NaPoWriMo #15: A Tiger's Soliloquy

To what ends must I go
for the safety of my jungle home?
How far should I travel?
How many foes must I face?
Throw them back across my borders
or wallow in disgrace.
I thought the jackals an annoyance,
the wolves worthy rivals
and the infernal dhole a pestilence,
but the bipedal apes with their brazenness
and their fire-spitting weapons,
when they infringe on the jungle,
the combined strength of all my kin
cannot withstand their onslaught.
They slaughter and pillage
wherever they appear,
and I sit perched atop an ancient ruin
ensnared by creepers and vines
watching as their fires engulf the grass,
the trees, the gorges, encircle the waterholes.
The chital, the sambar, the langurs, the boar
all flee across the maidans to the hills,
and I can only prepare for the last bout
as the clever primates converge on my stronghold
and the jungle blazes into the night.

(Today's poem is inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo website to write a poem in the form a dramatic monologue in the manner of Robert Browning or William Shakespeare. Never heard of a tiger giving a monologue before, but maybe now we have some insight into what that voice would sound like.)

NaPoWriMo #14: Grand Old Boar of the Dean

The forest harbours many

a strange thing.

From the ghost deer

on the bordering fields,

to the fire squirrels

in the strangling branches. 

Then there are the boar.

The great sounders saunter through the trees,

rooting out roots and bulbs,

the treasure under the soil,

with tusk and hooves

while the white-striped piglets

huddle in the shadow

of a weary old elm.

Grand Old Boar of the Dean,

seen many a challenger approach,

and sent them all fleeing.

Many a hunter took a shot,

just one made a near-miss,

skimming the hairs of his greying mane.

Now he rests in spring shade,

dappled under the canopy,

tusks broken, eyes half-open.

His patrol of the wood will commence

for one last night

when the nightjar starts calling. 

NaPoWriMo #30: Tiger Fire

And so, it has come to this; the final day of NaPoWriMo. How better to see off this year's event than with a recurring theme which lent this blog its name?

Tiger Fire

On the edge of a lake in Northern India,
where crocodiles gather and bask in the sun,
the way chital and sambar are restless
as the sun is directly overhead
and the grass is as dry as sand.

A fire crackles into life
and rages across the meadows,
flushing unsuspecting creatures
from their hiding places
and into the blaze's lethal path.

A tiger, resting under a sal tree,
feels the heat of the fire's hunger
and flees towards the lake,
flanked by the langur monkeys
and wild boar following in his wake.

At the water's edge, the tiger halts.
The flames cut off paths of escape.
The forest across the water remains unburned.
The tiger spies the chital running,
running to the lake to save their hides.

At last, the fire claims the shore,
but the tiger fears it no more,
for he alone amongst cats
masters the waters of the lake,
and tears past the crocodiles
to reach the opposite shore.