Here is the creative process in action!
original poem: then edited poem.
original poem
The crow By RM JENKINS
The crow, its call cawing,
Across these ploughed fields , Autumn’s leaves falling
Swift blown and swirled through those grey skies,
Bitter sounding, echoing, haunting,
Simple, yet haunting, gnawing.
Simple-black, but beating,
Iridescent arrogance above the clouds,
Majestic but ignoring, watchful but scary,
Still, The Jack of the skies, but master of none.
Its tearing, strutting carrion-cleaning, clockwork-eyed,
Beaded blood- filled beak, Crow -spread crowed,
Above our lives, brazen-black, sinking, rolling.
October’s bell is the crow’s calling
Rising, it’s simple acrobatics, gripping and scraping,
The sky, the clouds, merciless, tearing, pecking,
Perching, swapping -gripping and hopping, imagined God but simple beast.
Lord of the skies! Indeed, with streamlined plumage,
Berry- black, reflected, refracted, with fiery eyes, wingtips and weary dawning,
The crow
So simple at first glimpse, yet then so daunting.
In its simple chaos calling.
So I was quite happy with the images and thought "not so bad" and then a colleague said "oh read G Manley Hopkins" so off I went, and read some of those sonnets, and thought about poetry again. Perhaps if I boiled down those images into a stricter format, and created something tighter, more adult? After a few scribbles , counting syllables, commas and trying to get the "sprung rhythm" I came up with the following edited version, but I'm still not really convinced, and it does feel pretentious to even try !
Apologies to Gerard Manley Hopkins!
Edited version.
The crow its calling-caw
Echoing through those damp dark chocolate fertile sillions
Stirring, striding its haunting claw
Berry-black, blooded beak, boned and gnaw
Brazen arrogance above those minions
Swift,blown,sky,Jackdaw
Master of none,yet Lord of the skies!
Perching, swooping, gripping, hopping!
Imagined God, yet simple beast.
Wingtips burning, scrapes the sun,flies
Clockwork-eyed, for the eyes a feast.
Anyway, what do you think.?who inspires you,? and was Paul Valery correct when he said "Poems are never finished, just abandoned"