a poem
I had a vision.
A pole; horizontal, unmoving.
Suspended from it — carrion
in varying stages of
decomposition;
One, freshly hung
drips its life blood free
drip…drip…drip…
Another, rotting
begun, its surface writhes
with maggots and flies.
The third is rot-worn
black, a carcass shell
or its former self.
The three hanging there
just out of reach, as are most
things when you are hungry.
A bear, standing on two legs
angrily reaching one sharp-clawed
swipe after another roaring swipe
menacing arcs cutting the sky
just out of reach,
just out of reach.
I don’t want to be this bear.
Sad thing.
Always reaching
for the depleting,
the constantly wearing,
disintegrating, withering
dreams cut short
just hanging there…
dreams dripping in the sun.
No, that is not for me.
I do not want to be this bear,
pathetic hungry beast
reaching for the despaired,
decaying and wormed away by
the negative and the bleak,
gnawing, stealing, tearing
dreams disappearing,
eaten away in the sun.
I do not want to be
this hungry animal reaching
for the rotten, the black
the ghosts of dreams
the illusion of dreams
the dreams that used to exist.
I want to be a different beast.
A noble, beast of wanderlust
and curiosity, broad-shouldered
thick-backed and wiry
and feasting on berries
plump with juice and seed
paws-full gathered in the
bliss of the sun and breeze.
The work is of no mind.
A belly can be filled with
the small, if there are many.
want to chase after the living,
the sprinting and darting deer, eyes
frozen wide with fury and fear…
devouring the fresh
flesh-dream full of muscle
and blood pumping full
of organic desire, of
opportunity racing, raging into
life, unabashed.
I had a vision, or perhaps
a vision has me. A sharp-clawed
roar impels me.
Christina M. Ward 
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