Suchomimus With Juveniles 

                              (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

                            Expectations

Within me soars an eagle, gazing down,

Upon a lake, dark-furrowed in the wind,

High in the snow-capped Rockies near my home.

From far away, it seems to be a bird.

But when, Imagination brings me near,

I journey back through time instead of space,

Into a harsh, primeval, ruthless world.

The sun and sky glow unrelenting red;

The eagle is a pteradactyl, cruel,

That shrieks and flaps its hard-edge leather wings,

Across a sweating, steaming jungle-scape,

Out over that same lake I saw before,

Which now, as shadows of the night encroach,

Looks only like a lake of blood and clots.

I weep and wish I might not know the truth,

Which now with full, grim certainty I know:

That this is where my deepest longings come,

When Sleep or Fantasy my will subdue,

To drink from this dark lake and watch as Death

Plays out on every side, so casually,

As pteradactyls crush the brains of sharks,

And suchomimi fuck with thundering hate,

Fierce, foot-long preying manti shred their mates,

And even flowers hide sharp, poison spines.

I do not weep that my heart holds such sights.

I don’t bemoan my thoughts that visit here.

I do not even grieve how I recall.

I weep that I that weep have weakened so

To be repulsed at only what must be.

I know, though dreading what will be endured,

I should return.

And then the journey back, descending in 

Along the valley's length at close of day. 

The lake looks ...