NaPoWriMo #2: The Coils of Dread

The coils of dread, diamond shape scales,
coils looping round a spade-shaped head,
eyes scanning all the jungle trails,
the coils of dread.

The snake glistens, skin freshly shed.
Against its strength few beasts prevail,
the python kills with no bloodshed.

Against it most other snakes pale.
It haunts a path few beasts dare tread,
unwinds, strikes like a whip or flail.
The coils of dread.

(Today's poem is a roundel, a form devised by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. This one was a bit of a challenge due to the fact that all the lines apart from the refrain need the same number of syllables, but I think I managed to get something out of it.)

NaPoWriMo #18: Agama

The old agama lizard stretches
on the ground under his rock,
his smouldering red scales
morph into freezing blue
as they descend from head to tail.

A curious flash of colour
in the grassland greens and yellows,
the agama crawls onto his throne,
a dot amidst the flat vastness
with a perfect panoramic view.

Very few animals visit him.
The crew of vultures overhead
seem confused by his patterns,
and a passing serval with radar ears
only gives him a passing glance.

Such are the days for the old agama,
to sit and be marvelled at
by his numerous neighbours
like a gem in a reptilian jewellers,
watching the herds follow the rain.

NaPoWriMo #17: Cold Blooded Beat

Midday sun
bathes a rock,
like an oasis,
a daily fuel stop
for sluggish snakes
and sleepwalking lizards.
The cold
festers at night,
their blood
permeated with it,
so they sit
on the rocks
facing the glare,
wait for the heat
to rise and ferment,
all the while
their ancient hearts
thump, thump, thump
like starting engines
under simmering skin
and emerald scales.

Memoirs of a Galápagos Tortoise

I am the remnant.

The last time I saw
the seafaring apes of old,
they were lugging
my cousins in crates
onto their oak vessels
to become living larders,
till there was just me
and no others.

The goats, the goats,
of all the creatures
to pilfer my own larder.
Servants of the seafarers,
they pillaged the green,
everything above shell height.

So I wallow in my pool
on the isle of Santa Cruz,
the last of the Pinta Island tortoises,
but not entirely alone.
They gave me two companions
with dome-shaped shells
instead of a saddle like mine.

Every egg they've collected
was a hollow curiosity.
I hid from them for decades,
now here I rest, diminishing
into a monument to something.

I'm just content
to drift into sleep.

(This poem was inspired by the story of Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island subspecies of the Galápagos giant tortoises. Stay tuned for more poetry coming soon.)

NaPoWriMo #6: Chameleon

And so we arrive at the sixth day in this poetic odyssey. Today's poem is inspired by that famous lizard which can not only camouflage itself, but can move its eyeballs independent and catch prey with a sticky tongue.

Chameleon

It dwells on low hanging branches,
still until a passing insect
lands within its range.

Creeping forward amongst the leaves
with the precision and stiffness
of a clockwork doll,

the chameleon eyes the bug
with pin-point pupils,
the reptilian sniper's sights.

A flash of red ribbon,
the jaws snap shut,
and the waiting begins again.

Iguana Nostradamus

Algae going

I was basking on the rocks
on the shores of Fernandina
with half of my colony
nestled together, a scaly thicket.
Then it occurred to me.

Algae going.

The sea is warm of late,
the greenery on the rocks
battered by constant surf
is withering of late,
and I see less of the penguins.

Algae going.

I foresee thunderstorms
as heralds of the warming,
lightning, twisted and contorted,
flashes above the islands.

Algae gone.

The colony is withered,
husks of lizards litter
the petrified beaches
and the skeletal reefs.