differences
All my life
Another face in the crowd.
All my life
I was lost in a sea of faces
Never apart,
Never unique,
Never more than a drone among many.
But then...
But then...
Why am I feeling this way?
Why does my heart seize up
As if caught in a muscled paw?
The urge inside
Won't let go.
Do I want it to...?
The feel of fur
Fluffed tail wrapped around
A redcoated body...
Why do I want it?
The remembered times
I lay huddled in bed
Nearly shaking with the call to change...
Why did it come?
Do I really want this?
Is it really my soul that screams
For the muzzle, the furry flash?
The pressure of years of humanity
Wants to say no.
"How could it be a fox?
What truly makes you think it is a fox?
Could you not be mistaken
About how you felt?"
Yet a voice inside
So soft (weak from a world
That says it doesn't exist?),
But it makes me listen...
Am I mad?
Am I simply mistaken?
That pressure still nags.
Will I ever decide where it all comes from?
Human insists it's not what I think it is.
Fox simply struggles to be free.
Where do I go?
dreams in flux
Rustle of the brush.
Howl of the dry wind scattering dust into the seamless sky.
The dull thump of a heavy paw digging into the ground.
And knowing it is yours.
Smell the antelope.
Hunger stirs.
The others are elsewhere, it is close.
It is yours.
The slightest crunch of dry wood, ground to powder
under the awesome weight of the royal form.
A fly buzzing around the dusty, matted mane.
The prey, unsuspecting, as you pounce...
Flash of fur.
Bleat of agony.
The blood running among your fangs as they
slide into
the still thump-thumping heart.
Ripping the sweet flesh free.
The bells.
Eyes shut in contentment as your tail whaps the sandy ground.
The bells.
Your furred body matting the sparse grass as you enjoy your prey.
The bells.
The bells?
Clawing at your mind,
Shattering the dream into a billion pieces of
golden daylight...
Filtered as it shines through a pane of glass.
A square carpeted savannah
entombed by four concrete walls.
NO!
Nonononononononono...
* * *
Do you really think I would wish it so?
I've never known your presence.
Yet the agony lives even on the cold void
Of a CRT and millions of miles of wires.
To be walled in, caged by a form
Never meant to be.
Would I wish it on my worst enemy...?
No, I've never known
Your pain. Who can deign to think
That the personal grief can be shared
By mere words or a wistful look?
Can I truly understand?
Would I ever want to?
Hearing the dreamy tone
In the screaming silence of cyberspace.
Could I feel what you are?
You are a friend.
That is enough...?
* * *
She blinks up at you.
The kill, her kill, lies in your stomach.
Sandy tongue on your maw.
Rumbled purr.
Your throat or hers?
Coarse fur rubbing against yours.
Wet nose smears a snail's trail
Across your mane.
A high pitched wail.
A cub has fallen from a rock.
She looks at you, then goes to help her offspring.
You watch the pace, the graceful lope.
What is family?
It is
here
The press of row on row of computers.
Typing, laughter.
A high pitched wail.
Someone's barracks destroyed by an orc army.
Why?
* * *
What can be said?
Especially by me,
He who as leaned on you a thousand times over
Until your shoulder bent from the weight.
What could my paltry experience say?
What would yet-undeveloped soul
Blinking back the blaze from another who's found his place,
Yet not yet there...
What words of comfort could it return?
What good is one
Who can spin a tale,
Bring a laugh or offer an ear,
What good is he to ease
A burden grown unbearable
A dream caressing the outstretched fingers,
When his own have not reached that level?
Yet I try.
For not to do so
Would be to abandon the kill
To the hyenas.
Perhaps I cannot understand,
But when the hunt is scarce,
Two may catch more than one.
* * *
Perhaps another dream?
Or vision
Of that to come?
The border of the savannah.
A bon voyage.
The fox looks out at the range,
Then at his friend
For the last time.
His eyes shine with eagerness
For what could it be but home?
