I. The Crow

[BenJohnson]

In sheepless sight of a green grazed field
no hook or crook, just the crow and rook
that pick and stab all across the weald.
The bad luck birds in murderous herds
whose stabbing looks can never be healed.

The tattered wings that beat the sky black
and sour the cream of a young child's dream;
flap at ease as they glide from the flak
of the field son with the levelled gun
who feeds the echoes on thunder cracks.

"He'll crack your mirror and cross your path"
Cut from the night, he struts his whole height
with feathers greased black and chalk grate laugh.
His carboned eye embraces the sky
mirrors the world in its boundless bath.

[ray miller]

I like the rhythm of this, Ben, though I wonder if you need to have been so strict with the metre.

The tattered wings that beat sky black
and the sour cream of a young child's dream
flap at ease as they glide from flak...

would sound better to me. I think your efforts to impose a consistent metre have resulted in padding in various spots.

Wouldn't "feeds the echoes with thunder cracks" make more sense?

I didn't like "chalk grate laugh" and "carboned eye" when I first saw this but I'm fonder of them now.Not sure about that last line, though.

[Lovely]

Excellent BJ. I like the way you give it force yet you seem to have a gentle touch
which gives this and You a magic.

"he'll crack your mirror/ and cross/ your path"........sweet one, BJ.

You pushed my button........

Loved

Lxxx

[Helen Bywater]

In sheepless sight of a green grazed field
no hook or crook, just the crow and rook
that pick and stab all across the weald.
The bad luck birds in murderous herds
whose stabbing looks can never be healed.

The tattered wings that beat the sky black
and the sour the cream of a young child's dream;
flap at ease as they glide from the flak
of the field son with the levelled gun
who feeds the echoes on thunder cracks.

"He'll crack your mirror and cross your path"
Cut from the night, he struts his whole height
with feathers greased black and chalk grate laugh.
His carboned eye embraces the sky
mirrors the world in its boundless bath.

Hi Ben,

This is great. i enjoyed reading. I like the images, the rhythm and the internal rhymes.

Just a couple of points:

S2L2 doesn't seem to make sense - is it a typo? It would be better as
"and sour the cream of a young child's dream;"

I'm not that keen on "boundless bath".
I'm being nit-picky, though. You'd probably have a job to find something better that fits into your rhyming scheme.

Helen

[BenJohnson]

Indeed the extra 'the' is a typo thanks for picking up on that. The boundless bath line originally read 'and drowns the world in it's boundless bath' which probably makes a bit more sense, but sounded overly dramatic to me on later reading. There isn't a strict meter as such Ray since this was a syllabic form, however with fairly regular stresses it tends to flow better.

[Lovely]

BJ, it's so beautiful you know...... don't stress the intellectual, you have this gift..

hope it helps you ever.......

Light and love...............

Lx

[David]

Good stuff, Ben. I enjoyed the jolly rhyming, and the whole thing has got a swaggering rhythm that's quite endearing. I like it a lot.

Cheers

David

[Sharra]

Hi Ben
I really like the rhythm and rhyme of this, it all seems to fit together well.
Some bits of it didn’t seem to work as well as others though. In S2 I wasn’t entirely sure about ‘sour the cream of a young child’s dream’ – it felt like it was contrived for sound rather than meaning.

S3 again I wasn’t sure about ‘chalk grate laugh’ – it sounds great , but the 2 descriptors don’t seem to fit together. How about grating? or chalky? if you need to limit it to 2 syllables.

I really like ‘carboned eye’ but wasn’t too keen on ‘boundless bath’.

Sharra
xx

[Basnik]

Hi Brian,

Just producing 'Macbeth' at the moment so love all things corvine. Liked a lot of this but could i pick some nits about the metre? In s1 all across the weald - all should go perhaps to keep the iamb - the all is too strong to make it anapestic as in l1 so it jars a little I felt. The last line in s1 'can never be healed.' feels forced by the rhyme. How about 'whose stabbing looks are unconcealed.'

The tattered wings that beat the sky black this has five feet - lose 'that' and you'd have a nice inversion
and sour the cream of a young child's dream; great line
flap at ease as they glide from the flak
of the field son with the levelled gun
who feeds the echoes on thunder cracks. all works really well.


"He'll crack your mirror and cross your path" great
Cut from the night, he struts his whole height hmm 5 again - doesn't work as well for me
with feathers greased black and chalk grate laugh. like the dissonance with a but meaning isn't - too much of a jump
His carboned eye embraces the sky great
mirrors the world in its boundless bath. not a fan of the boundless bath can you use 'aftermath'?

Anyway, only wanted to comment because I like it and like your use of form.

Regards,

Rich Basnik

[BenJohnson]

This is a hard one for me to respond to since it is so old, I only entered it for the competition to see if I had moved on from the old me. As far as I can remember the looks can never be healed part actually came earlier than the rest of the first verse so they didn't appear to force the rhyme. Since this is one of a long sequence of poems which uses the same form some of the images are picked up and explained in other poems. The crows become images of people in various guises. So the stabbing looks which can't be healed refer to the way certain things stick with you through life and taint your future.

As to meter the form was purely syllabic, 9 syllables to a line the rhyme scheme should be fairly obvious. I posted this more for interest in other peoples comments since this is from before I gave up writing poetry.

[Basnik]

Hi Ben, (sorry I put Brian before - I'd just been responding to one of his)

I can see the 9 syllable form now - sorry if I seemed pedantic I was just commenting on the flow really. The healed thing makes more sense now - I was going really with my first impression. If you write like this I wonder why you would want to give up poetry! Have you read the Hughes' Crow collection - really interesting too.

Rich

[BenJohnson]

I think I commented on the anon thread that this series of poems caused me to discover Ted Hughes. His crow was rather different to mine, but a wonderful creature. He also draws from many ancient sources for his Crow Songs. Every time I read them I discover something new.

Various personal matters intervened in my poetry writing, but largely I had no one to discuss poetry with and it is hard to improve or know what you are doing right or wrong, online forums like this (especially this one) are amazingly helpful. Now I have a better idea how to achieve what I set out to do, rather than trust to blind luck.