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Listen for Tigers
Bubbles brew in her lungs,
wheezing wet into the air;
horrible pink sound that burns
her chest and my aching ears.
I hear her even in my sleep,
the angry pain hisses mean,
squeezing her lungs in close,
licking up her gasping screams.
Anguish curls around her;
a tiger marked with blood.
It crouches in the dark dirt
panting in the tainted air.
Should I do what I dare?
If only death would come
his heart and hand resolute,
then this dark dance of ours;
this clawing pain would mute.
But no quick mercy comes
on quiet, velvety feet.
She, I, we can’t breath
Can’t breath, can’t breath...
This tiger never sleeps.
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Ah, I wrote this twice but the computer crashed. Sigh. It is a fairly new work for me and I'm still polishing it. I thought the lick/hiss...picked up the tiger in Stanza 2 but perhaps that isn't strong enough. The death stanza is weak...I'm trying to make it work.
I think I'll let it sit and try to iron it out again tomorrow. Thanks for your insights! |
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This has great imagery. The tiger shows up a little late in the poem for it to feature so strongly, however (in the title, in the last line).
It's just a metaphor, and not really the strongest one, at that. Every single line in the first two stanzas is bursting with concrete, realized metaphors, whereas the tiger is an abstract symbol for an abstract "anguish." Frankly, compared to the brilliant first two stanzas, it falls flat.
... Which isn't really a critique of the tiger metaphor, because it's strong. It just doesn't meet the high standard you've set in the previous lines.
Now I imagine what you were aiming for is the tiger's purr. Why don't you come out directly and say that? The purr provides what's missing: a concretization of the abstract. Then, suddenly we can see how it was about the tiger all along. It's what "her" wheezing sounds like. And it's ominous.
After delivering the (emphysema? lung cancer? water on the lung?) so vividly, the contemplation of euthanasia comes as a digression. If you notice, the language after "tainted air" steps back several degrees in intensity, and cliches start dropping in. I think the poem is done in those three stanzas. Why let the inferior lines sap the strength of what is a brilliant poem?
Just one more nitpick: "screams" seems overboard. Who could sleep if "she" were really screaming? The speaker's reaction doesn't fit. So it's not a scream, but hyperbole, and this poem is so expressive, it does not need a hyperbole one bit.
Thanks! It was a great read! |
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