Archive > Apocrypha
Eagle
Perching on a mile of air
Giving the sky perspective
Rapt eyes eager
Watching every inch of its land
Beak hooked beyond cruelty
Angel of Death to small creatures
Terror and talons from above,
Eagle circles and soars
In disdain of the earth
Leopard
Keen as a lance
Straight body level and low
Stalks between blades of grass
Blades between stalks of grass
One long, strong, sleek muscle
Head a clenched fist
Eyes to impale the impala
Steenbok
A life of flight
Alarm, anxiety, fright
Doe eyes and gentle soft brown down
In a world of thorns and claws
Rhinoceros
Calf of triceratops
Battering-ram bulk on dancer’s feet
Quiet eyes behind the horn of Africa
Giraffe
Head above the bush on smooth, sapling neck
Ruminates the treetops through long eyelashes
Runs in graceful swinging slow-motion
Bending down to the ground in awkward discomfort,
A fantasy of cryptozoology
Elephant
Dinosaur hide
Ears that map out Africa
Prehistoric trunk prehensile
Gently caressing the calve
Charging like an angry god
Subsonic rumble and trumpet,
Elephant walks the continent
Closer to trees than to creatures
Baobab
Ancient trunk knarled and knotted
Dripping bark like a fat candle’s wax
Wide enough for a witch's house
Girth greater than giants,
Baobab roots the Earth to the sky
Tribute To John Cage
Orpheus in the Underpass
Unemployed after Delphi
Having long foreseen the fall of the empire anyway
The Oracle left for a new life in the city
A new grotto underground
Sitting and watching pairs of busy feet flit by
It was not like the old days
Supplicants were scarce
The people looked for wisdom on web pages instead
Or tried to buy themselves some meaning
Better to join them
You have to move with the times, get your message across
And there was the problem of food
A poem for a pound
Words of love or a cryptic view of their lives from outside
Offered to all who passed
Most hurried by
Something preventing their eyes and ears from working
Perhaps the frown on their faces
Others stopped and stooped
Talked a while then paid for a small piece of the poet's mind
Walked on more slowly, reading
Calliope On The Street Corner
The Muse was stone-faced, unamused
Could let me have a few verses
Although frankly the quality was low
And still there was the price to pay
No pain no gain
I knew how it was
The accounts had to balance
And the auditors were due in
For a reckoning
Let’s just forget the whole poem thing
I’ll decline your nouns
You call off the black dogs
Now the Muse smiles
Shrugs
And the eyes of thugs
Says,
OK young man
But you know where I am
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