Guest Entry: Fallen Angel in the Metropolis

Gerard van Honthorst, Putti with a Wreath of Flowers (c. 1650). Accessed via Rijksmuseum.

---

Fallen Angel in the Metropolis

Broken limbs and blood-splattered feathers,
A crucified angel lies sprawled on the street  
At long last unburdened from life’s cruel tethers 
Her white body bright against dark grimy concrete.

Rotting away, she’s exiled in the city,
Its people avoiding the carcass like ants
Crawling around it without any pity
Not taking her burial into their hands.

With clinical gloves, she’s shoved in a bag,
Plastic clutching her body too tight
The circle of life now comes to a lag
For she’s too enclosed for her soul to take flight.

Merciless Metropolis! Where angels’ lives crumble,
Their deaths meaning nothing in your concrete jungle.

---

It might sound strange at first, but the idea for this poem came to me one day when I walked down the street and encountered a dead bird on the pavement. Not a nice sight, right? It prompted me to think of the nature of our modern-day cities, and about what place animals and especially birds (I love birds) have in them.

I then set out to write my poem in the format of a sonnet – honestly, it was just meant to be a formal challenge to myself at first (I don’t usually write sonnets), but I really think that it ended up shaping the poem for the better… having to rhyme and (somewhat) pay attention to meter brought me down unexpected avenues. Plus, I like how this more “traditional” format contrasts with the image of our modern, fast-paced cities. 

Also, you might maybe wonder why I went for the word “angel”, if my poem was originally meant to be about birds. I’m not sure how, but it just kind of happened. I really liked how shifting towards the image of an angel broadened the spectrum of how the poem could be interpreted. I think that the fallen angel could stand for a whole number of things now, like the place of religion/spirituality in modernity, or just the all-too-human feelings of alienation and nonbelonging… Or the place of the nonhuman within capitalism. (Not sure if I read too much into my own poem now – I might be biased because I’m super interested in all of the above topics hehe). 

Thanks a lot for reading! I hope you enjoyed yourself.

Jessica Lentz