Charnel Paradigm

"Charnel Paradigm" is comprised of three different parts: Animal killing Animal (The Hunt), Man killing Animal (The House), and Animal killing Man (The History).

THE HUNT

Across the Savannah my limbs plod on,

I scan the grass for a deliverance.

An intake of breath perks up my keen ears--

I see the fear--the delightful anguish--

Of regret of action--of life soon lost--

I relish in this steeplechase we make--

Over and under and around again

My two eyes grow bright as its two die dark.

What rapturous bliss my reaping brings me!

Thick syrupy blood mats to my muzzle

As I let violence reign in my house

To my children it is taught and thus learned--

Nature bids us to slaughter our dinner.

If nature is the father of murder

I am the executioner mother

I am the macrocosm of all war,

And in this moment I am my own cub

Chortling as one does in pure success--

Golden sunlight permeates my sinews

As I lie by my committed horror--

Entrails strewn in the glistening grasses,

I squirm into the enveloping gore,

Happily lazing as if in a pool.

 

THE HOUSE

Bemoan the bouquet of bovine butch’ry!

In this den of death stalagmites of heads

Heap high in dumpsters, and boots wade through blood.

My birth? My bloom? Both irrelevant here.

All my brethren are shuttled here to Hell.

Abaddon! I see you in many parts

Baneful. Beastly. You drive us to curved lanes

So I cannot behold my end ahead.

You do your best to avoid panicked shrieks.

It spoils the taste. And when my time comes

The gun fires false. Conscious, I am slit.

I am drawn and quartered like ancient men

I see my dead body before I die"

And when I do die? Everything is bright!

My flesh is to be a celebration!

I see my body displayed on a plate

The atrocious attar I smelt is gone,

Covered by spices, cream, garlic, and wine.

I see a small boy given his first bite

He delights in Time’s view of my lynching.

He sees my afterlife and not my death--

Perhaps my meaning was to give him life!

--But he grows into that which murdered me.

 

THE HISTORY

My family rejoice in traveling

Vittles, viands, victuals for all!

Upon these boards scurry we visitors

We are ebony and obsidian,

We fleeced this land and its whitewashed people.

I am Legion. But as I am many

So are these giant creatures of vices,

As I am a horde so do these ones live.

But when a week passes, they become weak.

Oh, mortality! These horrors I see!

Crevices weep so deep pits are quarried

The earth becomes a wellspring of sickness.

Her inhabitants are bathed in sputum

Sanguinary streets are all Legion sees.

Unholy wailing of medieval men

Reaches my small ears splintering my soul--

Feet stumble on a loose brick splashing blood

And all other humors into my eyes--

One of me is blinded, another sees

A face where the feet were--sobbing, heavy

Features obscured by a grimed metal beak--

Herbs fill my nostrils. A release of breath.

Thus what once was many is now so few

Shadows now belong to only my kin.

They had murdered our enemies before,

So we had all their places to cover.

We are the constant in all variables!

We are the scythe of annihilation.

Do I deserve life now that I have killed?

Reviews

[Alessander]

You know, I read this on 3 separate times, mostly because I'm thick headed lol the concept is very interesting and unique. At first, I thought this was gonna be a Peta lecture, but it was much more subtle and deeper. Normally, diction like "Behold" "Soul" "Bemoan" etc turns me off, but you did a really good job of using detail and creating imagery. Wordsworth was against personification because he thought it a low poetic move to get the reader sentimental, but there is a sort of objectiveness to this piece that holds it just above sentimentality. You have good lines: "I am drawn and quartered like an ancient man" is prob my fav. The second part initially disoriented me because I thought it was gonna be from the percpective of a man killing an animal, not of the animal being killed by man, but this way is more consistent with the 1st and 3rd part. There are a few suggestions I can give, the biggest one being: GET RID OF THE LAST LINE. this piece would finish much more strongly with "we are the scythe of annihilation" because the "we" leaves it open ended - we could refer to the 3 pieces or just animals, or other things. Also, the line itself carries weight. I always like ending it with a bang, and not a whimper, but that's just me. Very good work. look forward to ur other stuff.

[Marie Anzalone]

I apologize that it has literally taken me years to come back into my library and find this treasure of yours, Katherine. That you wrote this as a teenager is amazing. You ask some very probing questions here about meaning, life, death, circles of deserving and undeserving. Your imagery and your rhyme and meter are spot-on. This is a very skillfully crafted, hauntingly introspective piece. I see you have not been active on site in some time; I hope that, wherever you are, you are still writing. This work bore the mark of a skillful craftswoman at her trade.

[Mauricio Montoya]

3 D in this write, I like that, great job well done.

[Hello, Goodbye]

Glorious in its vitality!

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

Truly a wonderfully skilled epitaph .. through the eyes of a jungle beast, lion, tiger all are connected. It as if you became the animal for a little while.

Laws of Nature, some confuse me..I like the three scenarios..
Such detail in description .. very very good reading and writing .. with a last line..
'do i deserve life now that i have killed'? to think about.