Tag Archives: poem about hunting

The Hunting for NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 19

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The Hunting

When bells toll at midnight, the chiming of each bell
signals that the scarlet one has begun the knell
to release the ghoulish souls and all the bats of Hell!

They seep up through our floorboards and wait for light of day,
twist themselves into our minds as we helpless lay,
toying with our dreaming as they pause along the way.

They seek out the damp corners everywhere they go,
trying to relieve the parch of the fires below,
cooling off scorched spirits in the river’s flow.

As a sort of trial, they may choose a wild horse,
winding bony fingers through its mane, they guide its course,
streaming through the heather and leaping over gorse.

But when dusk comes to dim the sun and tuck away the light,
it is the time for spirits to begin their fearsome flight
and the frightening of humans will become their main delight.

Then as children mime their horrors while going trick-or-treating,
when they see a darker shadow or hear a wild heart beating,
they may feel more evil presences in spirits they are meeting.

As they go door-to-door or wander a dark lane,
they may detect the real creatures that they seek to feign,
and feel a certain horror that they can’t explain.

So, children out on Halloween, heed each one that you meet.
Be sure the ghoulish one you pass really just wears a sheet,
and remember that a human ghost will be possessed of feet!

 

For NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 19  the promt is: What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.

Ludicrous Lore

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Ludicrous Lore

They say the perpetrators all got off scot-free
by posing as indigenous, but how could that be?

They made a ludicrous trio, emerging from their car.
All wrapped-up like packages, they couldn’t wander far.

They’d been here stealing chickens from White Cloud’s poultry farm
 on the reservation, but what could be the harm?

He had so many chickens that he’d never miss the one
or two or three or four or five that they had pinched for fun.

Yet with feathers in their hat bands and blankets held around them,
instead they uttered this excuse when the rangers found them.

They’d done a bit of hunting here on tribal land.
Their leader was Geronimo. He and his loyal band

had shot the deer with arrows, then bound it to their roof
with ropes tied ’round its antlers and then around one hoof.

But driving down the winding road, the driver got too dizzy.
(They said that it was vertigo that put him in a tizzy.)

That’s what caused the accident that spilled them off the road
where they toppled over sideways and lost their struggling load.

The deer ran off into the woods. It seems it wasn’t dead,
but merely stunned when arrows hit it on the head.

(Luckily, the bottle from which they’d all been drinking
had fallen in the water where the car was quickly sinking.)

It’s surprising that the rangers believed their tawdry tale,
and so they didn’t haul these buffoons off to jail.

They simply called a tow truck, which to their consternation
towed the whole bunch down the road to the reservation

where, alas, they found no kin but only laughter met them
as they huddled near the car and phoned for friends to get them.

And after they departed—hungover, sodden, sore,
their whole silly debacle passed into tribal lore.

The time those drunken cowboys with nothing else to do
sneaked onto the tribal lands and tried to pass for Sioux.

Their totaled car they left behind, and here the whole plot thickens.
It now serves as a handy coop for all the tribal chickens.

Today”s prompt words are scot-free, vertigo, indigenous and package. Image by Tyler Mulligan on Unsplash.

The Wild Life

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The Wild Life

If you’re yearning for the wild life but haven’t a clue
about how to go about it, here’s a hint for you.
Gratify your need by visiting the zoo
to ogle hippopotami and maybe get a view
of zebra or a lion or a cheetah or a gnu.
Snap photos of a reindeer or a caribou.

See monkeys in their cages or an eagle in its aerie.
Hang out at the petting zoo if eagles are too scary.
Give the lambs sweet clover and all the ponies oats.
Pat their little heads and stroke their hairy coats.
Stop by aerated pools to touch a koi’s smooth scales,
keeping a proper distance from the killer whales.

In this modern world where violence is rife,
one need not act out to enjoy the wild life.
So put away your crossbow, your rifle or your knife
and head out to the game park with your kids and wife.
You need not stalk your game through the forest or the fens.
Better to hunt your wildlife through a camera  lens.

Prompt words today are aerate, scary, zoo, gratify and give.

Venery (for #RDP)

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Venery

Ivory bangles.
Her wrist rubbed vulnerable
against his horsehair sofa.
She is waiting
opposite
the moose head
on the wall,
the gyre-horned kudu,
altered eyes
implying gentle death.

Her snakeskin heel
stilettos wool carpet
woven roughly foreign
as she fingers
leather covered volumes
on the shelf
wherein he wrote
their sporting deaths.

She needs air.
She retrieves
her mink coat
careless flung
over the elephant leg
tobacco stand.
In the hall,
the bull’s ear
pinned to the bullring poster.

Minutes later,
He descends
to find her gone.
Near the bookcase,
her musk signs the air.
On her scent,
he chevies to the hall.
Fresh quarry.
He has flushed the British bird.

 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/rdp-60-quarry/

Another Modest Proposal

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DSC08411“Macho” assemblage and photo by jdb

Another Modest Proposal

Once a species has been depleted,
it’s sad that it can’t be repeated.
This is true of guys and gals
as surely as for animals.
So though we hate to limit fun
that might be realized with your gun,
unless you’re hunting for your fodder,
we ask that you confine your slaughter
to paper targets, or wood or clay,
and do not blow game sport away
like rhinos, elephants, giraffes.
Their slaughters are the greatest gaffes.
If you must kill a living thing,
form yourselves into a ring,
make prayers to the Holy Mother
and target practice on each other!

 

Yes, this is hyperbole!! The WordPress prompt is deplete.

In the Blood (Entertainment?)

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In the Blood!!!

Don’t you just love football—the running and the tackling?
The sounds of hamstrings pulling and the crunch of femurs crackling?
We sit up in the bleachers eating hot dogs, drinking beer,
comfortably viewing blood sport—the kind we hold so dear.

Aren’t dogfights lovely–the growling and the whining?
Too bad they aren’t more elite, so we could watch while dining.
So amusing watching canines being dished their due.
Dying is so entertaining when it isn’t you!

Better still are bullfights, though they’re few and far between.
The bull so lithe and dangerous, the matador so lean.
The best part of the sport is that the dying is so slow.
I feel its thrill suffuse me from my head down to my toe.

We adore big game hunting in such exotic lands–
our chance to prove our manliness with our own two hands–
handing over money to those trackers in the know
who guarantee an easy kill with rifle or with bow.

Easy on the hunter, but not the animal,
for just because he’s hit the prey’s not guaranteed to fall.
We get more for our money if he’s hard to track,
and war games are more pleasant when one’s foe doesn’t shoot back!

All these minor titillations just a prelude to
the main event and the most major way of counting coup.
Once all the good old boys are finding life is just a bore,
they round up all the younger men and send them off to war.

See how the valiant struggle, see their stripes and purple hearts–
apt pay for missing arms and legs and other blown off parts.
Lucky to be home at last and lucky to be living–
the products of that blood sport that just somehow keeps on giving

Repost of a poem from 3 1/2  years ago.  Crocodile photo new!  More to follow. The prompt today is entertain.