[W T Clark]

The birds aren't real or only real enough
for clockwork: the cold comportment of the show
that frazzles you at dawn.
You sit up: smirking with sleep,
just like you did every schoolday except
that school is only now the poised baroque
cathedral of shrillnesses demanding
you take notes: there is always time
to learn more melodious screaming(!)

& maybe you that one time joined
your voice to theirs
in your melodious
screaming. That time the boy declared
he loved you & that is why
he would not let you out

of the house as if the bird of you were wound
up wrong & had to be set right,
that maybe there
was a key he needed: to wrench you into love

& that, until then, this
was the cage he'd made for you he needed
(for the bird-of-you in its shit-and-mortar bars)
for the morning's muffled, desperate shambles of a repairing.

[Yves S L]

Hello Cameron,

Experiment: remove the last strophe, and see how the poem sits with you.

[Matt Q]

Hi Cameron,

Lots to like here: I think you work the bird motif well, the students paralleling the birds in their song, if perhaps less melodiously. The N in his birdcage. I like also that this an aubade, and the N is either caged and hence going nowhere, or if he's leaving, then his captor has succeeded in wrenching him into love (since that was the condition of release), and that's the point at which he leaves.

S1, I wonder if you need "cathedral". I'm not sure if it's adding much. And if you cut it, I'd say it's almost implied anyway.

The repetition of "melodious screaming" isn't really working for me. It's a strong phrase, but I'd say use it once or it loses its impact. Or vary it somehow. If the first occurrence were "a more melodious singing" for example, you might have more parallel with the birds, and the second occurrence would undermine this. Though whether that works for you may depend on whether or not it's only the N who's screaming, or all the boys/children at school.

As it stands:

to learn more melodious screaming

is ambiguous in its meaning in a way that detracts from rather than adding to the poem. Is "more" modifying "melodious", or does it mean "additional/further"? If the former, adding "a" before "more" would clarify also and make the line more iambic.

I don't like the bracketed exclamation mark. It brings to mind a humorous text message or tweet, since that's the only sort of place I see this sort of usage. As such it seems at odds with the rest of the poem.

I wonder why you have "bird of you" and "bird-of-you"? Both seem to be the same part of speech.

S2, typo "their's" -> "theirs"

best,

Matt

[Chelsea McClellan]

Hi Cameron!

Just a few thoughts:

1. I find the image/idea compelling that a person could be the bird in a cuckoo clock, which is how I'm reading this poem. I don't, however, love "bird of you" because, to me, it reads more like a simile rather than committing the whole poem to an extended metaphor.

2. Is this a metrical poem? I think I'm missing something. Potentially my ignorance of an aubade, but I can't figure out the pattern.

3. Using "&" instead of "and" feels like the wrong tone for this poem.

4. Who is the "you"? At first, I read it as the reader being the "you." But once it gets to "That time the boy declared..." I realized it couldn't be ME, which took me out of the poem, a bit confused.

5. If you're going to allude to the time the boy wouldn't let someone out of the house for "love," I feel a need to understand a wee bit more of the backstory. Otherwise, I'm having a hard time connecting to it emotionally.


Take care,
Chelsea

a grain of salt for you: .

[Alex Pepple]

Hello, Cameron,

This offers a lot to unpack and rationalize—starting with the form, which strikes me more as free verse than metrical, given the lack of a consistent stanzaic or line pattern, and the inclusion of the ampersand, which is more typical of free verse than traditional forms.

On the content level, “smirking with sleep” gave me pause—smirking doesn’t quite feel like something one does while asleep. Perhaps it’s meant to convey something dreamlike or groggy? Similarly, the connection between “school” and “the poised baroque / cathedral of shrillnesses” is intriguing but unclear—some clarification or build-up might help ground that metaphor.

Also, I found “the show” in line 2 ambiguous. Is it a performance by the birds? If so, perhaps clarifying with “their show” or something similarly specific would help.

Still, there’s a lot here that’s evocative—particularly in the final stanza. With a bit more tightening and connection between the elements, I think this could be even more powerful. And some more metrical regularity might also help.

Good luck with the next draft, Cameron!

Cheers,
…Alex

[Max Goodman]

It's intriguing the way birds become ominous with the memory of the boy who treated this former schoolkid like one.

I'm not sure whether the bird caging is a metaphor for actual imprisonment, someone literally not being allowed out of a house, or only ("only" because it would be part of the other scenario as well) a too-possessive love.

The poem also gives me mixed messages about how traumatic the caging was. That it's being written about suggests it was important and the results long lasting, but it's all very abstract. Even the screaming is melodious and the "you" is said to have screamed "one time."

The explicit shift to discussing the caging begins: "& maybe you that one time...," a casual mention that works against my feeling that the "you" is strongly focused on this past event.

Maybe the intention is that "you" is trying not to think about it? That makes intellectual sense, but it's not the impression the poem leaves me with.

Would "now only" be clearer than "only now" (L6)?

FWIW.