Human Almost

[The Death of Rats]

Bertice Small and Bertice Tall

 

Father, I shoot with my hand

Father, I kill with my gun

Father, I cannot remember

 

Bertice Fat and Bertice Thin

 

Lady of the dark and light

The wild and desolation

fuels my yearning for your touch

 

Bertice, Bertice Round again

 

I am gunslinger

I am ashes I am pillar

I am vessel

 

I am warrior

I am lion I am child

I am enovy

 

The stories are alive again

Thru unimagined subtle source

As should and shall be evermore

 

Rejoice.

[Wyvern]

Interesting imagery and collages of thought here, Death of Rats. :-) The Bertrce lines made me think of musical refrains (particularly "Bertice, Bertice Round Again"), while the "As should and shall be evermore" and "Rejoice" lines gave off a sort of religious undertone. The "I am gunslinger" line that kicked off the two "I am" stanzas also felt vaguely anime-ish, and seemed to connect with the shooting references of the second stanza. Should you ever choose to revise or expand this poem, I think my recommendation would be to place more of a focus on one of the subjects of the poem. The narrator/gunslinger, Bertice, and the stories are all interesting elements, but emphasizing one of the three without losing the others might give the poem a stronger direction. Anyway, still a very interesting read with some cool uses of structure and imagery. Thanks for sharing it, Grim Squeaker. :-)

[Mardrax]

The rat in black fled across the verses and the gunslinger followed.

An allegory of stories ran together in his mind, forming into fragmented structures

only his weathered mind would ever be able to form into a whole.

It would make one wonder if the world moving on might have been a good thing.

It would make one wonder if the sandblasted figure remembered the face of his father.

It would make one force one's brain into seeing the pattern, into enforcing

what the human mind thinks of as logic, onto something so ephemeral

as the gunslinger's mind,

like seeing faces in the planks, like seeing animals in the clouds.

But he who seeks sense with his brain has forgotten the face of his father.

Edited May 23, 2008 by Mardrax