. May your soul find rest in this universe.

RoseEmma, structure isn't stupid. Structure is important to a poem, no matter the poem's purpose. It really is quite distracting to the reader with different line lengths. Especially with a poem like this, it's difficult to build the tension in your words when you don't mirror that tension in the abbreviation of your lines. By moving part of a line down, you can also add more impact to your words.

For example:

The pain so intense,
Every breath crucifying,
No way to let it out,
The excruciating pain building up like lava in a volcano about to erupt.

Try this instead:

The pain so intense,
Every breath crucifying,
No way to let it out,
The excruciating pain building up like
lava in a volcano about to erupt.

There. It already looks better on the page, and will be performed better because of it.

There are other small revisions that could be made, but they're not any big issues.

Now, I think it's great that you express yourself in poetry. And I really like several of your word choices.

I think sometimes we forget to add positive elements to our critiques. But writing is a serious matter to us; that's the easiest way to improve. When you post something, you implicitly request that we tell you what we think. If you'd rather us not, then please give a disclaimer somewhere with your poem stating as such.

Random avatar
Luv4Life Review

I dont think we are looking at this poem in the right perspective here. So structure, and flow doesn'y matter here i don't think. It's the emotion and depth beneath the poem that brings out this young girls felings. So what if it is jus a cat and she posted a another comment after her previous one. It doesn'y matter. This young girl rights poetry in her spare time and puts a lot of effort into her work im sure. Some people right diarys, others storys but in a way we are all the same. We just ant to be noticed for who we are and get our feelings of our chest.

So my message is.. give the girl a chance to breath and express her feelings. Just let her do what she obviously does best.

User avatar
RoseEmma Comment

ok well forgetting the whole stupid "how it's structured" thing, how about saying what you thought of it as a poem? God you lot are way too serious about this, positive critism wouldn't go a miss?

Random avatar
Cameron
Review

It sounds to me more like a long, drawn out story than a poem. To begin with, you probably could have structured your poem a bit better- the verses are somewhat irregular. Also I find that you seem to be jumping back and forth throughout your poem (from how you're feeling, back to how the cat is feeling.) I think this could have worked if you had organized your stanzas a little better.

When writing from an emotional standpoint, you have to be careful that you don't allow your writing to become as chaotic as your emotions. Emotions are rarely felt in any organized manner but your writing must display some sort of order.

User avatar
Rei
Review
Rei wrote a review · Sun Aug 13, 2006 10:44 pm

A note to explain the poem is not even necessary, I think.

There really is not much that can be said about this, considering why you wrote it. I just have one comment about how you structured this. There really seems to be no reason for there to be mostly short lines, and then an occassional very long line.

User avatar
Gannon
Comment

There is no reason as to why you should make two consecutive posts; simply add your explanation to the poem after the poem itself. It is looked down upon to do such a thing as waste space. Please do not continue to do this.

User avatar
RoseEmma Comment

that poem was from when i was walking to school and a cat had been hit by a car and I stayed with it when it was dieing. I was so devastated at what i had seen i had to let it out which i did through poetry. RIP kitty



“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -
— Emily Dickinson