fowl nest

[tomoffing]

Edit 1

Cooped in a cubicle, surrounded
by peckers busily bobbing
at the daily scraps and bytes.
Their beady backlit eyes
downcast. Myopic.
The squawkers cluck
through twisted wires.
Their cawing chorus
a great commercial cacophony.
Messageless. Meaningless.
The plucked and preened
plume their windsor-knotted wattles
and parade their wing tips,
crowing cockily of golden eggs
laid for the chief farming officer's audit.
Poor fools don't realise
we're all broilers here.
I too squawk and nibble
but am ever watchful of the latch,
just a flick and a flap to freedom.
Poor fool, oblivious of wings
imperceptibly pinioned
in a flightless room.



Original

I, caged and cooped
among the peckers
busily bobbing
for scraps and bytes

cluckers squawking
through twisted wires
muddling meanings
a screeching cacophony

plucked and preened
parading plumage
cockily crowing
of golden eggs,

nibbling scraps
watching my latch
a flick from freedom
oblivious of wings

imperceptibly pinioned


Rip me apart please folks

[justcloudy]

Hi tom,

I feel there must be a central metaphor here since otherwise there doesn't seem much point to the poem. And to be honest I'm really usually terrible at picking up metaphors, so don't be offended, but I'm wondering if you're aiming at the internet here? Bytes and wires and lots of squawking, being cocky, freedom, etc? Sort of seems to fit, ish.

Honestly I don't really get what you're on about, but it may be my problem, not the poem's.

One comment that has been made to me many times on this site is that -ing verbs are not strong in poetry, and you have a lot here. Maybe you could try to clean that up a bit.

Sorry I can't be more helpful!

-justcloudy

[Mikeodial]

If the poem is telling others of a caged and pre-determined life, the chicken coup is a good metaphor.

If that is your intention, (I might be way off base here), then I would add more to show that you are one of the chickens, as the "I" in the first stanza is the only clue you are talking metaphorically about yourself, or the lives of others cooped up.

If so we can all relate to that ;-)

Apologies if I am way off ....

[tomoffing]

Thanks for your input all,
My intended metaphor was clearly poorly constructed and conveyed. (Although I like the internet alternative).

I've reworked this to try and capture that better.

Let me know what you think

Thanks again
t

[Erthona]

I would guess this is about office workers (wing-tip, shoes), but the metaphor breaks down when you bring in the "boilers". I think it is unsupportable hyperbole to try and compare anything in the workplace with being boil alive/dead. It's true no one gets out alive, but that is life, not the workplace. Overall, your intent is much more clear in the rewrite, but it still has a ways to go. In an allegory, which this basically is, especially a satirical one, should be fairly clear cut in a poem, if you are writing "Gulliver's Travels" you can be a little more obscure. Allegory is fairly straight forward, and has a one to one relation that does not deviate, or introduce aspect of one that do not apply to the other, i.e., the lion is Christ, he is sacrificed, he comes back from the dead, he brings salvation to his followers (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). The lion, Aslan, for the most part, has a one to one correlation to Christ. I recommend you take a look at this poem by Chris called "Gapers", as it is similar in intent to what you are doing, and might find instructive (blue link below).

Dale
Gapers

[tomoffing]

Hey Dale,

Thanks a lot for your critique, its extremely instructive.

I've read Gapers (soon to be gawkers perhaps...) several times previously and it is an excellent, excellent piece. There is not a word out of place. Chris' creates clear cut, evocative, standalone images that also knit beautifully into the overall metaphor he's constructing.
Is it this aspect of his allegory you mean me to take instruction from? That I've landed awkwardly in the middle with some confusing individual images and a muddled overall metaphor?

Boiling would be hyperbolic, agreed. The line is actually "broilers" (birds bred for meat production as opposed to egg production).
Firstly, on reading now I see how this would be an easy mistake to make (almost encouraged by the line). I revised that line on several occasions and have reverted to an earlier iteration above. Let me know if this works better.

Secondly do you have the same same problem with the more indirect reference?
I'm trying convey the impending sense of death in the scene without a literal image so the conclusion retains the stronger focus.

thanks again,
t

[Erthona]

"The line is actually "broilers" (birds bred for meat production as opposed to egg production)."

In what way are boilers (actually I would use the term fryers) like workers (outside of the rhyme)? I don't understand what they have in common. If you ask me they (the workers) are more like layers, plus you have already introduced them as egg layers. You can't have it both ways, one is a male, and one is female.

"crowing cockily of golden eggs
laid for the chief farming officer's audit."

