The Rabbit God - v2

[heslopian]

The Rabbit God
The sun sits high past the noontime, This is a clever way of conveying an afternoon, but it feels a bit too clever in an artificial way. Maybe it's just me, but this first line drew me out of the poem somewhat.
the flat land, new mown,
ambles away to the river. Good line. A subtle and effective personification.
And, in the last field before the railway lines
I lean against the stake of the barbed wire fence
and watch rabbits. Also very good. Clear, straightforward, unsentimental.

The year before the roadsides had been littered
with the blinded debris of mixi. Googled "mixi", and apparently it's the name of a Japanese social networking site, which doesn't make a lick of sense in the context of this line. Maybe someone's explained it in the comments (which I make a point of not reading before writing my own.)


He Who? is two months younger than I;
taller, more willing to fight,
though maybe my equal in strength. Strong characterisation here. Very show-not-tell, which is of course great. We get the impression that the other is younger and more naive than the narrator, without needing to be beaten senseless with the info.
We have Given the conversational tone thus far, "we have" as opposed to "we've" feels a touch formal. just had a wheelie competition,
in the dust of the abandoned road,
which runs arrow straight over the crossing.
Our brown-berry legs, "Brown-berry" is an excellent expression.
in short trousers,
carry the scars of play,
in these dying days of the summer holiday.

He tells me to wait outside,
I kick stones:
he re-appears with the gun.
I am nervous.
He tells me it is fine, Again, "it is" is a bit formal.
that his parents won't mind.
And, anyway, they are I'll stop reiterating my issue with the formality from here on in, as this is "mild" critique, not "feel free to annoy the shit out of people, Jack, you douche" critique both at work.
The gun is nearly as tall as me.
And as he pulls the trigger,
it nearly knocks him backwards:
though he says it is only a 4/10, I like the use of esoteric detail here. Some might complain they're left out of the loop regarding what a "4/10" is, but a bit of esoterica sprinkled here and there can boost a poem's authenticity, I think.
and he's fired bigger.

The rabbit looks shocked. This rabbit appears rather suddenly. I didn't even know what the kid was firing at beforehand. This isn't necessarily a fault, however. It startled me, and not in a bad way.
One moment it was chasing it's "its" when possessive. Sorry, my inner grammar Nazi can't let that slide friend's tail
the next it is moving sideways,
then backwards
then looping into the air.
The field which moments earlier
had been dotted with grey dancing,
lies fallow and still
a sea of watching eyes. I'm not sure who exactly these eyes belong to, but otherwise the latter half of this verse is poignant and disturbing, conveying its horror through small details as opposed to grand gruesome gestures.

It is larger than I imagine.
'A female,' he tells me, laughing,
squeezing the guts,
gushing out a yellow stream. Perfect descent into the gory stuff, perfectly handled. The objectivity is what's haunting.
I tell him to stop,
sensing desecration, Great line.
but he says you have to do it.
He breaks the gun, and casually carries it on the hip
holding the now cleaned doe Hang on, isn't a doe a female deer?
by the ears.

The last time I was in this garden,
we used a catapult
to test the parachute of his Action Man.
And, I think of this
as he slits the rabbit from pelvis to neck. Brilliant. The switch from innocent fun with Action Man to horror territory is sudden, clear and jolting.
The torn flesh and purple innards
force me to retreat to the corner of the house.
When I peer around the wall,
in response to his urging,
I see his fingers enter the cut,
hook the skin,
pull the hind legs back:
with a deft cracking of bones.
It comes off in one piece:
the skin from the meat,
like the sound of a wet sandcastle being turned out. Beautifully disgusting analogy.

I really really like this poem. It does one of my favourite things a poem can do: create a scene of dreamy Natural beauty, then foreground it with horror. It's like what Ted Hughes did in his crow and hawk poems; a lot of his nature poems, in fact. Critique is JMHO, and thank you for the deeply unsettling read