kingdom come

the snakes would have felt its rumbling through the ground;   (good start....a question formed)
an enemy approaching  
as big as god  
and as loveless   (not bad...but probably overplayed)
 
in construction   (the change from the verse above is rather abrupt...has the reader made the leap?)
when we say we are going to do a thing  
and there is still cash left to do it
well
we get it done  
 
so
 
we said we’d drop the tank on the top of the low hill   (is drop the right word, given it is a figure of speech used mostly in the country I am in now...does a reader from another country get 'drop'?)
and come one sunny morning  
we sent a 30 ton digger  
with a rock breaker on  
to do it
 
if this was a Shakespearian thing
then the snake-king’s witches  
would have dreamed our coming  
boom boom boom
and smoke from the cauldron (ok...should this be in brackets, as an aside to the reader, or does it need to be here at all...is it adding to the tone and/or setting?)
 
at the foot of the tank
three brown-snakes
fearless  
angry  
fuckers
all stood their ground
and when the chips were really flying
came forward  
to fight for their world
and die for it
heads removed by the breaker tip;
a loveless tongue  
of high grade steel (ok....moves a bit quick, but ok)
 
higher still
up the hill
the red-belly black-snake lay
forced back into his throne-room (why? Is he given enough introduction...enough sense of 'king'? I don't think so)
 
he did not fight  
until the last
stood erect  
in perfect pose
to strike once at the digger  
would have felt that metallic thing smash his fangs
as he did  
and known powerlessness (this word to is fucking big you clown...disrupts the reader's eyes)
 
known the songs
of defeat
 
then died
 
a kingdom ruined
and the digger worked on (the two lines feels disjointed from each other....why?)
 
 
the final insult  
to those princes and kings  
was not  
in their fighting death;
snakes rarely die
of old age
 
no
the shame of it
as I walked through the rubble ('I' appears too late in the piece...when did this character show up previously? "I" is too important to be left until here...is 'I' required at all?)
was that the victors
so pitiless in war
so absolute
never even cared
for the prize

Edit the fucker, and post it again.

h.

I'm comin' to your house to eat your children, motherfucker.

hh

the snakes would have felt its rumbling through the ground (more of a statement than a question I reckon but a good confident start nonethelessa)
 
in construction ( what you're doing here is leading us into your world, more concrete than the first stanza but not really a big ask for the reader to follow)
 
we said we’d drop the tank on the top of the low hill  (ok fair enough, the word 'drop might be of your native tongue but in the context of the content it's apparent enough what your saying plus it's universal enough in the construction business as well as the armed forces so the chances are statistically most families worldwide would be familiar with the term )
 
and smoke from the cauldron
( on the one hand it ties in with the witches line but I'm not sure it adds a whole lot in terms of tone, rather bolsters your witch analogy, so although it might not be totally necessary it doesn't exactly hinder or do harm)
 
higher still  
up the hill  
the red-belly black-snake lay  
forced back into his throne-room  
 
(actually, this whole stanza has a great flow to it, you speak of introduction, but the stanza itself gives the snake a higher place than the others so it's not that hard to accept the red-belly snake as the king and this is reinforced by the next few lines)
 
and known powerlessness ( I agree, the way you have that line, powerlessness is too big a word for the end of it, you could try humility or if you wanted to keep it, you could word it thus:
 
and known  
the feel  
of powerlessness )
 
a kingdom ruined  
and the digger worked on  
 
( I think, a kingdom ruined should end that thought because it's powerful enough, yes "and the digger worked on"  is powerful too, but that't the thing too much power there, not enough time to digest either line on top of that the last couple of lines say the same thing only much better so I'd drop "and the digger worked on" if it was me  )  
 
the shame of it  
as I walked through the rubble
 
(well, you say I is too late in the piece, but is it? there's plenty of precedents where I comes right towards the end, doesn't cheapen it at all, merely brings you to the forefront, these are your thoughts from the start so although I might not be written up 'till then, it's already all over it. or you could just say "while walking through the rubble" )
 
 
I should say that without the questions you posed I'd have never picked up on most of what you thought you were lacking or being erroneous with.
 
I liked it, and although this story is to do with construction I felt that the moral fits in almost every aspect of humanity today, our apathy towards nature and each other, and our need for progress at whatever cost.
 
    
good stuff Hugh, nice jobby

ps , if this page had of been gone by the time I finished, I'd have gone insane. :)

Lucky I held back my delete urges, if only for you mate :-)

(all good stuff here Eamon...makes  me very happy to watch someone's writing and skill with words grow more and more careful and considered over time...good on you for daring to call yourself a writer man :-)


hh

I prefer "walking through the rubble", as in without "I" ... allows the reader to do the walking, somehow, beside you almost.  And without "while" just 'cos it's tighter.
Wasn't sure if the association with witches/cauldrons was necessary, but that's probably my aversion to NZ's new love affair with halloween, a conquering in iteslf  :-p
 
Don't normally see the need for a picture, but the digger here was perfect, as it has its own snake-head, arching down to smash and crush ... good, good.
Enjoyed this a great deal..  Not enough of this kind of work about the place, glad to see this here, cheers hemi.  And I agree with CraicDealer, the 'progress at all cost' is has a wide audience, wish it were wider.
More, more   :-)

Hey hey special K....yeah, I'm no fan of pictures either, but the machine as some kind of uber-snake was to good to not post...pleased you saw what I saw :-)

hh

I noticed the first incarnation of the story of the brave snakes, and certainly find this one more engaging...dig the amplification of this litte unnoticed battle, but I spose its bit hard for me to relate to the unsung snakes, when the diggers,pickers,and breakers have declared war on everything....though I have been on enough jobsites  to know very few men are going home and writing, which is part of what intrigues me about much of your work

Good man LB....the first one was shit, and this is only better for not sounding so pious (maybe).

As for the war, yeah, we're winning...although the natural world does a good job of reminding us who is really holding all the cards...which I looove :-)

Not sure about how many men go home and write it, bit plenty feel the same things, with or without trying to express it....poor voiceless bastards :-)

hh

i'm not gonna point anything out. this almost made me pissed off on behalf of the snakes the way you almost spoke in their defense. way to wrap someone up in a story.captivating..........

Cheers man....thanks for stopping by :-)

hh