Super Bat

It hides in its roost
by a stream in the day.

The moths gather in the gloom.

Sonar is a society norm
among those winged hunters.

Detecting their prey with pin-point
proficiency in the dark.

The moths flutter through the leaves.

The long-eared hunter takes off,
no radar to guide it.

Just the rush and thrum
of a moth's wing-beat

can guide it on course.

NaPoWriMo #30: The Spring Tiger

In the shade of the sal trees by the silent grass
where the chital and the sambar grass en-mass
sits the ruler of the lakes keeping watch
while a butterfly rests on her tawny shoulders.

The tigress watches pairs of spotted stags
prancing and posturing side by side,
paying their usual menace no heed
for the monkeys keep watch on her

until they turn their back to the trees
and the mother of the maidens disappears,
stripes distorting her amidst the grass
as a ghost with white-spotted ears.

She lunges out from the nothingness
and the stag crashes to the earth,
teeth embedded in his throat
while alarm calls flood the forest.

NaPoWriMo #29: Herring Feast

A lone spout on the rolling sea,
towering above the surf.
The first signal of a great summer feast
and the first dinner guests start arriving.

The spouts billow out from the waves
followed by flukes breaking the water
like banners for the rest of the pod
directing them to the shoal.

The ring of bubbles rises,
a circle formed in the depths,
a net with no rope or mesh
in which the herring jostle.

The cavalcade of whales erupts,
mouths agape as though calling,
engulfing the school in unison,
gorging on the plentiful bounty

before turning and descending
into the ocean blue once more
to lay their trap anew
and relish the summer currents.

NaPoWriMo #28: Matriarch

Just when it seems the drought is at its end,
a new day arises, sunshine and all.
The lakes dry out, the rivers join the trend
grasslands now deserts awaiting rainfall.

The elephants trek through the baking wastes,
the matriarch following ancient trails
urging her family on with great haste
to a place she knows from her mother's tales.

An oasis in the sand, out of sight,
the herd quench their thirst at the waterhole
alongside other animals who won their fight
against hunger, heat, and the drought's harsh toll.

The matriarch spots lions off in the haze,
they will not risk meeting her prudent gaze.
She watches on as her grandchildren play,
at dawn the herd will re-enter the fray.

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.)

Narrowboat Hootenanny

Roving Otter knew where
to get a decent narrowboat.
He found one at a lock
by the local pub.

The pigeons did their job,
dive bombing punters
sitting at the outside table.
We took no time in boarding.

I assumed command,
Father Vole was the lookout,
Smoking Gose was our engineer,
and Otter drove the boat.

The badgers, foxes, ducks,
geese, moorhens, rabbits,
even Spencer Swan booked
a reservation on the prow.

But our favourite friend
was Manic Owl.
He brought the instruments,
drums, guitars, and saxophones.

The man arrived in time
to see us waving from the stern.
Turns out cruising's all
a narrowboat's good for.

We set up our instruments.
Otter had his bass,
Vole was on the drums,
and Goose had a piano.

Manic Owl had a saxophone,
faded gold and battered,
but it produced sweeter notes
than anything on the water.

I had my old guitar,
an archtop with a red finish.
It was the lead in a jam
with a most ear-raising tune.

Our party went on into the night,
rhythm after rhythm buzzing
off the boat and across the water
to disturb slumbering cows.

Ducks danced with rabbits,
badgers danced with geese.
Spencer Swan demonstrated
the arm-breaker swing

for a group of astonished teal,
while Owl blistered solos
on his saxophone, and we
kept the beat of our hootenanny.

The Bear of Mysore

after Kenneth Anderson, Man-Eaters and Jungle Killers

The last light of day leaves the fields.
A blazing torch flickers through
the darkness on the road in Mysore.
A woodcutter on his way home
hears a snort somewhere ahead
and the crush of figs under heavy paws.

He approaches the noise through the trees
and spots a figure in the brush.
There is a flash of black fur
in the glare of the woodcutter's torch.
Long claws blunted on termite mounds
lunge out and the fire is gone.

The morning light reveals a corpse.
Red coils protruding from a stomach,
eyes and nose bitten out and ripped
from their vacant sockets,
and a bloody tapestry of muscle
where there was once a face.

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 #29: Sheriff of the Savannah

Two days to go, and here we have the most unusual poem I've ever done for NaPoWriMo. Having read a bit of Edgar Allan Poe recently, I decided to write a poem set upon the African savannah in the same distinctive style (known as trochaic octameter) which he uses in 'The Raven'. So, here it goes.

Sheriff of the Savannah

Upon a hot savannah day the hyenas rest in the shade,
while a lone bull buffalo grazes in the long grass up to his knees.
His herd have moved on to safety, together they number eighty,
while the bull stands far from hasty in the grass up to his knees,
facing the danger approaching through the grass with greatest ease.
He will not run for the trees.

His opponents are no less bold, but he refutes their mighty hold
on the dried up river to the east and bush fires billowing west.
A pride of ten lions stalking while the buffalo starts walking
up to his fierce foes, un-balking, with sizable bovine heft,
not noticing a lack of friends to help in his lonesome quest
he stands firm against the test.

