I Know Not Why The Caged Bird Screams

I Know Not Why The Caged Bird Screams

By: Ethan West

She lies inside her cage and screams

A song of sorts by end of means

Locked up for words which she had none

Locked up for nothing she had done

Innocent eyes and painted face

I saw when I upon this place

And then and then I cannot see

Why she lay there quietly

I tried and tried but could not budge

The padlocked birdcage door

I cried and cried and did not judge

She lay there now forevermore

Her beauty in this night so pure

A light of white like crystal mirror

I tried and tried to save her fate

I tried and tried to give her faith

I left that barren door unmanned

But the keys were hiding in her hand...

Author's Note

I wrote this for someone very dear to me who's going through a hard time. Please give me any feedback you can I really really appreciate it.

Reviews

[Alyssa Carlstrom]

This totally describes my life and the way it used to be, so you touched my heart. But that's my past.
I love how you said "But the keys were hiding in her hand...", it spoke truth. The keys were always in my hand, I just had to decide to let myself out. Keep up the good work! This poem is absolutely beautiful.

[ewest1220]

Thank you so much! I'm really glad that my work meant something for you and I'm thrilled you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!

[Japanese Cherry]

This is beautifully written. I love the emotion. This is wonderful and I enjoyed reading such a fantastic poem

[ewest1220]

Thanks! I'm really glad you enjoyed my work!

[Japanese Cherry]

always a pleasure to review good writing!

[SmileBig :)]

I read this and thought EDGAR ALLEN POE! Are you him in disguise? Because you are quite good at writing! I love the flow and the words...and everything about this poem infact. Quite fantastic job :)

[ewest1220]

O.o you caught me ;) I do draw a lot of my inspiration from Poe's work so I'm glad you noticed! Thank you so much for reading!

[SmileBig :)]

:) np :)

[unknown]

There's something about this poem that truly crushed my heart. I've no idea why, but it has brought back memories upon my heart that haven't been there (upon my own better/worst judgement) for a long time. You've truly blessed me with another amazing poem, and another insightful moment to divulge in, once again. Thank you for sharing such an amazing poem.

Your way with words has been a great inspiration, and great motivation to keep writing, and make my work something worth remembrance. :)

Your Friend,
Liz

[ewest1220]

Wow thank you so much Liz for your kind words. I'm truly honored that this poem had such an impact and I'm thrilled you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for reading!

Your friend,
Ethan

[unknown]

It's no problem! You keep writing this, and I'll keep up with reading, and explaining why I love all of your work. :)

Thank you again, for this amazing opportunity to read your work. It means a lot.

Your Friend.
Liz

[ba_mcfarlane]

This is an outstanding write. Cadence such as this, brings power to the theme. It is chant. The writer's tender empathy is well presented, always heartful, never cloying.
Kudos!

[ewest1220]

Thanks! I'm really glad you enjoyed this thank you so much for reading!

[J. Viands]

It reminds me of Maya Angelou I know why the cage bird sings yet makes me a lot sadder

[ewest1220]

That coincidence was intentional actually. I really enjoyed that short story. Anyways I'm really glad you enjoyed it and that it had an impact with you thank you so much for reading!

[David Michael]

I see why this would be popular on here - it speaks deeply to people, regardless of their unique interpretation and context. It also has an elegance about it that most other poetry that are about emotional topics like this tend to lack (they're usually written in the heat of the moment without much craft...).

There were a couple places where the rhythm was thrown off. Of course, you may have purposed to do this to emphasize the line or whatever, but in case it wasn't intentional...

Line 5 "Innocent eyes and painted face" - It has the right amount of syllables, but the reader either has to put the stress on the second syllable of "innocent" rather than the first, or be okay with no unstressed "pickup" syllable to that line as well as two syllables - "in-no-" - in the place of one.

Line 8 "Why she lay there quietly" - Again, if one excepts the lack of pickup syllable to that line, it works great, with stress on "why", "lay", etc. But based on the established pattern, the reader will naturally make "why" the pickup and put stress on "she", "there", etc. When this happens, there's a missing unstressed syllable between "there" and "qui-". I'd suggest adding in "so". However, if you wanted it to be read the former way, then perhaps you could add in a pickup somehow? The words "for", "but", and "O" came to mind.

Line 10 "The padlocked birdcage door" - The line works great, it just stops short, missing two syllables. This does add a special emphasis to the line that may work just fine for you. But I thought I'd point it out anyways. If you do like it, because of the obvious parallelism between this couplet and the following, I'd almost suggest truncating line 12 similarly.

Line 18 "But the keys were hiding in her hand..." - Being the last line and the huge point of the poem (she could save herself all along), it is fitting that it might have a different rhythm to set it off. Not sure if the one it has works to that end, though. Essentially, it has two unstressed pickup syllables, and if you took out either "but" or "the" the problem's fixed. Of course, this also subtly changes the meaning....

Hope you find that helpful! Please don't take it amiss, I did quite like the piece!

[ewest1220]

That actually some really interesting input I suppose on this one I never truly took the meter into play on this work. I will say line 10 was for emphasis (A salute to Edgar Allen Poe's writing style) On 18 taking out "but" actually seems to add a sly edge to the work that I wasn't sure if I liked. Almost like a smirk for want of a better word. However I just want to say that I really do find your feedback helpful I am truly thankful that you've taken the time to give me such excellent feedback! Thank you so much for reading and I'm very glad you enjoyed this piece!

[David Michael]

I guess it's kind of a cool testament to you that your meter was so good without you even paying attention to it - you apparently have an innate feel for good rhythm... do you do anything with music, perchance?? I honestly don't pay attention to rhythm very often, but when it's so consistent as it is in yours, any little deviation from it really throws me off. I honestly don't mind lack of meter, in general.

[ewest1220]

You're correct I've spent 6 years in orchestra and two in theory. So I suppose the meter shouldn't be too surprising for me. I gotta have rhythm or else it feels awkward for me.

[styxfan]

very touching. "but the keys were hiding in her hand..." describes something with a friend of mine. she could get out of her situation so easily, but she chooses to keep going down the same path, and still it leads to heartbreak, every time. Great job

[ewest1220]

Thanks! I'm glad you were able to relate to this I hope your friend eventually gets out of that situation. Thanks again for reading!

[Bluefire]

I love it.
It actually made me cry a bit.
Thank you for sharing this piece.

[ewest1220]

The pleasure is all mine thank you so much for reading! I'm thrilled you enjoyed my work!

[Bluefire]

No problem. ^^ I look forward to reading more.

[DRD]

It is an elegant if not sad piece of writing. By all appearances the bird is destitute of hope, yet in the end you see that she craved an end not for being locked up but for being unable to give voice to her pain.

[ewest1220]

Interesting perspective! I really appreciate your feedback and I'm thrilled once again that you enjoyed my work! Thank you so much for reading!

[Eloha]

There was something here about accepting another's pain without judgement that I found very healing here. Well done.

[ewest1220]

Thanks! I'm glad you found some comfort in my work thank you so much for reading!