From the brush I rise,
Segmented fury,
Mandibles bared,
All instinct and hunger,
I am predatory,
Make no mistake,
I hunger,
My venom hungers,
My limbs long to rip and tear,
Rodents and avians and insects,
Asunder a hundred ways,
All are meant for these cold eyes,
You felt my approach,
Tingles up your spine,
Muted tittering in the greenery,
A hundred needles across your foot,
Was that me there?
Or am I already on your shoulder?
Do we appear as pondlife to them?
Those alleged councillors of repute,
From their gilded office above us,
With their manifestos made of bread,
Are we just guppies and tadpoles?
Schools of fish with empty heads,
Covered in muck from the streets,
Our murky waters,
Polluted and trash-ridden as they are,
They drop breadcrumbs down to us,
Placations and silvered words,
And giggle as we bite and nip each other,
Tearing scales from one another,
Amused as we keep hunting our fellows,
Not looking above the surface,
They smirk at the chum they bestowed us,
The bubbles trying in vain to show us the way,
To where our real predators reside.
With our mouths we give life,
Poets and scholars and layman all,
Tongues as bestiaries,
Aural gates to the world,
Words taking on a vitality of their own,
We release all manner of beasts,
Doves of kind words on wing,
Tones of rage joining the conversation as lions,
Rodents spewing forth as timid dialogue,
Riddles in the form of octopuses,
Speech is an animal kingdom,
We speak lifeforms into being,
Our words becoming both predator and prey,
Lives given and taken in our communion,
Coexisting and hunting in turn.
I once chased from my den a toad,
As swift as a garuda,
Into the dank green of the yard,
A soft mist enshrouded the lawn,
It served as a suitable backdrop,
For our dance of drama,
Our filmic action chase,
This little green man,
He was of singular proportion,
An amphibian aristocrat,
I pursued him,
Through a garden I no longer recognised,
The lawn gave way to a bizarre realm,
As if walking into a dream,
The toad was there,
But somehow changed,
Elongate limbs and a humanoid stylistic leaning,
Colours of every prism swam around like tadpoles,
He began a chorus of frog song,
Melancholy to be sure,
But somehow filled with magic,
I lock eyes with him,
His bulbous oculi grow ever more violet,
I feel his tongue strike out at my thoughts,
Amphibian metaphysicality,
As his crescendo amps up,
I feel lightheaded,
Blackness pounces and descends,
I awaken far away,
With nary a memory of mine own,
Just the stink of sorcery upon my brow.
I appear an easy target,
A humble scorpion,
All gaunt limbs and modest in size,
But watch your step friend,
I am no prey,
I have a sturdy exoskeleton,
A chitinous fortress with cracks,
Sundering blows from previous predators,
Cohorts with jaws of their own,
Partners turned to cannibalism,
A scorpion suffers no harasser,
This critter has claws,
Twin pincers ready to return your spite,
Verbal blow for blow,
An arachnid feels no pity,
But perhaps you see yourself as the apex,
So I warn you through mandibles,
Persevere in your incursion,
And you invite a final barb,
Venom straight to the heart,
A scorpion does not die.
The earth speaks out,
Tectonic truths in waves,
The rumbles come,
And upon them comes the moleman,
A priest in filthy vestments,
Slouched and indistinct from ore,
Conducting each quake in totality,
He preached in earthy tones,
Each verb a stone to the head,
He was an unassuming critter,
As humble as his namesake,
But his speech was steadfast,
Sermons extolled through two teeth,
Through unseeing eyes,
Despite his inhuman form,
He meant no harm,
This humble mole is just delivering epistles,
From the titans writhing below,
Magma and raging stone,
Voices of the planet,
Sounds we no longer hear.
When people look at me askance,
It must be due to my inhumanity,
As if I escaped from a zoo,
I’m a troglodyte,
Beneath even the street throng,
A subhuman,
I long to be human,
To be more than this primate clown,
Playing with sticks and berries,
I want to be one of them,
To evolve from this crude form,
To walk shoulder-to-shoulder with them,
Instead I shriek and crawl,
Not yet evolving into a man,
I howl in trees,
Revelling in my genetic inferiority,
Instead of maturing into society,
I shelter lifelong in the primeval habitat I made,
A habitat of reclusion,
Out in the wilds.
I am not a jealous soul,
But I stare green-eyed at birds,
Those avian aviators,
Artists of the blue,
I envy them their wings,
I write you true,
Soaring the skies,
It must be such release,
Such catharsis,
They are not bound to one another,
Why do they stay in throngs?
Are they not individuals?
Do they not know they are free?
My envy screams up at them,
Predation should be no deterrent,
When the flock flies west,
Why not fly east?
Don’t waste those wings,
Coveting their feathery prom dresses,
I call out to them,
Please take me away,
Imitating their freedom,
I reach skyward,
Yet they flee in flocks.
I have an unusual companion,
She found her way to my den,
My fascination led me to let her stay,
She made her place in a dark corner,
A neat unassuming spot by a rafter,
Her prescence acts as sedative,
She silently watchs and keeps vigil,
Moths and flies are fodder,
Easily falling into her showy web,
The lamplight draws them in,
Their feeble minds drawn into our ploy,
Artwork becomes artifice,
A cradle becomes a pitfall,
She feasts on bodies as I sip full-bodied amber,
Powerful fangs and a few too many eyes,
Horror to some,
Elegance to me,
A perfect organism,
An imposing specimen,
She’s no Charlotte,
More of a Maleficent.
I think I spy an assassin bug,
Stalking amongst the twigs,
A reduviid killer,
Aspect of mantis,
Proclivity of spider,
A tiny predator of a huge world,
Or is it a tiny one?
Does the world belong to the bugs?
Cloaked in the corpses of ants,
Previous ravaged conquests,
Both armour and disguise,
Its proboscis twitches,
Secreting a lethal nectar,
Expecting to digest defeated internals,
Fodder for an emotionless killer,
I see it close in on an innocent,
Unsuspecting soul on a branch,
It strikes,
All wings and blades,
Corrosive saliva injected,
Reducing chitin to husk,
Its grim meal complete,
It gazes over at me,
Eyeing me hungrily,
Fight or flight?
