This is a prose version of what started out as a story from a script called TRIBES written back in the early 90’s. The script was changed into a short story (for a competition I entered, and didn’t win) and then changed again into this poem.
There is also an audio version of this available over on the Dead End Dramacasts section of Dead End Movie Forum along with the short story.
I hope you don’t hate it too much.
Angel Down
(Or; A Rather Long and Poorly Written Poem)
I met this vision earlier
On a shadow infested street
With pools of glistening teardrops
spreading at her feet.
I stopped and thought; “An Angel!”
(For the wings gave her away
With wingtips hacked unevenly
like a statue of shattered clay
Between sobs her huge wings fluttered
like a flock of birds in flight
a canopy of the improbable
nearly blocking out the night)
She stopped and peered up at me
with eyes both soft and dark
Her feathers fluttering furiously
as the sobs racked her heart
I sat on the sidewalk next to her
stealing glances at her face
as her sobs gave way to silent tears
then eventually she ceased
(the city was a ghost town
the night devoid of life
I wondered why I didn’t feel
the winter cutting like a knife)
The silence was unbearable
so I struggled for something to say
But why, I thought, would an Angel wish
to listen about my day?
Regardless, I started to talk
gibbering about this and that
trying to sound wise and clever
while knowing I’d fail at it
(profundity escaped me
as did anything containing wit
I spent my life an idiot
but I’d never gotten used to it)
there came a time when she spoke
her voice a chorus of whispers
“I have walked the world forever”
she said while wiping away her tears
“the madness and sadness of humankind
is so very clearly perceivable
but to those who live those lives
it all seems so inconceivable”
(For a moment I felt I stood
at crossroads my eye couldn’t see
unable to understand
and unable to believe)
“Walk with me” she said and rose
taking me by the hand
together we walked a while
through my familiar land
until at last I could not feel
the earth beneath my feet
and peering down I clearly
saw the rooftops and the streets
(realisation struck me
like the cut of a knife
no longer would I have
to worry about my life)
So as I rose into the sky
over the once familiar land
below me stood the sad eyed angel
who had led me by the hand
her wings fluttered hopelessly
pinning her to the ground
docked wingtips with no purchase
an angel definitely downed
“So this is it” I thought to myself
as I faded into the night sky
“eventually we leave the world
at some point we all die…”