Pigeon Cloud

The poets of the Dragon Common Room have spent the past five months researching their next adventure—a modern fantasy/horror epic written in the spirit of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. We have been practicing our stanza form and drafted our outline. The poem is going to be in five Acts...and include a dragon. Here we offer sample of our practice stanzas, to whet your appetite for the adventure to come! Visit our website at DragonCommonRoom.com for more information on our previous adventures, now on sale in both print and e-book at booksellers worldwide.

A cloud of pigeons soared above the plain,

propelled by tailwinds only they could sense.

Below them stretched a land oppressed with rain,

where souls were bought and sold for silver pence.

A single tower rose, like steel incense,

a rod for lightning sparks sent down by God.

Within the rain the pigeon cloud condensed,

and from the cloud a man appeared, unshod.

The path that stretched before him in the rain was broad.

At night, the City shone with a false light

reflected in the points of a sharp spire,

a feat of architecture and of might

that uninitiated men desire.

Of steel and glass, constructed to inspire,

the tower rose t’wards heaven and imposed

a focal point for speaking without wires

for citizens whose hearts and minds were closed.

Here bands of pigeons from their steely perch arose.

How does the bird that makes a feathered turn

inform his fellows of his turn-about

that they should, too, arrange from prow to stern

in ship-form, as if listing in a rout

that rolls onto its side to turn en route?

One body made from many birds appears;

reborn, each one a member of the crowd,

to some new shape their bodies fast adhere.

To turn as one they will when hearts and minds cohere.

The pigeons rush in circles ‘round and fly,

their wings charged with the electricity

of grand magnetic temples in the sky,

whose towers rise, their glassy spires a quay

like piers that pierce the air as in the sea.

Together flying unified as one,

the band of birds takes to the air in threes,

whirling a wake of wings that rush in throng

as round the spires they coo their star-inspired song.

Hypnotic birds form bands around the spire,

as pigeon vision guides their flight above. 

Oracular spirits fill the vaulted choir;

descending from the heavens like a dove

a zeal for souls now falling into love.

Above the mist and clouds these angels soar

to find their perch upon the Father’s glove.

Ascending towards the high sun evermore,

into the light and through the nimbic golden door.

To be continued...