Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Strigiformes Assassination

Day 20 of NaPoWriMo suggested a poem using at least five of a collection of words.

Strigiformes Assassination


The Cyclops owl, Edgar
laden with heavy artillery
curls cheese into a bilious truffle.
He is a widow. A dairy farmer. A hitman.
His elusive nature,
svelte and accurate and deadly,
is renowned. But he is modest
and as vocal as a ghost.
He glides from willowy nest
to gutter, to sky, in a swoop, without a hoot.

Tonight's client: Elwin the cow-bird,
cattle hustler, moving in on Offa's land,
Edgar's superior.
Elwin sits atop the beast, horned and fat,
gorging on ticks in the black night.
Edgar flies high, his target upwind. He hears only
the breeze in his feathers.
And then he plummets.
He activates photon canons with
an acute feather rearrangement
Sending a coarse beam through the night,
a fluorescent javelin.
He kills twice: The bird: obliterated.
The cow: a cauterised arc in its back,
smoking, dead.
Edgar is the toast of Offa's steak-and-cheese party.

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