headless turtles

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  • Death
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  • Sadness

    headless turtles

     headless turtles

    in my
    crab trap
    were two
    big blue-claw
    crabs - and
    two small fist-sized
    salt water turtles

    my office job
    got in front of
    of my practice
    of checking the
    traps about 
    every 3 or four
    days

    two weeks 
    past ..and
    during that
    time the big
    crabs ate the 
    heads off the small
    turtles
    imprisoned in
    my trap

    i felt
    horrible
    as they
    floated
    away
    on the surface
    as gulls
    picked
    them
    clean

    i killed those
    special
    little
    headless
    turtles
    because
    my
    job
    got in
    front
    of their
    precious
    lives



    poetography
     

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    RHPeat commented on headless turtles

    07-04-2009

    It is great to see you playing around with this concept: I think that your real poem lies between the two however. The crabs killed the turtles just because they were hungry, but you feel connected to their death because they were in your trap. It is just not quite coming across. The information is there but the ordering of the poem is quite working in both cases. And the reiteration doesn't really help the poem it distracts to some extent. So bring the job back into the poem in the closure weakens the flow a bit. The amazing thing that I feel about the depth of the poem is how little thing in our lives effect every one and every living thing around us. Just letting the trap set for a day made the difference to two little turtles. And that's what needs to be shown in that closure without saying it at all. It's pretty damn close however. But you don't want to say you killed them; you want the reader to feel that you did something unintentional to bring about their demise. You forgot about the trap so now you feel connected to them. But remember the crabs were just being who they were; the hungry crabs. This to is part of the real depth of the poem. That bystanders will be who they are. The depth of this poem is something really worth putting a lot of effort into to make it smash the reader on the head with a fantastic epiphany. A poet friend/ RH Peat
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    RHPeat commented on headless turtles

    07-04-2009

    I must say that this form is far stronger than the other version I read. And it is far easier to understand. The stanzas even slow the poem down a lot more in reference to the lapsing of time and death of the turtles becomes far more intensified by this form than the later version. I can't remember the other poem in my mind after reading this one, but I sense there was something different in the closure which was a tad stronger. I'm not sure what it was without having the two poems side by side. But I feel the form in relation to the imagery is far stronger in this poem. It supports the contextual of the word better. A poet friend/RH Peat
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    A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.

    Robert Frost (1875-1963) American Poet.

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