I can’t believe I once believed
that dragons could shed tears—
a time when my mind was robed
in the fragile cloth of childhood.
I wandered alleys where clouds bent low,
pressing their weight upon my skull.
Shadows snapped at my heels like starving dogs,
my heart swung loose inside my throat.
The tremor in my boots chained me still,
and every thought I birthed became a phantom,
scrawled in the dark, painted across the sky.
Those years were lived in trembles and fears,
each night a prayer for the ocean to come,
to wash me clean of figures
that crouched in corners,
that flickered like mirages where light bled thin.
How did those faces dissolve,
slipping from cloudbanks and corridors of shade?
How did they crawl out of my mind,
leaving silence where terror once nested?
Why was the darkness that devoured me then
locked away as a riddle,
a secret even I cannot untangle?
And those I asked only mirrored my silence.
Some still breathe the same trembling air—
fears childhood carved deep,
fears adulthood disguised.
But new specters gather around me now,
pressing their weight like tides unseen,
and once more I beg the ocean:
take me under, strip me clean.
By moonlight when the moon shone with all her majesty,
My ancestors told us the story of the Tiger,
Which crouched at every rumble of the jungle-thunder,
Either out of fright or from bravery;
Tiger, male and ferocious,
With wicked fangs,
Tiger which breathed fire upon the foliage that shielded
Our village from the rage of the sun,
Which raped lady antelopes with utter contempt,
Which dined lavishly on forest flesh
And wined drunkenly on hunters’ blood,
Which knew no honesty,
And which turned wild upon them,
My ancestors,
Season after season,
In rain and in harmattan,
Until one fine day
When the forest trembled with the screams of
The beast, beaten on its own tracks,
With roars of terror ending when the moon
Slid between the witnessing clouds.
Fire-Fly Stars
I Always Wanted
To Be A Scientist.
Someone Asked
Me Once:
Aren’t You?
***
What I Really
Wanted To Be
Was A Polar
Bear Lusting
A Powerful Musk
With All Effort,
With A Sure
Un-Certain Purpose.
***
Or I Would Be
Huddled Under
Some Mass Of
Reeds In A
Cavern Crouched
Over A Silver
Beam Of Light…
And The Echo
Everlasting Of
One Drop Of
Purity…
Landing In A
Honed Stone
Bowl.
***
And I Wanted To
Be Worthless
Like Every
Component
Choice…
Like Every Spectre
Unfolding!
Like A Favorite
Un-Lovable
Ever-Loved:
Unknown Tree.
***
Still…
Loving Dreams…
Yet Unseen.
In Camp-Fire
Light.
-Gray Squirrel
07-10-2025
His muscles they burn
The mind takes a turn
His cap is so wet
Soaked from all the sweat
Crouched beside the pyre
Burned by searing fire
He’d done as he’s told
Found by that to behold
Beauty that is seen
Glimmer like golds sheen
He can’t recall when
She laid next to him
Shirt sleeves much too long
Racing thoughts be gone
Fabric screams when torn
Woe all hope forlorn
Silver fins weaken
Brilliant gleam eaten
Trembling lips are pierced
His demise coerced
Hungry morning dew
perpetual heavy haze
icy embrace
blood red rubies
another victim
in a dark alley
beaten with chains
Bruises
Pulverizes the earthlings existence
without hesitation
A beast in human form
crouched as a wildcat
To the boy who studied by the roadside resto’s dim flicker,
muffling jeers with pages turned in stubborn hands -
each “You’ll fail!” dissolved into the steam
of instant coffee, your only shield against the dark.
They said your mind's just a room with locked doors,
but you wore down the keys with every sleepless night.
The floor where you crouched to hide report cards
now holds letters addressed to cities far and wde.
Your palms, cracked from scrubbing car windows clean,
now holds invoices and keyboards, but still bear the stain
of soap and sweat - quiet proof of the hours
you traded for a future no one else could name.
You don’t shout your wins. They hum in the calm
of a rented flat where silence feels like peace.
The child who clutched pencils like lifelines
smiles, finally, at how far a stubborn heart can reach.
