The Prowler

Like a caged prize fighter
I watch him prowl
Oblivious to my eyes
Marking his every step
Cross waste land void of green trees
His paws curl like a boxer’s glove,
High stepping avoiding leaves.
The only sound, a chirping finch
And the coo of a pigeon
Echoes through the trees

Through the fence line he emerges
With stealth into my space,
With shoulder muscles rippling
Beneath his fur
As he walks, head low to the ground
To sniff the scent of dead men’s bones
And presidents.

I watch him still.

High above a jet plane roars in the sky
The light on this theatre begins to dim,
As this caged cage fighter
Struts his stuff
In search of an opponent
Among the dust
He knows I’m here, but doesn’t care
He arrogantly breaches my boundary line
As I sit and write his legacy
In the cool of the breeze
Amid the conifers and deciduous trees.

Behind in the wasteland
In his paw tracks
A cock fight ensues
2 pigeons marking new territory
If only they knew he’d been here before
That black and white cat
On the hunt for game of their sort
He senses their scent as he sniffs the air
Alert and agile flicks his tail, arches his back
And spins his head
They know they’ve been spotted
As he telegraphs his moves,
And reach high for safety among the trees
The dust lifting as they wing their ascent.
The beat of their wings sounds like copter blades,
They rise with effort, heavy bodied,
As though drunk on raisins doused in wine
Their tail feathers fanned like brooms

I disengage.

The drip, drip, drip of the early rain
From the gutter rings out its metronomic refrain
As if marking the time second by second
To herald another monsoon downpour again.
The drip, drip, drip of the gutter rain
Mixes with the rust of the broken drain
It threads like pearls to the ground,
Hits the earth and explodes like
A corrosive nebular.
Ever dripping on the ruptured tarmac.
Fractured and cracked like broken bones
Its stain spread spattered like
Dried blood on ebony canvas
The tarmac uneven and erupted
Like cooled larva steams
Or the spray of the low branches
Of the conifers and deciduous trees.

I swig my energy drink,
The impregnated salt revives my mind
Like smelling salt, giving me clarity
Of thought
I shake off the stupor
and re-observe the fight scene
The place from where the birds took flight.
The stalker chattering his teeth,
Slinks off, his pride wounded,
Cries, no more is he amused;
And in that moment,
I’m reminded I’m somebodies son.

I ring my mum.
I’m her prized possession.
I talk to her.
All is well
As I watch the flyweights standing tall in victory,
Calling to the baying crowd
In the Baw’s of the conifers and deciduous trees.