Tag: Poetry About Reptiles

Paul Jones: “Snake”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
Snake

I used to be afraid in other ways.
When one fear comes another goes away,
I should count myself lucky in that way.
My fear of apes at night just fell away
when I saw a snake put a rat away.
Those fanged apes were dream creatures anyway.
The snake coiled and crushing. Death underway.
Those sounds. The hissing. A shriek. They outweigh
sleep's imagined deaths. They won't fade away
at dawn. Experience smooths night's highway.
Like rockets, fears race down the straight-away.
Then they take my head for their hideaway.
I used to be afraid in other ways.
But then I saw the black snake's weave and sway.

About the Author: Paul Jones poems have recently appeared in Hudson Review, Grand Little Things, Tar River Poetry, and not so long ago here in As It Ought To Be. His book, Something Wonderful, came from RedHawk Publications in 2021. In 2019, a manuscript of his poems crashed into the lunar surface carried in Israel’s Beresheet Lander. In 2021, he was inducted into the NC State Computer Science Hall of Fame.

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Image Credit: Image originally published in Descriptiones et icones amphibiorum. Monachii, Stuttgartiae et Tubingae, Sumtibus J.G. Cottae1833. Public domain image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal: “The Green Lizard”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine 
The Green Lizard

I felt like a prisoner
in my dreams. I was
under lock and key
at a prison in Paris
like Verlaine, Villon,
and Voltaire. In a dark
cell drawing sketches
was a green lizard.
It spoke French and a
little Spanish. The
sketches were painted
on the walls. The green
lizard was my cell mate.
Its bleeding tongue was
its brush and the walls
were graffitied with red
moons, red stars, and
red mountains. Through
a window in the prison,
the green lizard would
come in and leave through
the bars in the window.
The prison guards would
beat me mercilessly
every morning, never
believing that it was
the green lizard that
bloodied the walls with art.
They asked me where
I hid the paint and why
the sketches were red.

About the Author: Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field. His poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Escape Into Life, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories. His latest poetry book, Make the Water Laugh, was published by Rogue Wolf Press in 2021.

Image Credit: Thomas Barbour “Dasia Smaragdinum” (1912) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee