Magnificent Creatures

[Gemini Cricket]

Magnificent Creatures
by: me


If my thoughts were scribed,
the Magnificent Creatures would ride upon the written words.

To be unleashed, to be liberated from their cell,
the Magnificent Creatures speak to me but I’m deaf.

A quill, a song, a dance on electric keys could set them free
but they remain bound.

To parole them, a part of the soul would abandon me
grasped in a taloned fist of a dragon or roc...

To be auctioned away to the highest bidder
like a pimp’s liege.

To have them remain, the mind spins as it runs out of room
while the Magnificent Creatures multiply.

Some have been forgotten or lost falling into a vast nothing
where I wish the fear of it all could be banished instead.

I sit as a zookeeper, tending to his menagerie
they watch me and the ones that can smile back.

Will today be the day to unleash the Magnificent Creatures
they ask me.

I again say no and lock them tight with a rusted key and lock
the two make music together, a breathy sigh.

I say, ‘One day’ but a warning sings like a siren chorus
once the Magnificent Creatures are unleashed
there’s no returning them from where they came.

Many will kiss, some will scratch and a one may
consume your soul.

And I will watch it all, grasping their open iron gate
and laugh.