Marche!

*I have been inundated at work and in the middle of producing a paper for a calypso conference. So as not to let the blog stagnate I have posted a poem this week that I wrote a couple of months ago.*

Alone,


The brute brown beast barked and whelped

In beautiful anger within its encyclopaedic white-hot cage

Enraged,

The yellows of its rumshot eyes fluoresced and smarted

as the ghost of eternal chalkdust mocked it,

Haunted,

sips of water splayed from its yelping tongue

as the corners of its black mouth drizzled.

Its nose almost flared blood at a slight misdemeanour

(We had arrived 1 minute late perhaps),

as it frightened the rest of the young pack before it.

I was a small child but I was not afraid of this old mangy speckled animal.

Marche Dog! Allez bête!

It knew that it liked to eat its young

And I had once watched those brown dirty grizzly paws

Try to dance across my sister’s chest.

The old dog snarled some more

Rendering naked its tray of scissoring molars

Its long salmon tongue forking and darting

As if to render me afraid.

But I was not afraid and I held the stand of its gaze.

Daring it to pounce, daring the old stink dog to bite.