Three at a time they attack him, they try to bite or throttle him,
one lioness jabs from the front, her sisters lunge at his rear.
With fearsome horns he battles them, but his strength fails to scatter them
as they bite, claw and batter him, try to force him to his knees,
force the last great strength out of him and force him onto his knees
slaughter however they please

Yet the lions have not thought it, but the old bull will not forfeit.
He thrusts with his embattled horns and he holds back the onslaught.
At last the lions are tired, but the bull is still battle fired,
and the pride turn to retire to the shade beyond the trees,
leaving their opponent standing in the grass up to his knees,
watching as the lions leave.

The herd returns to greet the bull, the calves proving a small handful
as they jostle round him and stare at the deep wounds on his back.
His hide has withstood the battle, and the bull is hardly rattled
as the mightiest of cattle that roam the savannah track,
roaming across the endless grass along the savannah track
with new scars upon his back.

NaPoWriMo #25: Jackal Sunset

It's time for another animal-themed poem for day twenty five of NaPoWriMo. The animal in this poem is a predatory creature from India; the rest is fairly straightforward.

Jackal Sunset

It darts across the grasslands
under the shadow of green hills.
The golden jackal searches
for food, living or not.

It chases the trails of the wolves,
leopards and the bloodthirsty dhole,
and will sometimes push its luck
when it spots a tiger on a kill.

The jackal's persistence is rewarded
as the night descends on the teak forest,
a leopard throttling a chital doe.
The jackal must wait to be served.

NaPoWriMo #5: King of Cats

It's time for another tiger poem. This one was inspired by a prompt from the NaPoWriMo site, which encouraged participants to write a poem based in the natural world, in line with the work of Mary Oliver. It could be about a plant, animal or location and preferably one you have experienced often. So here's my attempt.

King of Cats

The last vestige
of a bygone time
when beasts still ruled
and humans huddled
around campfires,
telling stories
of the tiger.

The golden eyes of authority,
the only source of it
in the entire jungle.
No leopard or sloth bear
can match its grace
or the power with which
it pulls down a sambar stag
or duels with a bull guar.

Stripes, oily black,
on a burning coat of fur,
the emblazoned symbol
of an entire nation.
Humans appropriate its image,
worship its primal majesty,
fear its savagery when they step
into its isolated domain.

Yet in the face of a tiger
rests hopes for the future,
a future devoid of fear
of man-made extinction.
All things have their time,
but theirs is approaching sooner
in the form of snares, traps
and the weaponry of man.

Poets attempt to encapsulate
the tiger's immortality,
yet it is a construct,
a poetic device disguising
the battleground of the old jungles,
the trails of skins
leading across Asia.

A tigress sits in her den,
tending to her mewling cubs,
their young stripes help light the flame
which burned for millions of years,
faced with being extinguished
before its time.

NaPoWriMo #4: Differences

Today's poem was inspired by a prompt from NaPoWriMo, which challenged participants to write a poem with a secret. The guidelines were that the poem should contain an idea or a subject that isn't expressed outright. This is my attempt, and I suspect that you will probably guess what it's about pretty quickly.

Differences

Sitting in the shadow of a cactus,
a man with bushy sideburns
draws sketches in a journal.

A mockingbird sits in a bush
and jumps onto the soil
to catch a beetle.

The slim, curved beak,
grey and white feathers
and large brown eyes
seem familiar yet dissimilar.

Compared with the sketches
of its relatives, the man
discovers differences so small
yet they begin a revolution.

Snow Leopard

A stream in the highest valley,
a glacier of the Himalayas,
frozen yet still running
thanks to a conscientious spring.

Prints in the snow betray
the path of a snow leopard
prowling along the valley
towards an intended victim.

A markhor buck drinks at the stream,
a lord of mountain goats,
coiled corkscrew snake horns
and a man fit for a horse.

A pale ghost, the spotted shade,
slinks along the rocks,
and surprises the thirsty goat,
chasing it headlong up a ridge
till claws and teeth seize it
just as it leaps from a ledge.

And he sits on his illustrious throne

And he sits on his illustrious throne,
fashioned from the great jungle cats of old,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Bought by the hands of the rich city men,
built by men sheltering from the night's cold,
and he sits on his illustrious throne.

Those eager to leave their village and send
spoils from the jungle to the mountain fold,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Snares, traps, guns, the tools of desperate men,
the buyer ensures his foes are not told
how he sits on his illustrious throne.

From Ranthambore to Pench and back again,
the flow of pelts and corpses always sold,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

The last tiger hides in his bamboo den
until taken to the rich man's stronghold,
and he sits on his illustrious throne,
thousands on thousands of fresh tiger bones.

Desert Rains

Rain falls on the wastes
of the vast Rann of Kutch.
The dead salt flats become
a living marsh once more.

The empty land of salt and sand
sprouts the year's first green.
Trees and grass spring up
and line the new waterways.

Water floods the desert.
Its heart blossoms into pink
from the flamingoes gathering
on a newly formed lake.

Their ankles flex and bend,
their knees forever invisible.
In the humblest of nests
the eggs begin to hatch.