Thursday, May 9, 2013

Hell On Seymour Avenue



image borrowed from bing


Hell on Seymour Avenue

“Everyone wanted answers that I was
not ready to give.”--Lucy Christopher “Stolen”

Ariel Castro behaved like a pitiful scared
teenager in court today, tortoise head down,
eyes down, mute, frightened--after he dared

imprison three young women, stripped & bound,
making Amanda, Gina, & Michelle live out his
sick fantasies, until at last they were found

and liberated from a tortured life that is
finally revealed; beaten, restrained with rope,
raped, impregnated, assaulted, miscarried--tis

a miracle that they survived, or could even cope
throughout a decade of stygian darkness--
and now they cling tenaciously to the hope

that they will ever forget the beastliness,
surmount bitterness & really find happiness. 

Glenn Buttkus

May 2013

Posted over on dVerse Poets FFA

Would you like for the author to read this Terza Rima poem to you?

14 comments:

Brian Miller said...

dang bro...you give this form teeth in your choice of subject matter...ugh...the table have turned on him...and though he will never live the same fear those girls did, perhaps he will just a little....

Anonymous said...

There's real strength in this, Glenn. I can feel your outrage. I haven't counted the stresses in each line, but I'm guessing that this is not pentameter - and to me it seems better for that.

Scarlet said...

You know I wanted to write on this issue but I was weighed down emotionally with so much disgust and anger ~ I am happy you wrote about this, we should send him to death's chair right away ~ I don't how these girls survived but they are very brave ~ Cheers ~

Claudia said...

oh heck...i do hope they will be able to find happiness again...it's just so sick and it makes me so angry...kudos on tackling this glenn

brudberg said...

Glen, heard we had chosen the same starting point, a lot of questions that needs answering... and deep down the hope that the women (and the child) can cope.

I read about Natasha Kampush, and the difficulties she'd had.. it will not be an easy life for them

Mary said...

No punishment that this beast receives will make it all right for the three young women he imprisoned. I do hope somehow they can find SOME joy in life, but so hard to overcome what they endured. And what we know so far is only the tip of the iceberg.

Anonymous said...

so disgusting (and no, i do not mean your great Terza Rima Sonnet).
you've captured raw emotion here - reading this made my throat constrict.
the word 'anger' doesn't sound like enough when i look at this pig.

Gail said...

Well said and may Karma bite him

Anonymous said...

It is hard for me to even believe this is a true story. I mean, I know it is, but I just can't imagine how someone survives through something like that. Well spoken...words I don't have.

Semaphore said...

You manage to make the terza rima so immediate and compelling by distilling this most current and disturbing story. You have the knack of finding what is relevant and intensely emotional at the same time, and then delivering it through your inimitable style.

Unknown said...

Nicely done. You've taken a newspaper item and turned it into poetry. I'm very impressed With how you handled the form and how you Molded the material into it.

barbara_y said...

Interesting, the choice of a sonnet for this. I think we all want to add order to this ugly mess. Give it a cleaner outcome.

Vaccinius said...

Horror. It really is terrible, what he has done.

Nice work on the form.

vivinfrance said...

Now that's what I call attention to detail of the form. The subject matter - upsetting as it is - is clear and appropriately angry. What I particularly liked is the clever enjambment between stanzas. When I do it Jock complains that my poems don't make sense. Yours makes a whole lot of sense.