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Mignon,
Had I not come to the Fiction Board to post my own "fiction" piece I would have missed yours. I had already responded to Matt's flash fiction piece and had not noticed that you had posted yours before him! Sorry about that. I'm so glad to have discovered it. This board is something of a black hole.
The poem is in Peru! It is a sad poem in the most painful way. It is told from the perspective of an old hen who has seen so much violence. Nothing but violence. It’s no wonder the entire living world does not rise up to crush the human race for what it’s done to it. Or maybe that is what it is doing…
But back to the poem. It is beautifully rendered in that it gives the reader an unvarnished glimpse into what is a living hell in a microcosm, inhabited by men and women with no sense of value for life, that live their days without any thought of what is beautiful and good and sacred that is all around them if they’d just look with their hearts and souls instead of the evil that has overtaken them.
Back to the poem. It’s a vivid, visceral piece of prose poetry. Thank you for speaking out. It is gut-wrenching to know this takes place anywhere in the world. The poem is an immersion into the tastes, smells, shouts and screams of an unspeakable, tragic cultural abnormality. Perhaps the easiest solution is to have technology/AI create violent robotic entities to satisfy humans' most despicable desires. Machines. All violence relegated to "intelligent" machines. Let life live its cycle.
But back to the poem. The narration, though poetically animated as an old hen, is really a thinly veiled guise for the N’s point of view. The N is deeply saddened by the act of cockfighting but seems to have reconciled it to being something that will persist until the culture wakes up to discover the barbarism of cockfighting. On a side note, when we were on honeymoon in Spain Marilyn was looking forward to seeing a bullfight. We entered the stadium under the baking hot sun and sat on concrete bleacher seats. There was no ambience to the theatre and it was dilapidated looking.The stadium was less than half full. The first contest began abruptly with no fanfare. We watched as the bull was released into the ring and it took a moment for it to get its bearings. He spotted the bullfighter, who was taunting him, and charged in a cloud of dust. When the dust cleared we could see the sword dangling from the bull’s shoulders and blood was streaming down. The crowd roared. Marilyn said, “We have to go” and I could see in her eyes that she was shocked. We quickly exited and sat in the piazza. She sobbed and I held her hand, sweating my tears.
But back to the poem. It could, in fact be disguised further by making it into a paragraph like this:
Cheap Cockfight Arena
I am the only old hen in the cockfight ring. Iridescent plumes shine on my auburn coat this sticky Sunday afternoon after the bullfight at the Plaza de Acho. We have no band here, no stand nearby to feast on anticuchos and picarones—Peruvian shish kebab and deep fried dough with sweet syrup. In this ring under the bridge men smoke cigars and drink chicha de jora, fermented purple corn. Women chain smoke like bats and flaunt their cleavage to distract the drunks. They do not need an abacus to figure out that half of the participating owners will soon seek solace and forgetfulness, as they welcome sweaty suntanned breasts and wasp waists heaving with boisterous laughter that dims and deafens the bloody betting game and the smell of rust rising in a dusty red haze over the ring. These men, the losers who own these magnificent fighter breed of cocks, invest time and work hard to train them for the thrill to see their feathers colorize the air as they flash their shiny sharp steel spurs full of intent, while aficionados in the audience cheer, throw their hats and shout, “Bravo—Bravo—Olé!” The show is shockingly short. The rush of adrenalin rises along with the feathers. Suddenly, as the dust settles, the boisterous voices of the cheering crowd stop eerily in unison. The top favorite cock has buried the beak. It will be deplumed, cooked and consumed. The winner will be assessed: Is it wounded, will it still be alive on their way back home? Will it wake up the next morning? Will it fight again?
I think it reads beautifully either way.
I haven't responded yet to my "Untitled Love" piece on non-met, but wanted to say again how grateful I am that you read it as you did. I may not bring it back to the top with a response because it feels as if others have lost interest in it. That's fine. It's not finished but it's better, mostly due to you.
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