-
On his way to the stream
Leaves fluttered and dance with the breeze
His flops screaming crisps sound
Like it was being forced to step on dry leaves
Naked except for a short and the abundant grieves
Lying inside his empty bony stomach
He got there slowly running out of believe
Crouched on the sand and whispered all
His deepest grievances, tears honouring his words
The silent stream listened but replied not
But the reply came through breeze unknown
O man, what ya doing all alone
Shedding tears, you dispirited bone
The stream you disclosed your deepest secret
To it I shall give all honours and merit
Despite us dumping all our garbage and waste
Still moves on, never does complain
Gritty, resilient in pursuit of it goals
Up stand you, start motivating your lazy soul
If I have not walked in nature,
Once a day,
If I have not heard a bird sing,
If I have not crouched before a blade of grass,
If I haven’t prayed in front of an old tree
Covered with climbing ivy,
If I have not seen a tiny insect fly
without fear of the hour,
If I have not seen a field sparsely covered with ancient wheat,
If I haven’t shivered in front of a red-throated
curious about my presence,
If I have not regretted his absence for long seconds,
If I have not laid eyes on leaves
or stones without destiny,
If I have not walked in nature
once a day
If I have not seen the Ajonc in winter
and the poppy in summer, modestly red bright,
If I have not been dazzled by the flamboyance
of a mimosa,
If I have not looked up to the poets
and clouds of the sky,
If I have not left the neighborhood tired of everything, and posed
1000 questions to nature,
I’m losing my mind, I’m going crazy like a cockroach.
Men do that too often.
“What is Past is Prologue.”
The Tempest.
It's the young ghosts that
haunt us most.
A vison of my 6-year-old self,
looking up from a basement window
at the gray pavement above my head.
It scared me then and still does.
One dead-eyed day in a wintery city
I saw a man without a coat
crouched and shivering,
the coat that he did not wear that day
I wore at that time.
The more I looked, the more I understood.
Such younger ghosts are spectral preludes,
phantoms of our psyche,
sealed into a setting, just large enough
for them to relive forever
a one-act play
of our soul-etched moments.
Little Mary had a cute bunny pet,
she played with, till another one she met.
When autumn’s crunchy breeze started to blow,
a pigeon made home in her window low.
Soon it became a dear friend of Mary,
cooed at morn to wake her up gently.
She fed the bird along with her bunny,
and through the fall she had great time funny.
When the winter came the bird flew away,
left for her a feather on the walkway.
From the window sad bunny looked out miffed,
as she crouched to pick it up as a gift.
#3
A fleet
of clover feet.
The puddle grunts.
Crouched atop
leafy beds,
groovy eyes
dance.
Croaks and caws,
a symphony.
A quartet
in the woods.
We played a game amongst twisted trees
Then studied the decaying river bank
And as we crouched down onto our knees
Our paper boats sailed away and sank
We rolled around the blades of grass
So fresh and pea soup green
That shone in the sun like shards of glass
It was the happiest we’d ever been
My father spotted a Heron in flight
We watched in awe as it flapped its wings
Flying gracefully away till out of sight
Indescribable is the joy it brings
Across the river some cows had broke free
As they were clambering across the stones
They were in a place where they shouldn’t be
All mooing orchestrally with brassy tones
The arching bridge rose high across the water
Like a rainbow across a darkened sky
A man made feat using bricks and mortar
The safe corridor that kept us all dry
Then it was time to head back home
Hungry but full of beans
Children along the river love to roam
Anyway, any how and by any means
The long, green tail twitching on the kitchen floor
Fills me with disgust, so I throw it outside.
I'm aware that my obligate carnivore
Has a secret that she disdains to confide.
The cat grabbed the lizard while crouched in the shade.
She enjoyed a meal of reptilian feast,
Yet she kept the tail, brought in to be displayed.
My sweet, cuddly cat, my predatory beast.
strong mighty hunter
of my neighbours last chicken
African wild cat
crouched in backyard grass
my cat stalks neighbor's chicken
neighbor throws a rock
Along came a fine feline named Morris,
Lured by lilt of lascivious chorus;
He crouched inside the cage,
Appetite to assuage -
Patiently he purports to ignore us.
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