Poem Body
A Beast of Burden
He halted..
Sniffing the air, he turned tail and galloped off.
Still,
Without delay,
We gallantly dragged our efforts, shooting at the poor beast in hot pursuit
I was unwilling in this sport.
In my heart of hearts I hoped we might manage to tame him instead.
This Mighty Majestic Beast of Burden was too rare to see Death.
But, once our chase had been executed, the noose in our hands drew tight,
Ensnaring the monster in our trap as we had him.
We had him cornered.
The Beast was upon the ground,
doomed-the animal was at all our mercy.
I felt repugnance at paining the animal but those were the orders.
This was a case of necessity. This was kill or be killed.
Comments
most interesting idea
to be in a hunt for the "beast of burden". I was reminded of "The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me", a great poem by Delmore Schwartz.
I got stumped with this line
"This Mighty Majestic Beast of Burden was too rare to see Death".
It left me a bit confused. I also felt I needed more of the burden itself, as we have so many crosses to bare in our lives, it became for me a bit vague or abstract.
But I think the idea is great and very sound, and very much worth pursuing- creating an image of the actual beast, and engaging in a hunt to kill it, or be killed. And what will be the result of the killing of the beast? Who gave the orders to kill it? There's so much juicy poetic stuff in the images you are creating, and i think on it's way to being a very original poem.