Strike
Sudden blow bundle of muscles and feathers
A swift punch a severe and unexpected calamity
How I wish to collide violently with myself
The shock of the strike the assault or unexpected injury
Impact with vehement feeling or expression
Shoved in my mouth
When an electric current passes through all or part of the body
a talon in the chest wall stammering heartbeat
to create strong internal stress
A claw in the heart limp corpse in the hand
And what is myself without wings
A means or instrument of flight, travel, or progress
Will you collide violently with me
Will you inflict a harmful and obsessive influence on the mind
Shove my blood into your mouth
A bundle unwrapped and uninvited
The shock jar impact
Collapse
Strong blow to the sense of decency
And I want to root for the Beast
For it must live by plunder
Taken by robbery, theft, or fraud
It knows no other way seized and devoured
About this poem
This morning I heard a bird hit the window. I looked for it and saw this hawk tangled with its prey in the deer netting strung around my garden. My camera was upstairs in the loft. I got two quick shots, then ran downstairs to get closer. When it heard me on the deck it had recovered, was resting, and then alarmed by me it flew away into the pines with its prey. I can’t tell if it took a quail or jay until I snow shoe to the scene and look for feathers. A jay and a pair of nuthatches in the pine were telling me all about the excitement.
I opened my e-mail and read the Poem a Day sent from Poets.org. Today’s poem is a new format for me, it introduced me to invoking and intervening using dictionary definitions in the text. Definitions are set off in italics. The inspriration came to me from here.
The predator and the daily poem, they just seemed to belong together and so inspired me to create this composition.
Sky Blue Daze 
Great poem! And photos! We often have a Cooper’s hawk visiting our yard. I watched him once catch and fly off with a northern flicker. They. Are so quick and agile. Seeing the flicker get captured though made me sad, but I know that’s how nature works. Your snowy yard looks beautiful! ☃
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Thank you. Working in marine science and Olympic National Park taught me respect and empathy for predators and the food chain. I don’t like to see the victim get killed but an EMT taught me that some times it’s a bad day for the victim and we can’t do anything about that. Living in the wild, it’s hard to get food, and the same with “civilization”.
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So true! And predators also eat the critters we don’t want!
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Yes, we had a badger here for a long season and it ridded us of ground squirrels. Also lizards and snakes. The squirrels haven’t come back in big numberssince.
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I could use a badger! Lots of squirrels here! They can be quite aggressive. Even stare into the house from the deck!
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Creeps.
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😬
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very unusual in format!! Love it!
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Thanks, Dune Mouse. This was my first approach to this style. I hadn’t heard of it until I read about it and the example in my Poem-a-Day message. I like the method, likely to use it again. Using the dictionary this way was invigorating.
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