Monarch's Pride Poem by Doug Blair

The dust twirled up
Beside the acacia
As sun announced
In crimson audacity
A new measure.
Bellowings and snarlings
Of blackness subdued
By its fresh surveillance.

He rose and stretched.
Not wanting to remember
The challenge.
First from the presumptuous
And then from the primed.
Womenfolk waiting the outcome.
Courtier beasts and birds curious.
As monarchy topples.

Joints all afire.
Rippings to neck and haunch
Discoloured, throbbing.
And no society.
No mother's milk.
No sibling's lunge.
No maiden's heat.
Just so... sad exile registers.