A FERAL CHALLENGE

I want to throw my words around like howls of dancing wolves

or mad songs of gypsies who have eaten the full moon.

I want to send them prancing through the tops of jungle trees

like monkeys after coconuts or mangoes,

to turn them into lightning bolts

storming towards the stars,

tempestuous winds stirring the night sky

into a froth of jumbled passions.

Too often, so it seems, the words drop from my mouth,

leaden with the poison of banality,

not fit even for the ears of pigs or kings.

But as the moon rounds out the night

and dreary grey faces close up in sleep,

I want to run screaming through the streets, the fields, the forests,

pouring out words of crazy passion,

like strong wine into bacchanalian mouths.

Such are the crazy gypsy songs

I throw into the night:

a feral challenge.