There is someone - a boy.
I shouldn't have taken the child here.
I'm slipping, taking him with me;
he won't let go of my hand.
We are on the very verge
of a deep pit,
teetering upon its crumbling edge,
at the craters floor a pool
in those waters are sauropods,
crocodilians.
Scree rolls under our feet;
the heavy handgun on my hip
weighing us down, dragging us toward
those saw-toothed muggers
who now thrash in an expectant melee.
In a dreaming funk,
a pensive fear snatches at my flesh,
Then as we slip and slide I glance at the boy
seeing myself in him.
I shout to that younger me
that we both will die from the unforeseen
one day, but not today
for I exchanged that old revolver
for a less heavy Glock.
The scene melts, my child-self
still clinging to my breath
asking the bedroom ceiling: when?
A deep pit, a crumbling edge,
at the bottom, a pool swarming with sauropods.
There is someone, a boy.
I shouldn't have taken the child here.
I'm slipping, taking him with me;
he won't let go of my hand.
We are sliding on the scree.
A gun heavy on my hip,
its weight drags us down,
to where saw-toothed muggers
thrash in a melee.
It's then that I transition.
I’m a visitor, two-dimensional
in a hurrying cityscape.
I've lost my car
in one of many similar concrete blocks.
Home is a door in the back of my mind
A door not opened yet, I suspect behind it
is a child who knows his way back.
He’s holding a tin wind-up crocodile,
one his dad once bought him.
At his side a revolver,
the same type I purchased
in Florida
in the event of alligator attack.
Dinosaurs
Whoever would have thought- a great big dinosaur
would start out very small, inside an egg and bore
A hole to then come out-
just like a bird, would peck;
into the world, be born-
grow tall with a long neck.
There were so many kinds,
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Ceratosaurus and
Sauropods, Raptorex!
What funny names they have- all different as can be,
as were their shapes and size- but all ate hungrily.
Some ate the leaves on trees-
we call them herbivores;
the others, killed for meat-
are known as carnivores
And did you know that they
became extinct in time?
They were not able to
adapt to change in clime.
But they still carry on- in quite a different way-
the genes from dinosaurs- helped form some birds today!
Sandra M. Haight
~2nd Place~
Contest: Dinosaur(s) For Children
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
Judged: 07/05/2019
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.