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.)

Two Seas

Out in the hot wastes
sun swelters scorched sands,
sidewinders, beetles,
highways of the dunes.

Silhouettes in haze,
herds of elephants
weary and weathered
track down waterholes
one trek at a time.
Lions shadow them,
envying the chance
to snatch a young calf.

Fresh dew disperses
on the crested dunes,
white breakers rolling,
a mirage far west.

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.

Saltpan Blues

Dried, encrusted,
kin of a seabed,

fried fish skeletons,
bones of sea monsters,

snakes slither sideways
across the salt desert

feeding off flies,
dazed and sun-mad,

scales fuelled by rays
intensified.

The islands left behind
in the great retreat

of the waters, stand
as wasteland outcrops.