"Black Snakes," "Emperor Orangutan Leads His Troops," and "Fox News"

Black Snakes

Crushing, callous,
Blindly beating

Dogs, darting, growling,

Sharp shrapnel wounds
White teeth widening

Tall, towering, calm,

hands grasp harshly

boot heels hammering
teeth tearing throats

gushing gallons fired

Yet wet warriors dance
while wise elders sway

 


 

Emperor Orangutan Leads His Troops

Hyenas, heckling, circling,
Consume, ingest, ill formed

Saliva sprayed ‘cross fur

Prodding the pack
Death comes devouring

Others sharpen swords

pounce on prey

teeth gnash taking
claws clutching cruelly

orange orangutan roars

as prey perish horribly
cornered beasts bite back

 


 

Fox News

In Malepardus was Reynard
Who laid low his head and sunk in sleep
When without his homey hole
The world was wild, wicked, vile
And though complicit was he
In this cavalcade of carnage
He slumbered soundly on
Free of any guilt.
In court that day he’d laid his trap again
And warned the king of evil’s plan
He told of traitors in their midst
Who would, with knives, come claim their lives
These beasts born in the forest, but whose sires’ had not,
Would, he said, come from the fringes,
To destroy their way of life.
And so outside the fox’s den
The din of Noble’s soldiers rose
Tearing chicks from out their nests
And throwing sheep to wolves and bears
“This,” the people cried, “will keep us safe
Reynard has warned of us their plots—
To pass themselves as one of us
And undermine our way of life—
So now they all will pay!”
Isengrim thus built a fence
About the court to keep them out
These foreign thinking neighbours
Who were plotting most perniciously—
Or so the people thought—
The hare, the sheep, the chicken, left outside the towered walls
And in his home the fox slept on
And dreamed of easy prey

 

 

Todd H. C. Fischer

Todd H. C. Fischer is a graduate of York University in Canada, with a double honours BA in English and Creative Writing, where he studied many different forms of literature and poetry. Mr. Fischer has had work recently appear in (or is slated to appear in) journals such as The Compleat Anachronist (a medievalist journal); magazines such as Scryptic Magazine, Helios Quarterly, NonBinary Review, and The Healing Muse; and anthologies such as Untimely Frost (Lycan Valley Press), and Corporate Cthulhu (Pickman’s Press). You can read more about Todd H. C. Fischer on his website: http://todd-fischer.com/

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Monday, July 2, 2018 - 11:48