Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Predator and Prey

"We are kindred all of us, killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake,and trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails; all of them, all of us. Long live diversity, long live the earth!"---Edward Abbey

Source

Midweek Motif ~ Predator & Prey

Is not the cowardly, predatoryspirit of Stalin concealed within us,when we do not seek truth,and only fear the new?I rush at untruth like a devil,Will never give up the battle with the old,But how can we live here, when within us                                Stalin is not dead.

The lines are an excerpt from the Russian poet Boris Chichibabin’s poem By The banner Of Happiness I Swear.

Life exists with both the spirits of predators and preys. As in animal kingdom so in human society.
The most interesting point is that predators and preys evolve together. One, in order to eat and the other to avoid being eaten. 


Think on this theme of Predator and Prey and write your poem.

A few poems to inspire:

La Belle Dame sans Merci

by John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 

       Alone and palely loitering? 
The sedge has withered from the lake, 
       And no birds sing. 
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 
       So haggard and so woe-begone? 
The squirrel’s granary is full, 
       And the harvest’s done. 
I see a lily on thy brow, 
       With anguish moist and fever-dew, 
And on thy cheeks a fading rose 
       Fast withereth too. 
I met a lady in the meads, 
       Full beautiful—a faery’s child, 
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
       And her eyes were wild. 
I made a garland for her head, 
       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; 
She looked at me as she did love, 
       And made sweet moan
I set her on my pacing steed, 
       And nothing else saw all day long, 
For sidelong would she bend, and sing 
       A faery’s song. 
She found me roots of relish sweet, 
       And honey wild, and manna-dew, 
And sure in language strange she said— 
       ‘I love thee true’. 
She took me to her Elfin grot, 
       And there she wept and sighed full sore, 
And there I shut her wild wild eyes 
       With kisses four. 
And there she lullèd me asleep, 
       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!— 
The latest dream I ever dreamt 
       On the cold hill side. 
                     

     (The rest is here)

                 The Eagle

                  by Alfred Tennyson

             He clasps the crag with crooked hands; 

         Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
         Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 
         The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
         He watches from his mountain walls, 
         And like a thunderbolt he falls. 

Epitaph on A Tyrant

by W.H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community

              (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ Cats)