Jay

Create a poem about an animal, and play with line breaks.  I've always found it tricky to know where to place the break.  In a poem with regular metre and a rhyme scheme it's easy,  but free verse is tricky.  What makes it different from a piece of prose? Is it affectation to break it where there is no natural pause?


He brings a flash of glamour,
the flash of blue-tipped wings, glorious
against the pinkish brown, the twin
black moustachios framing his white throat,
he looks the part: more dressy
than his jackdaw cousins, more flashy
than the dapper magpies, he catches the eye.
All dignity is lost, while upside-down he flaps
and hangs to stab the fat balls, peanuts, 
thick long beak piercing through the feeder's mesh.
He is in a feeding frenzy, chicks hidden safe
in nearby woodland. A sudden move;
he's gone. The stage abruptly empty, left
free for more dowdy birds, waiting in the lilac tree.

© Copyright 2024. Chris Auger. All Rights Reserved

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