Twelve boar blues.edit 1,svan

[tectak]

I'm enthralled by the words you used here. And the idea of the sky being a palimpsest is great, I could go for a poem devoted to that alone. No sure why, but part of me would rather this not be about a hunt, though ostensibly hunting does appear on several layers of "the" palimpsest. Anyway...

On sky of palimpsest, the sun marks out a lower arc of light
as days erased fold into crowns of silhouetted fractal fronds. You use it well, but I always get annoyed with the word fractal in a poem. It might be a personal crusade...
Grey smoking Wraiths, damp Autumn’s breath, enwrap the forest firm and tight.
Like widow’s rags of summer dead, black ravens croak and life responds.
A shiver tics along his flanks but holding still the boar inhales
to test the drift of cooling air. He knows his spoor will slip behind
when gentlest breeze blows in his eyes; in dimming light his vision fails
as atavistic senses rise to form a picture...clear, defined. To be fair, the boar uses atavistic senses in the daytime as well.
And here I stalk, on leaf-deep trail with cracking twigs and oozing loam.
I emanate the stench of man, my stifled breath a whistling blast.
Each foot fall on the drum-skin floor leaves signs of where I chose to roam; I instantly thought of elephants when you mentioned drum-skin floor.
my scent I paint on branch and stone, on briar thorn and bison grass. I feel you've already done plenty on the scents of boars and humans.
This shotgun carried by my side will not this day be called to kill
for he has gone to where the air is his alone, and time lies still. Nice ending.

The meter is great, which is my excuse for not commenting on it (not my inexperience with it, no way!)

You are bang on. Fractal MUST go.
Best,
tectak