Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


COBRA by JAMES HARRISON

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHAT ARE THESE NIGHTMARES
Last Line: THEN SLEPT IN THE COOL DIRT UNDER THE GRANARY.
Subject(s): DREAMS; FEAR; NIGHTMARES;

What are these nightmares,
so wildly colored? We're in every
movie we see, even in our sleep.
Not that we can become what
we fear most but that we can't
resist ourselves. The grizzly
attack; after that divorce
and standing outside the school
with a rifle so they can't take my
daughter Anna. By god! Long ago
in Kenya where I examined the
grass closely before I sat down
to a poisonous lunch, I worried
about cobras. When going insane I worried
about cobra venom in Major Grey's Chutney.
Simple as that. Then in overnight sleep I become
a lordly cobra, feeling the pasture grass
at high noon glide beneath my
stomach. I watched the house with
my head arched above the weeds,
then slept in the cool dirt under the granary.



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