Wind-up Toy

[Torkelburger]

Wind-up Toy

a squirrel’s mangled body lied in the road
run over by a car
for a few moments, its tail flailed wildly like a wind-up toy
sporadically slowed down as if the battery died
until it stopped completely
the instant of death must have been more dreadfully agonizing
and horrible than torture
death was a blessing
a liberation
how abhorrent it would have been if it had been
unable to die?
is death so horrendous?
if only men could die with such esteem…

[busker]

The first 5 lines of the poem do a good job of "showing, not telling", which is what distinguishes poetry from prose. The simile of the flailing tail to a wind up toy is original (at least for me) and apt.
The rest of the poem is the author wondering aloud rather prosaically.
At the very least, the poem could be improved by cutting out excess words such as 'must have been', and ending it at 'die'? I don't know where the last line is coming from....what 'esteem' are you referring to in the lines above? Looks to me to be quite the opposite.

[Torkelburger]

By "esteem" I meant to die “with respect” as in “without fear”. I was thinking of using the word “content” as in being content with death but I could not decide. Let me tell you what I was going for and see if you can help me. I was trying to deal with overcoming the fear of death in this poem.

A while ago I was discussing my extreme fear of death with my therapist one day and she asked me to think about people suffering from terminal cancer and how much pain and suffering they must be in and what a relief the finality of death must be in that case so they don’t actually fear it, rather they welcome it. It got me thinking of other instances where death is welcome like if I was in a car wreck or plane crash and was mangled and wanted to die. So it kind of helped me in a way. So I wanted to write a poem about it and wanted to use the image of the squirrel and how it welcomed death in this situation. Then I wanted to comment on it and if only humans could feel this way as well then they wouldn’t have to fear death.

[dukealien]

Wind-up Toy

a squirrel’s mangled body lied in the road
run over by a car semicolon might be good here
for a few moments, its tail flailed wildly like a wind-up toy comma before "like" instead of "its" perhaps?
sporadically slowed down as if the battery died
until it stopped completely full stop?
the instant of death must have been more dreadfully agonizing is "dreadfully" necessary?
and horrible than torture
death was a blessing
a liberation
how abhorrent it would have been if it had been
unable to die?
is death so horrendous?  
if only men could die with such esteem…


Adam DH Torkelson

Hope the following is not too harsh for Basic, but it's about word choice.

l.2 - "lied" is the past tense of lie, that is to tell a falsehood.  Past tense of "lie," to recline, is "lay."

l.3&4 - "wind-up toy" and "battery" are inconsistent:  in a wind-up toy the spring provides the energy, so no battery is present.  The toy stops moving when the spring reaches equilibrium with resistance in the mechanism - but it does slow sporadically as stresses and internal friction in the spring are worked out.

l.10&11 - the whole sentence "how abhorrent..unable to die" is an exclamation, not a question, so the question mark isn't required; an exclamation point would work, though it would be a bit antique.  It could be made a rhetorical question by reversing the order of "it would" to "would it."

l.12 - "horrendous" a little informal, "terrible" too weak; this is the place to make your point about false impressions of death

l.13 - "esteem" does not make sense to me:  "esteem" is the respect and valuation felt by a person (including self) for another person (or self).  Men can die esteemed by others, or even by themselves ("It is a far, far better thing I do, than that I have ever done," etc.).  No one (except, possibly, the writer) esteems the squirrel.  The only way I can see to make "esteem" fit here is that you're saying men should die with so little esteem, as minimal as the squirrel.  I hesitate to offer a suggested replacement since, there at the end, it's critical to the poem's project and I'm not sure where you were going with it.

Conclusion:  Hope this is not too intense for Basic.  It's a good situation to examine poetically, the trick in editing will be to hone your word choice so it brings forth exactly the meaning/sentiment you're trying to express or cause the reader to feel.  The right word is out there!

[Torkelburger]

Thanks for the editing, dukealien!!! Much appreciated!

Wind-up Toy (version 2)

a squirrel’s mangled body lay in the road
run over by a car
for a few moments, its tail flailed wildly like a wind-up toy
sporadically slowed down
until it stopped completely
the instant of death must have been more dreadfully agonizing
and horrible than torture
death was a blessing
a liberation
how abhorrent would it have been if it had been
unable to die?
is death so horrendous?
if only men could die with such content…

[dukealien]

Thanks for the editing, dukealien!!!  Much appreciated!

Wind-up Toy (version 2)

a squirrel’s mangled body lay in the road
run over by a car
for a few moments, its tail flailed wildly like a wind-up toy
sporadically slowed down
until it stopped completely
the instant of death must have been more dreadfully agonizing
and horrible than torture
death was a blessing
a liberation
how abhorrent would it have been if it had been
unable to die?
is death so horrendous?
if only men could die with such content…

I'd say "contentment," but still having trouble with the meaning there.

---

A suggestion:  If you edit your original post to insert the latest edit at the top, then enclose previous versions in the keywords

{open square bracket}pre verse{close square bracket}

above and 

{open square bracket}/pre verse{close square bracket}

below, only the latest version will appear but below it will be a button 

like this

interested readers can click to see the previous version(s).  The downside is that this edit doesn't cause the revised thread to go to the top of he "waterfall" list of recent posts - but also including the latest version in a new reply will do that as well as putting the new version where readers will see it if they enter the thread from the waterfall (which goes to the latest post in the thread) rather than the forums list.

[Torkelburger]

Wind-up Toy (version 3)

a squirrel’s mangled body lay in the road
run over by a car
for a few moments, its tail flailed wildly like a wind-up toy
sporadically slowed down
until it stopped completely
the instant of death must have been more dreadfully agonizing
and horrible than torture
death was a blessing
a liberation
how abhorrent would it have been if it had been
unable to die?
is death so horrendous?
if only men could die with such contentment