SPARROWS ON BARBED WIRE #2

Now I remember why I don't like form.  My poem, Sparrows On Barbed Wire, was published in the anthology FROM UNDER AMERICA'S BRIDGES...  thought I'd try a different viewpoint with #2...reads a little rough in places.  Can you help?  Dewell

SPARROWS ON BARBED WIRE #2

Timid they come from the brush and the bridge
To McDonald's parking lot
To fill an empty crop.

Limping they drag their world a-back, bubble wrapped
To glean the leavings
Of hurry scurry.

Dodging cars, trucks, boots and busses schooled
Flock to the dumpster dive
They seek to survive.

Screaming, Asst Mgr Big Bad Bob flat of foot and face
Brooms and flails with mops and pails
Threatening an aerie jail.

Starlings, short of tail, march in body armor goose-step
To flush the riff raff free
And please the Madame's tea.

Scorning grackles and crows adorn lights on high
Scream, cheer, make it clear
No sparrows here, My Dear.

Over and again the sparrows linger in fallow fields
To hover until night bids
A return to brush and bridge

Clinging to life with broken nails.

   -Dewell H. Byrd

Dewell, I see you are following the sparrows.  I like all the rhyme and rhythm and alliteration.  I notice the parallelism at the beginning of stanzas.  Nice.
I have questions:  Not sure what the empty crop refers to in S 1:  birds or lot?  Their world? sparrows' world? school buses?  What if you said:  They flock to the dumpster dive/  Seeking to survive. ??? We don't need Asst Mgt:  what if you just say Manager Big Bad Bob. . . .?  goose-stepping?  flushing? Last line of S 5:  I'm lost on how that one fits.  My Dear?  It rhymes, but I'm trying to make it make sense to me.   Not sure that I need with broken nails (last line).  I like the 3 line stanzas.  They let me breathe my way through the poem.  Thank you for sharing the poem.  I feel like I am beating your poem with a stick.  : (   Know that I like that you see the significance in lowly sparrows, that they are worth writing about.  Good topic.  I think you have a good poem in the making.

Dewell

Not sure of the form.  Seems like lines two and three rhyme (but not in stanza two).

Seems like a couple lines are forced.

Not much help from me.  Sorry

Todd

OUCH!
Please read the poem as if:
Sparrows are homeless people--
Starlings are police --
Grackles & crows are city fathers --
Madame is the paying customers ---
ETC!!

Now.  Does that help?
Dewell

It certainly does help.  I was just thinking sparrows. So many characters, I could not keep up.  You have a LOT going on in this poem.  It's like a Grandma Moses painting.  I almost never see everything in her painting.  Interesting.

Dewell,  I was lost until you offered an explanation.  You may need a bridge (pun) to span the gap from sparrows to police, customers, city fathers.  I could see the homeless, but the others were not on my horizon until you explained.  I think a couple of your rhyme words were forced. That being said, take out strophes 4-6 and it would look good.  Keep working.

Dewell,

If you offer a title like Sparrows: an Allegory, the reader might be able to make the jumps.

Todd

Todd's title suggestion helps matters.  Thank you Dewell, for the backstory.  I like what's going on, but I don't know form well enough to recognize this form.  Pat, you're killing me with the Grandma Moses analogy.  The poem strikes me the same way.  Fascinating but confusing.

I got the Revision #4 by email and YES.  I like it.

Big Bad Bob, RIP.