Prospero Howling at Death

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

He loved to fight.  He fought with other cats.

He brought home wounds from tenor snarls and paws.

To us they seemed like little feline spats,

But they were epic in his mind.  The claws

Wreaked wounds on him and others through his life

And then one night he failed to come back home.

A silence lengthened, silence lacking strife

And lacking everything.  He cannot roam

Now as the wild one he imagined he

Was.  He will roam no more.  A neighbbor heard

Him yowling and assumed that it would be

Another fight.  My Prospero is slurred.

  It was a fight.  He yelled for death to go

    Away.  He screamed and swatted.  Death said no.

©  Phillip Whidden