Gedicht
Clare Pollard
THE PANTHER
THE PANTHER
THE PANTHER
Frayed now, tongue-worn, the legend tellsthat my parents — young and expecting me —
walked beneath drizzle, nests, blood-sprays of berries,
breath-clouds mushrooming as they plotted their future,
when the woods convulsed with a pitiless roar
and thicket shook with the rage of a dark engine,
of dragons, of demons; of hunger made meat.
They ran all the way back to their bungalow.
A week later she heard the growl on radio:
If you hear this sound, beware.
It is a panther about to attack…
As a small girl, I poured over theories:
big cats as escapees from menageries,
Victorian travelling circuses, prehistory, death…
I found a picture: Melanistic Leopard,
the eye like a chalk-pit or toad spawn,
teeth the sour colour of lambswool in the jaw.
And at dusk I sensed them out there; other —
the Beasts of Bolton, Bodmin, the Fen Tiger —
nuzzling a deer’s bowels, careful as burglars.
In this city, now, I had forgotten them
in the scuffle of commonplace violence:
the friend beaten for a bike, his eye
popped out like a tiny moon; the needle-tracked
crackwhores smearing dung on our stair-well;
the lean dark men in hoods who may have guns.
But tonight, as I swallowed some small rejection,
I found myself willing it true:
longing caught in my throat for a panther’s leap into view,
like the opposite of disappointment.
© 2008, Clare Pollard
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Publisher: First published on PIW,
Gedichten
Gedichten van Clare Pollard
Close
THE PANTHER
Frayed now, tongue-worn, the legend tellsthat my parents — young and expecting me —
walked beneath drizzle, nests, blood-sprays of berries,
breath-clouds mushrooming as they plotted their future,
when the woods convulsed with a pitiless roar
and thicket shook with the rage of a dark engine,
of dragons, of demons; of hunger made meat.
They ran all the way back to their bungalow.
A week later she heard the growl on radio:
If you hear this sound, beware.
It is a panther about to attack…
As a small girl, I poured over theories:
big cats as escapees from menageries,
Victorian travelling circuses, prehistory, death…
I found a picture: Melanistic Leopard,
the eye like a chalk-pit or toad spawn,
teeth the sour colour of lambswool in the jaw.
And at dusk I sensed them out there; other —
the Beasts of Bolton, Bodmin, the Fen Tiger —
nuzzling a deer’s bowels, careful as burglars.
In this city, now, I had forgotten them
in the scuffle of commonplace violence:
the friend beaten for a bike, his eye
popped out like a tiny moon; the needle-tracked
crackwhores smearing dung on our stair-well;
the lean dark men in hoods who may have guns.
But tonight, as I swallowed some small rejection,
I found myself willing it true:
longing caught in my throat for a panther’s leap into view,
like the opposite of disappointment.
THE PANTHER
Sponsors
![Gemeente Rotterdam](/images/logo-GR_Basis_RGB_2021.png)
![Nederlands Letterenfonds](/images/logo-Nederlands-Letterenfonds-logo-RGB.png)
![Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds](/images/logo-stichting-van-beuningen-peterich-fonds.png)
![Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds](/images/cf_logo-zwart.png)
![Lira fonds](/images/logo-Lira_fond.png)
![Versopolis](/images/sponsors/logo_versopolis.png)
![J.E. Jurriaanse](/images/sponsors/logo_J_E_Jurriaanse_2020.png)
![Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie](/images/sponsors/logo_NL_fundedbyEU.png)
![Elise Mathilde Fonds](/images/sponsors/logo_EliseMathilde.png)
![Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot](/images/sponsors/logo_VanWijngaarden-Boot.png)
![Veerhuis](/images/sponsors/logo_Veerhuis_2.png)
![VDM](/images/sponsors/logo_VDM.png)
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère