04-30-2015, 12:02 AM
The poem's intent is a little unclear to me. I understand that this crow wakes up before people and even the foxes so that it can find carrion. Is the bird shot or is it a gunshot that startles it? "Morning has passed to man" is quite nice but I'm assuming that means, the crow was shot. But then I'm confused because the dead animals (or bird) on the highway are gone before the fox can get to them, so then I assume the crow is alive. Can you clarify all this in the writing?
Beetle-black with glinty, guilty eye, the carrion crow (Is "glinty" enough? What is the crow guilty of?)
comes craving, raucous, raiding.She cleaves the dawn (space between period and S)
still wrapped in dreams of sleeping souls. Rasping words (why "rasping"?)
escape through sashes open-cracked, up to the misted sky.
She flinches, as if pricked by flea, when sight or sound ( the pricked part throws me)
disrupts her flight. A twitch, a twist in mock distress, she calls (What is it that distresses the crow?)
to warn but draws the early gun. Flash! Dashed she tumble-turns,
a single quill flat-spins to ground... morning has passed to man. (I like this line if it fits the scene.)
Still things of blood - furred, feathered or spined -
lie spread and flat on tar grit roads; all gone before the fox awakes. (must be a complete sentence after a semi colon)
Wings whiffle down to empty lanes and hide in hawthorn spiked
in white; then swoop to swallow shreds of red from dead of night. (This works nicely but again - full sentence needed after a semi colon.)
Far afield lie dappled drays, full stretched on grass as damp
as river beds; the mares from night plume golden mists to lift (omit the "to"?)
themselves into the sun. They steam like engines coaled and fired;
shimmered and shivered in to the working day. (full sentence needed after semi colon. Does "shivered"
make sense?)
See now how God awakes and breaks the wraiths that swirl
and scurry through dove-cooed oaks. Look where the steeple
sheds the shroud, where naked branches starkly sway;
a gentle shifting in the air. April morn has brought an early spring.
I like this last stanza and how God is brought in. I'm a bit confused as to who all the ghosts belong to. Is the speaker trying to imply something about people he / she lost? Was the carrion dead people? Maybe work on the theme a bit more.
I hope some of this is useful to you,
Anne
tectak
April 2015
Beetle-black with glinty, guilty eye, the carrion crow (Is "glinty" enough? What is the crow guilty of?)
comes craving, raucous, raiding.She cleaves the dawn (space between period and S)
still wrapped in dreams of sleeping souls. Rasping words (why "rasping"?)
escape through sashes open-cracked, up to the misted sky.
She flinches, as if pricked by flea, when sight or sound ( the pricked part throws me)
disrupts her flight. A twitch, a twist in mock distress, she calls (What is it that distresses the crow?)
to warn but draws the early gun. Flash! Dashed she tumble-turns,
a single quill flat-spins to ground... morning has passed to man. (I like this line if it fits the scene.)
Still things of blood - furred, feathered or spined -
lie spread and flat on tar grit roads; all gone before the fox awakes. (must be a complete sentence after a semi colon)
Wings whiffle down to empty lanes and hide in hawthorn spiked
in white; then swoop to swallow shreds of red from dead of night. (This works nicely but again - full sentence needed after a semi colon.)
Far afield lie dappled drays, full stretched on grass as damp
as river beds; the mares from night plume golden mists to lift (omit the "to"?)
themselves into the sun. They steam like engines coaled and fired;
shimmered and shivered in to the working day. (full sentence needed after semi colon. Does "shivered"
make sense?)
See now how God awakes and breaks the wraiths that swirl
and scurry through dove-cooed oaks. Look where the steeple
sheds the shroud, where naked branches starkly sway;
a gentle shifting in the air. April morn has brought an early spring.
I like this last stanza and how God is brought in. I'm a bit confused as to who all the ghosts belong to. Is the speaker trying to imply something about people he / she lost? Was the carrion dead people? Maybe work on the theme a bit more.
I hope some of this is useful to you,
Anne
tectak
April 2015