Maybe you need to get a little better handle on chickens before you use them for a metaphor. The traits of workers is most like the female egg laying hen,

"Cooped in a cubicle"

However, historically "hens" have been linked to housewives, and so to me it is a tough sell to recast them as workers, yet the male who will be taken young for his flesh doesn't really seem like a worker as he is not cooped, he is penned. Only the roster crows and has typical male behavior, yet his life is pretty good, so he doesn't seem like a worker to me. To be consistent, you would need to pick one of the three, but you introduce characteristics of all three as if it were one thing, when they are not.

As to Chris, his metaphors are consistent, that is, the characteristics of the metaphorical object are not antithetical with what he is describing: they have an obvious commonality.

Dale

[tomoffing]

"The line is actually "broilers" (birds bred for meat production as opposed to egg production)."

In what way are boilers (actually I would use the term fryers) like workers (outside of the rhyme)? I don't understand what they have in common. If you ask me they (the workers) are more like layers, plus you have already introduced them as egg layers. You can't have it both ways, one is a male, and one is female.

"crowing cockily of golden eggs
laid for the chief farming officer's audit."

Maybe you need to get a little better handle on chickens before you use them for a metaphor. The traits of workers is most like the female egg laying hen,

"Cooped in a cubicle"

However, historically "hens" have been linked to housewives, and so to me it is a tough sell to recast them as workers, yet the male who will be taken young for his flesh doesn't really seem like a worker as he is not cooped, he is penned. Only the roster crows and has typical male behavior, yet his life is pretty good, so he doesn't seem like a worker to me. To be consistent, you would need to pick one of the three, but you introduce characteristics of all three as if it were one thing, when they are not.

As to Chris, his metaphors are consistent, that is, the characteristics of the metaphorical object are not antithetical with what he is describing: they have an obvious commonality.

Dale

I'm familiar with chickens, it's my writing that's confused.

I am not trying to present a single office worker with the varying characteristics of three different birds. I'm attempting to convey three separate types of personalities encountered in an office environment, each with respective similarities to hens/cocks/fryers but all ultimately and inescapably beholden to the farmer.

In regards to the "golden eggs', I've never encountered any bird that lays golden eggs. only a deluded rooster would crow of such a thing.

Thanks again Dale,
I'll go back to the drawing board and get this right.

[Truerenigma]

Edit 1

Cooped in a cubicle, surrounded
by peckers busily bobbing
at the daily scraps and bytes.
Their beady backlit eyes
downcast. Myopic.
The squawkers cluck
through twisted wires.
Their cawing chorus
a great commercial cacophony.
Messageless. Meaningless.
The plucked and preened
plume their windsor-knotted wattles
and parade their wing tips,
crowing cockily of golden eggs
laid for the chief farming officer's audit.
Poor fools don't realise
we're all broilers here.
I too squawk and nibble
but am ever watchful of the latch,
just a flick and a flap to freedom.
Poor fool, oblivious of wings
imperceptibly pinioned
in a flightless room.



Original

I, caged and cooped
among the peckers
busily bobbing
for scraps and bytes

cluckers squawking
through twisted wires
muddling meanings
a screeching cacophony

plucked and preened
parading plumage
cockily crowing
of golden eggs,

nibbling scraps
watching my latch
a flick from freedom
oblivious of wings

imperceptibly pinioned


Rip me apart please folks

I'm afraid this reads as just another adolescent's ennui in their first blush of gainful employment. It is the old "cog-in-the-wheel-we-are
ground-down by the machine
of meaninglessness" dystopia with a farm instead of a machine. Orwell did it better without all of the alliterative nonsense. There is not much here that I find interesting. You would do better to lose the nonsense, and just write of the farm, the metaphor by itself, leaving the office to the reader—and out of the poem.

[tomoffing]

I'm afraid this reads as just another adolescent's ennui in their first blush of gainful employment. It is the old "cog-in-the-wheel-we-are
ground-down by the machine
of meaninglessness" dystopia with a farm instead of a machine. Orwell did it better without all of the alliterative nonsense. There is not much here that I find interesting. You would do better to lose the nonsense, and just write of the farm, the metaphor by itself, leaving the office to the reader—and out of the poem.
[/quote]

Noted and appreciated. It's the office I'm after though so I'll go the opposite direction I think.
thanks

[Truerenigma]

I'm afraid this reads as just another adolescent's ennui in their first blush of gainful employment. It is the old "cog-in-the-wheel-we-are
ground-down by the machine
of meaninglessness" dystopia with a farm instead of a machine. Orwell did it better without all of the alliterative nonsense. There is not much here that I find interesting. You would do better to lose the nonsense, and just write of the farm, the metaphor by itself, leaving the office to the reader—and out of the poem.

Noted and appreciated. It's the office I'm after though so I'll go the opposite direction I think.
thanks
[/quote]

That could probably work too, if you keep the thoughts original, and specific to the scene.