Best Bestial Poems
Bestial History Recycling
by Odin Roark
School years found him library prone,
Glimpsing pages of barbaric times,
Centuries ago where death and executioners
Lived out their realities,
History’s training ground for ancestral inheritance.
So easy to thumb through pages,
Gaze into the pale faces described
Like their judges must have seen
If they looked.
But who sees eye to eye in such moments?
His focus rose from such pages,
Allowing forgiveness for such atrocities,
Accepting the norm of those days
To calm his senses.
Now older,
Removed from the voluminous archives of bound studies,
He sat in his favorite chair,
Held tight the newspaper,
Allowed today’s pictured headlines to sink in,
A demonic breeding he once thought was past.
As if by sacred duty
The turbaned head held steady,
His left hand with scimitar,
His right about to yank the victim’s hair,
A grip of cruelty above innocence,
Atrocity bearing down on civilized…
He glanced up at the fire needing another log,
And allowed the emptying of his sorrow,
Imagining the blood drenched sands of what he once thought
Was reserved as teachings from long ago days,
Now but festering doubt of whether civilization had advanced.
How could he think otherwise.
Then was repeatedly now,
Alive,
Hungry,
Knowing nothing of satiability,
Only the gluttonous hatred
Their twisted theosophy thrived on.
With eyes closed,
He could hear Nature’s whirling sands,
Wanting to cover this,
Bury that,
Save the mothers from it all,
From bearing yet more
Of savagery’s black over orange,
Humanity’s unanswered shame
Of glittering blades made dull,
With death’s crusted blood,
Inciting appetites to sharpen once more,
To hover over slumped heads,
Tied hands,
Bended knees,
Final breaths.
With recycled history out of control,
When would its savagery rape his shores?
Dogs are a well-reputed breed,
Of loyalty they are fabled.
And once they err, they lose face,
For their pedigree is their referee.
But our dog is a special case
And his upbringing is of a suspicious source.
Fidelity is not one of his attributes
And nastiness is his newly acquired habit.
When our dog committed a felony,
He was summoned to high court.
But he could, even, lie and perjure
And had his own tail to testify!
His sacrilege tainted the consecrated House of Justice
Then found guilty, culpable, and duly accused,
Of such allegations, he received much retribution.
He was condemned, wrong rectified, and case adjourned.
©Atef Atyaoui
04/02/2008
The Bestial Tongue
At the crepuscular hour my visceral thoughts contemplate,
In halcyon conversations the bestial tongue
Shoots poisoned arrows on friendly enemies,
A hidden jealousy surfaces on pretentious love bonds.
Opulent pride at slaughtering hearts takes over,
Withered wit is followed by shallow desultory apologies.
The venom poured by the cynical temperament
In his, so often, moments of exuberant weakness,
Becomes the darkened penumbra of relationships
So hard fraught over years of sonorous hours.
January 18, 2015
Contest: Speak No Evil
Sponsor: Silent One
Sensual and untamed
Thought, crystallizes into
Hedonistic foe.
Babble on, Babylon!— The bell is bellowing
Its booming bane! Bastards and baseborn bumblers
Beware, and beg bitterly for better
Birth above! O’ you bashful, bawdry bunch!