the poetry knook, the poetry of stephen m. james

Poems with the tag ‘fight’

Tigers (or your tormentors)

I never wanted to kill for anyone,
until you held me,
down, your face rests
on my sox and shoes slide,
next to you I wanted to rise and slay
tigers,

Not cuddly pillows
nor caged cubs
that suckle dreams of independence,
but savannah-bred savages and ice-aged
mastodons and saber-toothed
tigers

Growling, pouncing a bout:
boxers breathlessly clinched,
our softest thorns snag
ear and hair, teeth
marks, cross hairs align with
tigers

These slabs of meat began to come
into my head, I will provide
soup around a blazing campfire,
ladling brisket and blade that bleed
warmth under the fur of our
tigers.


June Widow (after Saving Private Ryan)

If I pick her, she will be torn,
beautiful flowers, back over the pond, in a vase,
the French countryside–I’ve seen her wear it on Sundays,
the place we met–the demolished cafes–sans the coffee;
we share memory of mothers with the crash of cannons,
beyond the river where red was roses and Revlon
and knee cuts on the playground,
we left our school-teaching-selves:
like the rubble above our brothers
that collapsed our bridge home.



© 1993-2025 by Stephen M. James.