Tiger (old unpublished poem)

We were at better days:

buckled down to the trenches,

uplifted like plucked flowers born inside a dream;

no façade—just pure truth at its fullest intent to invade.

 

Stealth mattered:

paws on the moist soil,

lucid stripes: orange, black; white belly low;

whiskers feeling their way,

brushing

aside

flowing

leaves.

 

In these intense green surroundings

and echoes of unseen life

nothing human ever saw, or wept.

 

I am a boy all over again:

buckled down to a world of possibility,

creativity tossing mother in the back seat;

full of strange questions,

seeking my own answers.

 

Mother doesn’t cry: I am partly her; she knows herself enough

to get it. Father never fully understood himself, but he’ll drink

enough to get over it.

 

Understanding only lasts until the voice changes,

until music is explored and girls abound; intensity heightens.

Then it’s “are you on drugs?”

 

I began thinking doors were made for slamming, windows for

staring out of—and always people are wondering, “what’s going on

in that head of yours?”

 

In the jungle: keen observer, predator, beautiful entity,

unexplainable countenance. Intense green surroundings,

echoes of unseen life; I’m seeing it all, I’m weeping uncontrollably.

 

But it’s good, and it’s beautiful—

it’s unchallenged.

 

I walk on all fours. I was never at war, I was just observing one.

My prey across enemy lines; my sleep anywhere I lay.

 

Lifting my head over the tallness of lush growth

I hear a sound—a chase ensues:

 

Some things are destined to die if I am to survive. In a flash of

orange, black, white; a blur—

a streak of energy going by so quickly, so quietly,

that nothing human will see,

nor have time to weep.