Bird Of Paradise

Bird Of Paradise is a poem from the point of view of a psychiatrist (whether real or imagined, you can judge) who is visited by three very disturbed 'patients', each of whom are tormented, or in love with, birds of paradise. The ending sheds some light on what is actually going on, and thus, in whose head the entire poem takes place... Enjoy!


    There are nine stanzas of four lines each. Each stanza has a strict syllable count, per line, of 15 syllables, 9 syllables, 7 syllables, and finally, 5 syllables. The rhyme scheme for each stanza is the same (AAAB) and the fourth line is always the same.


    The structure of nine stanzas has been broken up into three chapter breaks, but each stanza has had its lines split-apart in order to preserve the intent (the pacing) of each line, and thus each line may be given its own page; there may be instances, however, where managing the evolution of the poem in your mind, some lines have been split into multiple pages, or, multiple lines of a stanza remain on the same page (making it so a chapter is not necessarily equal to the count of lines of a stanza).