Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Feather Light Tipi

Midnight, sharp, frigid air,
walking a forest path to watch stars stellar,
with time out of mind,
making a path for others to find,
with crunching snow under his boots,
crunching fallen Mountain Ash fruits,
unfamiliar terrain he came across,
he took a spill and was tossed,
down a steep slope into a ravine,
a part he had never seen,
with a twisted ankle and bruised knees,
he cursed himself he wasn't pleased,
his bad judgment,
placed him in a predicament,
he couldn't retrace his new made path,
no way of turning back,
the night turned more black,
no Big Dipper staring back,
he stumbled through the bush,
kept falling on his tush,
as the black seemed to grow,
it soon began to snow,
the silence was broken by the hoot of an owl,
followed by a chorus of howls,
the black got blacker,
his pace got slacker,
the howls became ominous,
glistening eyes anomynous,
as a chill ran down his spine,
he was running out of time,
an hour of struggling through deep snow,
wondering how far he had to go,
the night got blacker,
he sensed an attacker,
more coyotes joined the party howler,
struggling through the snow for hours and hours,
it seemed he was in a different land,
he couldn't understand,
thinking he knew this ravine,
coming across places, he never been,
as he saw ghosts upon his breath,
thoughts started, about death,
he started to lose his hope,
he fell down another slope,
he looked up to the crest of a hill,
a light gave him the will,
he reached the hillside crest,
a Feather Light Tipi fulfilled his quest,
he fell into outstretched arms,
he heard the sound of an alarm,
he was loaded into an ambulance,
given another Feather Light chance.

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?
Last few words: 
Accompanying 30" X 40" acrylic painting on Instagram under dekkertrekker. I try to paint a corresponding image for my poetry, but the poetry comes faster than the image, however this particular piece was inspired a photo of Riva Benditt, at www.rivalutionary.
Editing stage: 

Comments

your work is, not sure if it is free verse or what. Lots of rhyme but not much of a pattern or rhythm. I enjoyed it after I stopped trying to fit it to a pattern/rhythm. ~ Geezer.
.

There is value to commenting and critique, tell us how you feel about our work.
This must be the place, 'cause there ain't no place like this place anywhere near this place.

about survival and an event, a story, which is hard to pull off in poetry as it tends to want to be prose.
Good use of rhyme which is mostly hidden, not so annoyingly obvious as is most rap or performance poetry. I liked the inconsistent meter of the lines, makes it less Bryonesque.
To make a more perfect poem I would remove anything, even one word, which disrupts the readers
train following the narrative. "kept falling on his tush" made me chuckle, and you don't want that. It disrupted the mood. Also "loaded into the ambulance" ...like luggage?
Are you familiar with Robert Service, the poet of the Yukon? You might enjoy some of his fantastic works on survival!
I was a bit confused about the Feather Light Tipi...I thought it was a name, like an Indian name, but then I read "a Feather Light Tipi fulfilled his quest" which made me question that.

But obviously I enjoyed your poem, it has a lot going for it.

Eumolpus
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance
ee cummings

your poem creates a story with all elements of fear, uncertainty and survival instincts...pretty graphical...

regards,

raj (sublime_ocean)

Interesting poem.
Why no rhythm?
Puzling.

IRiz

(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.