Tales From The Bellies Of Beasts #DVersePoets #TuesdayPoetics

I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.

There are useful things inside wolves and shadows,

sharp things

with moonlight in the blades

to show the way back out

from the darker places in the bellies of beasts

that perhaps may not be beasts

once they’ve be carved into smaller, scurrier things

that run rather from, rather than swallow

all the things that shine.

dverselogo

wolf-3022813_1920

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

22 Comments

  1. Very dark – a twisted fairy tale. There are shadows cast by Red Riding Hood, and maybe others here. It’s not a poem for most children, but I think I would have liked it as a child.

    Reply

    1. I’ve often heard that the trick to writing children’s fiction is to treat them like humans and not dumb it down. I sort of ran with that. I think you and I might have had similar reading tastes as children.

      Reply

  2. You’ve gone dark with this one, Carol, verging on the realm of the Brothers Grimm. These lines have teeth:
    ‘…moonlight in the blades
    to show the way back out
    from the darker places in the bellies of beasts’.

    Reply

  3. So dark and delicious; Kafka and Poe gave thumbs up. I liked the between the lines message, about pre-judgement, intolerance, and prejudice.

    Reply

  4. Ooh, I loved this quote and I’m glad you chose it. The ending showed a tender side to the beasts who run away, choosing their higher intelligence over their carnal instinct. Something not easy for any of us to do. I also love the visual by being led by the reflected moonlight.

    Reply

Leave a reply to Carol J Forrester Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.