
Ask your question. Go on.
Ask how I could do it. How I could shed my own skin, forsake my species and run with the wolves. Ask how I could rage under a blood moon, an animal’s growl erupting from me like a long-restrained geyser.
Are you certain you want the answer?
Perhaps you can bear the utter indifference, as though a frigidity of the heart were no more than a winter’s turn of weather. Perhaps you can endure the cyclone of desolation such apathy brings. I cannot. I’ve shattered my heart too often against these endless droughts of compassion, including those for which I was culpable. I’ve turned such a polite, blind eye to the suffering in my midst. No more.
You can go on pretending. I shed my skin and embrace the wild. It’s the last compassion left untainted by hypocrisy.
There, you have your answer. Now, leave me to my hunt. I hear the howl of my brothers. The moon shines bright along the snowy trail. I go and join the hunt. Go and join your own.
blood moon
and the panicked eyes
of hunted deer
the desperate cry
of an untended child
for Colleen’s 2019 Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 120, “Cold & Storm,” #SynonymsOnly
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #237 Answer&Question
dVerse Poets’ Tuesday Poetics: Shed some light on this today (pubtended by lillian)
Categories: haikai, haiku community
I absolutely love this Frank. The final two sentences of the prose are steely strong! “I go and join the hunt. You go and join your own”
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Thanks, Rob! 😀
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So visceral. Excellent.
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Thank you! 😀
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I think you and Toni are on a bit of a wavelength, Frank! That blood moon has inspired you both. I love that you’ve written from the werewolf’s perspective and directly address the reader. I love the sentence: ‘Ask how I could rage under a blood moon, an animal’s growl erupting from me like a long-restrained geyser’ and the phrase ‘winter’s turn of weather’. And such a chilling ending.
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Thanks, Kim! 😀
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Wow! Just wow! The prose section is absolutely searing. The questions….the despair and then decision and resoluteness. And the ending…Kim is right…it’s just chilling. The innocent deer….and the innocent child. Humanity (or inhumanity) and natures survival of the fittest side by side. A powerful write!
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Thank you, lillian! 😀
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Whew! That was visually stunning as well as melodic. Thank you so much…
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Thank you! 😀
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Frank, this is simply stunning! The raw emotions, the word selection… I absolutely love this. I see the blood moon inspired your creativity to new levels. Love it!! ❤
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Thank you, Colleen! 😀
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You’re so welcome, Frank.
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I do love the conclusion… at the end we all hunt with our own flock.
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Indeed. Thanks, Bjorn! 😀
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Good advice from the wolf: “Go and join your own.”
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Thanks, Frank!
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A powerful thought provoking write. A strong closing tanka….
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Thanks!
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I love the shivers this entails. Pleasantly frightening.
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Thanks, Toni! 😀
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Howlingly grand bit of writing, sir!
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Thanks, Jilly! 😀
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Forcefully written. Fear-bringing poem. Great!
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Thanks, Charley! 😀
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You are welcome!
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“I shed my skin and embrace the wild. It’s the last compassion left untainted by hypocrisy.” Embracing the primal is a scary thought for most yet you embrace it with a feeling of purity. It is exhilarating yet frightening at the same time. Am I mistaken but are the wolf’s eyes and yours just a teensy similar?
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If you say so 😉 thanks!
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Powerful and chilling, Frank!
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Thanks, Sara! 🙂
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If I met a werewolf, I would not think it would be ok to ask questions… This dare by the werewolf to do so is very inviting.
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Thank you 🙏 😀
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Well done, Frank. I don’t know that I’ve seen you write this kind of fiction before.
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Thanks, Merril! I’ve written some persona haibun before. Glad you liked this one.
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