The fox nuzzles the final farewell.
Do animals have tears?
The fox watches as the lion
Treads into the brush.
One look back.
But just one.
He waits until the lumbering form vanishes.
Then turns and leaves.
Wrong set right.
"O world, how apt the poor are to be proud.
If one should be a prey, how much the better
To fall before the lion than the wolf."
- Olivia, Twelfth Night (III.i.129-131)
freedom
"The course of Nature is the art of God."
- Edward Young
The whisper of the river...
Do you hear it?
The light splash of salmon
As they flip upstream...
Can't you taste it?
If you can, and decide it must be caught,
But by furred paw,
Then you are misplaced here, my friend.
What are you doing here?
Why is the salmon
Wrapped in plastic and set on a chilled shelf?
Is there life to that?
What are you doing here?
"Simply the thing I am shall make me live." - William Shakespeare.
Instead of the weight
Of hundreds of pounds of fur and mass
Resting upon your frame,
It is the weight of misplacement,
A world not made for those like you
Resting on your shoulders.
Buildings and pavement,
Choking smog and buring bulbs,
All as confining
As the tightest iron shackle around the throat.
You belong in pine trees, not Pine Street.
Only by sad accident of nature...
The sweet smell of the forest call,
Lumbering strides,
Nub of a tail.
Eight hours of sleep in winter
Is not nearly enough.
"Nature says best; and she says, Roar!" - Mathew Henry
When will claws scrape against tree bark?
When will the pent up roar
Long held back, aching,
Echo through the forest?
Too long. But never too late.
Seeing the winter air
Float like a scrap of silk
From small black nose.
Pine needles cracking underpaw
As you shamble through your home.
Burrowed den
As good as any bed.
The joy of a simple chuff.
That is freedom.
"Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty..."
- Negro spiritual,
quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr.
hunting
Fleeting shadows, barely seen,
in dark alleys, prowling
Tracking where you've likely been,
death comes softly, growling.
Sudden flash, blinding pain,
two eyes in the night
Know your ill-begotten gain,
Death behind, pale wight
As your lifeblood flows,
grey Wolf turns to man
His one good eye knows,
evil done, in short span.
Mercy was offered long ago
on shores then new
But Man, whole, proved psycho
unless mixed, made anew.
That was in times ancient and lost,
no solace for your life
For if those old ones knew the cost,
your cord would not be cut,
on clawed knife.
to the manbear
It is most appropriate
my friend
that you are called by the spirits:
for the bear is the holy man
of the forest
brown-cowled and vernerable
seclusive and wise
walking the sacred spaces
between chubby clown
and smile-toothed killer
free-ranging through nature
in perfect communion
with each one and the all
but it is most reasonable,
my brother
that your search be quite strange:
for the man is the holy fool
of all nature
bumbling inept and yet
curious and pure
malignant growth next to
hippocratic healer
next to bruised little boy
splashing through puddles
carving our names in
search of the immortal
and you, as bear and man
are the seeker and the found:
the pilgrim and the prize
the knight who burns for the truth
and the grail no man may hold
it is no wonder you feel yourself
pulled: you are both
of this world and a pure one
I wish I could advise you
but I am a young one myself
in search of my own spirits
wrestling with the same humanity
we all face
but I believe in your bear
and your man
and I feel with great faith
that they will find the way
if not in this life
then the next
prey
who are we?
We have no name.
We have no creed.
We are not a group.
A name imposes limits, where there are none.
A creed leads to factions, where we are one.
A group would mean you could join, that cannot be.
We move in the silent places,
We meet in the darkness,
Away from you.
We come together to Speak,
To Remember the Past,
To Prophecy the Future,
To Ponder the Moment.
We live among you, but make no mistake
We are not like you.
We were born of you, but we shall die
More than you.
You ask who we are, suffice it to say,
We are not you.
West Wing Calliope's Private Chambers
East Wing Torture Chamber, Prison
