Lianas in bright bloom hang from mahogany shade, Motionless where the air is languorous And buzzing with summer flies. Brushing the moss, They curl into cradles clutched by the emerald quetzal, swayed Wildly by monkeys, spun with the yellow spider's silver floss. Here the bull-killer, slayer of stallions, tired, Moves among dead tree-stumps moist and soft as sponge, Implicit violence in his measured tread. Pelt shimmering with each muscle's plunge, While from his bay-wide muzzle, drooping with thirst, A clipped, harsh, rattled breathing shocks Huge lizards from their sun-trance to a burst Of chrome-green sparkling over shadowed rocks; And there where the dark wood blots the sun, He sprawls across a lichened stone, Licks satin paws to a lustrous sheen, Flutters the sleep-heavy lids of gold eyes down And, as the ghost of his waking force Twitches his tail and ripples along each side, He dreams that by some orchard's water course He leaps and digs his dripping claws Into a bellowing bull's flesh-swollen hide. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WAR IS KIND: 21 by STEPHEN CRANE A MEDITATION FOR HIS MISTRESS by ROBERT HERRICK LOVES MONARCHIE by JOSEPH BEAUMONT LAMENT FOR OLD MEN by VERNE BRIGHT PROLOGUE FOR MRS. SUTHERLAND'S BENEFIT NIGHT by ROBERT BURNS SLIPPER TIME by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THAT GRAY, COLD CHRISTMAS DAY (DECEMBER 25, 1620) by HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH |